S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 An unprecedented Brazilian expedition carried out diggings in an archaeological site in Luxor, Egypt. Headed by archeologist Jos\u00e9 Roberto Pellini, from the Sergipe Federal University (UFS), the team opened and explored the tomb named TT 123 throughout two weeks. The tomb belongs to Amenemhet, state officer and royal scribe during the kingdom of pharaoh Thutmosis III (1504 to 1450 B.C.) of the 18th dynasty. The initials \u201cTT\u201d comes from \u201cTheban Tomb\u201d, since Thebes, current Luxor, was the capital of Ancient Egypt during the so called New Kingdom. In September of last year, ANBA had published that the expedition was going to take place in March 2017.<\/p>\n
According to Pellini, his team was the first to enter the tomb since the beginning of the last century and to perform a scientific exploration of the place. \u201cWe performed a general exploration, of the physical conditions, embossments and drawings,\u201d said the researcher by phone from Cairo. They found fragments of ceramics, sarcophagi and mummies, among other artifacts. \u201cThe most important thing is the quality of the embossments, there are very rare scenes [depicted],\u201d he said to ANBA.<\/p>\n
On the human remains, the professor says that it is difficult to say if they belong to the original owner or not, since these places were later used as rubble storage and can present fragments from other tombs. There\u2019s still a whole lot to explore.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mission was 100% positive, beyond our expectations, the tomb is even more special than we could have imagined, maybe it rivals with Ramose\u2019s in the quality of the embossments and paintings,\u201d said Pellini, mentioning the well-known and the beautifully decorated tomb of a noble man, also located in Luxor. \u201cBut it\u2019s still too early to tell, many scenes need conservation and restoration,\u201d he added. This time, however, there was not an expert team in hand for this job. Among the \u201crare\u201d scenes, he mentioned images of pigs and chariots.<\/p>\n
During the diggings, the archeologists found pathways to a room inside TT 123 itself and to another tomb. This adjoining tomb, named TT 293, is practically unexplored. \u201cWe know almost nothing about it, but we are thinking about diggint it in the future,\u201d said Pellini.<\/p>\n
One of the main difficulties faced by the team, according to the researcher, was the conditions of another adjoining tomb, TT 380, belonging to Amenotep-Huy, to which the team also has the exploration concession. \u201cThe conservation status was really bad, part of it was threatening to collapse, so we had to take urgent steps, place wood posts, for safety reasons and so it\u2019s still standing next year,\u201d he told. This work was done with the aid of local experts.<\/p>\n
Return<\/strong><\/p>\n The work that was done was the first phase of the diggings. The researchers are planning to return between December of this year and February of the next for a longer term of 45 days. \u201cNext year, we will perform a more detailed work,\u201d said Pellini. For an expanded research, however, the group will need funding.<\/p>\n They are also planning to use virtual reality to offer the general public the possibility to get to know the site. Something along these lines, using 360\u00b0 photos, was posted on a Facebook page.<\/p>\n Pellini also said that the fact that it\u2019s the first Brazilian mission of its kind caught the attention of people in Egypt positively, although Brazilian researchers have taken part in international groups. \u201cThe welcome was fantastic, they (the Egyptians) have great appreciation, great affection for Brazil\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n In addition to Pellini, also part of the team were Juli\u00e1n S\u00e1nchez, who has a doctor\u2019s degree in Archeology from the National Museum (Rio de Janeiro Federal University) and research associate in Sensory Archaeology at Sergipe Federal University (UFS), Caroline Murta Lemos, a doctorate student and also a research associate of the same laboratory, and Bori N\u00e9meth, Hungarian Egypologists. They worked together with a group of six experts from Egypt\u2019s Center of Documentation of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.<\/p>\n See more images from the diggings on the Facebook page of the mission: www.facebook.com\/BAPEresearch<\/p>\n *Translated by S\u00e9rgio Kakitani<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A team headed by archeologist Jos\u00e9 Roberto Pellini, from Sergipe Federal University, spent two weeks exploring the tomb of a noble man in Luxor. Research will continue next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1454,"featured_media":190831,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail"],"wps_subtitle":"A team headed by archeologist Jos\u00e9 Roberto Pellini, from Sergipe Federal University, spent two weeks exploring the tomb of a noble man in Luxor. Research will continue next year.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1454"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}