TT11 Discovery

ARCHAEOLOGY: ANCIENT THEBES SISTINE CHAPEL DISCOVERED

Great news from the Spanish at TT11

(ANSAmed) - MADRID - ''The Sistine Chapel of Ancient Egypt'' is how the Spanish press have today celebrated the discovery by a group of Spanish archaeologists of a burial chamber with coloured paintings, jewels and hieroglyphics dating back 3,500 years, in Luxor. The chamber was found by experts from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) in the necropolis of Dra Abu el-Naga, on the western bank of Luxor, Ancient Thebes. The burial chamber belonged to Djehuty, one of Queen Hatshepsut's high officials, and represents the culmination of the work of the 8th campaign of the project run by the Caja Madrid Foundation since 2004. Jose' Manuel Galan, the director of the team of archaeologists, explained to the press that the extraordinary significance of the discovery is ''not only in its undeniable aesthetic value'', but also in the fact that ''in this era, at the end of the XVIII dynasty, burial chambers were not decorated''