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The stunning discovery of a pharaoh’s burial spot last week was a bombshell in the archaeology world. Not since Howard Carter located the tomb of the boy king Tutankhamun in 1922 had such a site been found. There was only one problem: the pharaoh’s body wasn’t in the tomb. Now, the archaeologist who made the find believes he may have solved the case of the missing desiccated corpse.
On February 18, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced a joint Egyptian and British archaeological project had uncovered the first tomb of Thutmose II. Located near Luxor, just a few kilometers away from the Valley of the Kings, the tomb was found in a highly damaged state, likely due to flooding that occurred within six years of the pharaoh’s death. Despite the poor preservation, the team, led by British archaeologist Piers Litherland, was able to identify the tomb due to relics such as alabaster jars with the pharaoh’s name on them, as well as funerary furniture.
Details of Thutmose II’s reign are scarce, due to a dearth of archaeological finds detailing his rule. He likely was in power between 1493 and 1479 BCE, though his actual time on the throne may have been as short as three years. The National Museum of Egyptian Civilization pegs his time on top at under five years. What is known is that he was the son of Thutmose I and one of his minor wives. He assumed power by marrying his half-sister Hatshepsut, who was the daughter of his dad’s principal wife. Families are complicated, amiright?
Despite his likely short reign, he was known for several successful military campaigns, including ending several uprisings in Nubia and destroying a tribe in the Sinai. He was succeeded on the throne by his son, Thutmose III.
As the first Egyptian royal burial spot uncovered in over 100 years, the tomb was a historic find, but an incomplete one, as Thutmose II’s mummified corpse was nowhere to be found. Less than a week after one career-defining discovery, Litherland now says he has made another—and he has reason to believe the mummy is inside.
“You dream about such things,” he told The Guardian. “But like winning the lottery, you never believe it will happen to you.”
Inside a pit located in the first tomb, Litherland found an inscription stating that the pharaoh’s half-sister/wife had the contents moved. Litherland said he had reason to believe the king was interred in another tomb he had actually first discovered in 2022. Since then, he and his colleagues have been looking for a way inside, no easy feat given it’s buried beneath layers of rock and plaster.
“There are 23 meters of a pile of man-made layers sitting above a point in the landscape where we believe—and we have other confirmatory evidence—there is a monument concealed beneath,” Litherland said. “The best candidate for what is hidden underneath this enormously expensive, in terms of effort, pile is the second tomb of Thutmose II.”
The workmen who constructed the tomb safeguarded it by not only paving a layer of mud plaster with ash on top, but by knocking huge boulders onto it, which were then plastered in place.
Getting through all this safely has been a time-consuming effort, and Litherland estimated the job is halfway done and could be completed in a month’s time.
There is some controversy over what Litherland might find once he gets inside. In 1881, the mummified body of a 30-year-old man was initially identified as Thutmose II, but Litherland believes it’s a case of mistaken identity. He said historical records indicate the pharaoh came to power as a young boy. Given that his reign was likely short, he probably died well before reaching 30.
Here at Gizmodo, we’re people of science, so we’re not going to say this is a bad idea. That “Curse of the Pharaohs” stuff is almost definitely hokum, even if there were some odd deaths tied to the Tutankhamun discovery. Still, just as a precaution in case Thutmose II is in this tomb, does anyone know what Brendan Fraser has on his itinerary next month?
