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Another New Tomb in the Valley of the Kings?
Praxiteles writes "A radar survey in 2000 found KV63, the tomb excavated near King Tutankhamen's tomb earlier this year. (KV stands for Valley of the Kings). Just announced is that this same radar survey shows an image of what appears to be a shaft to another tomb just 15 meters north of KV63. Will radar stratigraphy change the multi-millennial tradition of destructive excavation and open new opportunities in the search for buried treasure?"
"Will radar stratigraphy change the multi-millennial tradition of destructive excavation and open new opportunities in the search for buried treasure?"
Let's hope it will open up new opportunities to learn about history, which contributes to the wealth of everyone.
If you post it, they will read.
My aunt works in Egyptology, and she doesn't have a lot of good things to say about this Reeves guy, so take this all with a grain of salt. The scan has found *something*, but not necessarily a tomb - limestone is naturally porous, and this could very well just be an air bubble. Basically, he's announcing a tomb that hasn't been discovered, which might not be a tomb at all, on the off-chance that, should it actually *be* a tomb, he'll get the credit for it.
He also isn't even allowed in the Valley of the Kings. He got the boot because he's been known to work with smugglers. Generally not a reputable character.
"Will radar stratigraphy change the multi-millennial tradition of destructive excavation and open new opportunities in the search for buried treasure?"
I have a better question. Why does every submission have to have the posters agenda? You could have said "Will radar stratigraphy open new opportunities in the search for buried treasure?".
They have. Allegedly. I was reading abot some (Brazillian I think) guy who demonstrated a device
he built as a mine detector. It works slowly but can find anything burried within anything
as long as there is a material anomoly. I was very suspicious of the story because it had
all the "scientists" saying it was "impossible" and the guy wouldn't fully share the method
until it was patented. Anyway he did a practical demonstration and discovered several
buried bodies, arms caches and stuff in a field that had been eluding police for 15 years.
Anybody got that link? Anybody debunked it yet?
... the Valley of Kings in Loch Modan.
I should play WoW less.
All we need is a deep radar satellite, to spin around the world, and then we can have "google unearth". People searching the globe with their PCs looking for buried treasure from their armchair. Mind you, it will probably throw up more unearthed Mafia corpses than treasure ;-)
The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss. - HGTTG
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Back in the day there were proposals about using neutrinos to communicate with submarines and other military vehicles around the planet, since neutrinos can travel through the Earth. Since a military vessel would have to have a very small neutrino detector (to keep its mobility), the detection of neutrinos by this thing would be super low. IIRC, expected usable bandwidths (not sure if they actually did the experiment or not) would be something like a byte per day, which is obviously too low to be useful for military.
" open new opportunities in the search for buried treasure?"
Arr, matey! Any of ye swabs got a pirate ship that can sail in the desert?
Where were you when the voynix came?
...called "dry holes" in the KV and surrounding areas, where tomb builders would build the antechamber, but then change their minds and go to another spot. So a supposed shaft, while exciting, even if what rader is picking up really was a product of ancient tomb builders, may still be a dead end.
Good for the tomb robbers...That treasure was collected off the backs of thousands of
slaves and from the pockets of honest egyptians for thousands of years. The "tomb robbers"
are not thieves, that stuff was abandoned the same as a sunken treasure ship. The egyptian government didnt even care until they realized they could make money off it.
At least the tomb robbers did something with the gold and treasure instead of just taking
from innocent people and burying it. What good does it do history yet another
Golden mask sitting in some museum somewhere. At least the tomb robbers enjoyed the
treasure and put the gold into the economy.
You want to talk about a treasure...the palimpset of archimedes is a treasure, the Rosetta stone is a treasure, the ruins of pompeii and karnak are treasures, Gold should be used for the living not the dead.
Col O'Neill: "Don't matter what kind of radation suit we have. If you'd been listening you'd know that Nintendos pass through everything."
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not entirely sure about the universe - Einstein
Come on, this stuff is Ancient History!!
You are entirely correct. Funding does play a big part (archaeology is incredibly expense if it's done right), however the truth is that for the most part, those of us who do archaeology today are worlds better than those who went before us. We also realize that those who come after us will be much better than we are due to advances in methodology, theory, and technologies such as gradiometry and resistivity. When I was working actively in the academic research side of things we tried to excavate no more than 5% of a site, leave the rest for future archs who will know things we don't, and thus will be able to get information we cannot. It must always be remembered that archaeology is at its heart a destructive science - we can't just do it over again if we screw up, screw ups mean that information is permanently lost.
On the salvage side of things it's slightly different, for example if there was a new interstate highway going through an archaeological site and there was absolutely no way to reroute that road, we would attempt to do 100% recovery of the site. This almost never happens (it'd have to be a really small site - digging right takes a long time and the road builders get pissy if you sit there and delay them for too long. Can't stop progress). In salvage or "Section 106" or whathaveyou style archaeology the rule is to reover as much as possible as quickly as possible.
How long does a body have to be in the ground before digging it up the corpse and taking its valuables stops being grave robbing and becomes archeology? Is it archeology if you just take enough pictures and measurements? Shall we do some "archeology" on Westminster Abbey? The Vatican? I'm sure there are valuables buried with those bodies. How about digging up Lincoln's tomb - it could tell us more about how he lived and died. If you find these examples offensive consider this:
Time after time, from the Incas, the Mayas, the Egyptians, American Indians, etc. entire cities or societies worked for a generation to ensure that their royalty, leaders, or god-kings could rest forever undisturbed. What gives us the right to violate that sanctity? "Knowledge" is the canonical answer, but is it curiosity for curiosity's sake? And is that sufficient justification violate an entire society's clear wishes?
Those coordinates will be in whatever system is used for large scale maps in Egypt. The Valley of the Kings is at 25 degrees 44'25" N 32 degrees 36'05" E.