Valley Of The Lost Tombs

By ANDREA DORFMAN

Zahi Hawass never thought he'd be working anywhere but at the pyramids and thereabouts, where he has worked for more than 20 years and where plenty remains to be discovered. Then, three years ago, the eminent archaeologist, who also serves as Egypt's Undersecretary of State for the Giza Monuments, got wind of a new, unsuspected burial site at the Bahariya Oasis, some 230 miles southwest of Cairo. When he arrived, recalls Hawass, "one of the tomb ceilings had fallen in and the sun shone through it. I went in and looked at the mummies in the rays of the sun. All I could see was gold."

Astonished by that first glimpse, Hawass returned last spring to lead what he calls the largest expedition ever undertaken in Egypt--and deservedly so. The richness of the find and the tombs' unprecedented state of preservation have astounded archaeologists, some of whom have compared it to the discovery of King Tut's tomb in 1922. Even Tut's burial chamber had been partly looted, however. These tombs appear to have remained undisturbed since they were sealed some 2,000 years ago--more than 1,300 years after Tut, at a time when Egypt and much of the Middle East was part of the Roman Empire.

So far, Hawass's team has explored four tombs, with a total of 105 mummies laid on top of one another in neat stacks. All told, the remains were interred in four distinct ways. One type was covered with a thin layer of gold. Another lay under lifelike masks made of plaster-coated linen, or cartonnage, that was painted with scenes of ancient Egyptian gods and goddesses, including Isis, Osiris, Horus and Anubis. Still others were placed in so-called anthropoid coffins--pottery sarcophagi with human faces--and a few were only wrapped in linen. Bracelets, amulets, statues of mourning ladies, pottery vessels and figurines of Bes, whom Hawass describes as "the dwarf god of pleasure and fun," were interred with the bodies.

It isn't surprising, given their dating, that the mummies and their accoutrements have both Egyptian and Roman characteristics: the hairstyles on the anthropoid coffins are Roman, but the style of decoration is Egyptian. The richness of the tomb decorations, Hawass notes, indicates that the inhabitants of Bahariya were prosperous. Indeed, the city flourished on its renowned wine, made from dates and grapes, which it exported throughout the Nile Valley.

Impressive as the discoveries have been, they are just the beginning. Hawass estimates that the cemetery covers several square miles and may contain up to 10,000 mummies. The section now being excavated, he believes, belonged to the middle class; eventually, tombs of wealthier people may turn up. And once this huge and pristine site is fully explored, Hawass and his colleagues expect to have an unprecedented window into Egyptian life in a provincial town under Roman rule.