 The very real danger now for the Valley of the Kings is that we are living in interesting times (to employ the Chinese curse), with a serious threat of further, more intensive activity at the site than has been witnessed for a century and more. Unless we push hard for a drastic change in basic understanding and approach it is unlikely that this fresh round of activity will have as its priorities stratigraphy, sampling, and settlement archaeology - the aspects upon which we need desperately to focus - but once again a no-holds-barred hunt for tombs in which the real treasure, context, is again the sacrifice.
Why this fear of a new gold rush? Because despite current media disappointment at the absence of bodies it will soon become apparent that KV63 is in fact a discovery of the most extraordinary significance - not for what the single chamber actually holds but for what it clearly signals, which is the definite presence in the Valley of at least one further tomb. The situation is this: as a chamber full of embalmers’ refuse KV63 stands in relation to a future burial as the KV54 embalming-cache in 1907 stood to the tomb of Tutankhamun. It represents without question an augury of further, significant discoveries to come.
Over the summer I have given much thought to the current state of play in the Valley, to the threat of further uncontrolled excavation and to a peculiar dilemma I find myself in: for the prospect of yet more tombs is based upon rather more than mere academic hypothesis. Just as ARTP’s radar survey of the central Valley first highlighted KV63 in 2000, so our project discovered clear evidence also for the existence and location of what appears to be a second new burial, "KV64" - the tomb to which KV63 quite likely relates. Ought I now to be drawing attention to the freshly reviewed evidence for this tomb - if a tomb is what our feature indeed transpires to be? Or should I be maintaining a discreet silence in the hope that the present archaeological uncertainty in the Valley will eventually pass?
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Because of the intensity of interest KV63 has aroused among those currently in control I have concluded that the best option is to reveal publicly not only this second tomb’s apparent existence but its precise location also. There is deliberate method in this course of action. First of all it will prevent the possibility of yet another ‘accidental’ discovery and hurried clearance: publicising the existence of the feature in advance of its physical exposure ought to allow time for a considered, scientific approach to its investigation to be insisted upon by the wider archaeological community and arranged through the SCA. Secondly, disclosure now will limit the amount of collateral archaeological damage otherwise likely to be sustained in the sort of random search which is all but imminent. Thirdly, with the publicity the announcement of a new tomb is likely to generate there is a chance that sanity will prevail and the message at last get through that all future excavations in the Valley must be carried out systematically and at a state-of-the-art level - not by the very modest standards which are currently considered acceptable.
(Continued)
(28/07/2006)
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