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City of the Dead

Spanish Translation

By Kathryn Hoffman

This tomb at Bahariya Oasis contained 42 mummies. Most had been stacked neatly on shelves cut into the walls of the burial hall.

Zahi Hawass, one of Egypt's leading archaeologists, is on a mission to explore the mummy-filled tombs of Bahariya Oasis in Egypt. His quest is likely to last for the rest of his life. This year he even braved clouds of choking dust to reach one of the tombs. "I felt as though arrows of fire were attacking me," Hawass says. "My eyes were closed, and I couldn't breathe."

A smell Hawass described as "terrible and deadly" was coming from a thick yellow powder on the floor. Hawass didn't let it stop him. He returned to the area before workers had finished clearing the powder away. Then he hit pay dirt. Just beyond the mystery powder, he and his team found the long-lost tomb and mummy of a governor named Zed-Khonsu-efankh (Jed-khan-sue-ah-funk), who lived 2,500 years ago. When they realized who it was, "we all screamed," Hawass says. Scientists had searched 33 years for the ruler's tomb. Had some ancient Egyptian put the poison powder nearby to scare intruders away?

Tales from the Crypt
Zed-Khonsu-efankh's mummy is one of 102 unearthed this year at Bahariya Oasis. Most of the mummies are from the time when Egypt was ruled by Rome, beginning around the 1st century and lasting hundreds of years. But Governor Zed-Khonsu-efankh lived about 500 years before that time. The ancient cemetery, near the town of El Bawiti, was discovered in 1996 and kept secret until last fall to protect its treasures from thieves. Hawass announced his latest findings earlier this month.

The tombs are full of bracelets, charms, statues and other treasures. There are also offerings of date and olive seeds for the gods. The ancient Egyptians buried their dead with food and other items that they believed would be helpful in the next life. Each burial chamber has its own entrance, two burial rooms and a "handing-over" room. There, Egyptians believed, the mummies were delivered to the land of the dead, where their souls were judged by the god Osiris (Oh-sire-is).

A colorful shrine found near a female mummy.

Many Kinds of Mummies
The mummies were preserved in four different ways. Some were covered with a thin layer of gold. Others lay under lifelike masks made of plaster-coated fabric painted with scenes of gods and goddesses. Still others were in pottery coffins decorated with human faces. A few were wrapped simply in linen fabric.

Many of the mummies Hawass found this year are elaborately decorated, which could mean they had been rich people. The people who lived in this area made a good living making and selling date and grape wines.

In one tomb, the largest yet, Hawass found 42 well-preserved mummies that made up several generations of a rich family. One female mummy had a golden mask topped with black hair and a wreath of red and black flowers. On her chest covering was an image of the sons of the falcon-headed sky god Horus (Hore-us). Another female mummy had a shrine of painted wood at her feet with an image of a woman in Roman dress passing into the afterlife through a gate adorned with cobras. A male mummy wrapped in patterned strips of linen lay under a chest cover with a lifelike face and paintings of a bird, which could represent the soul of the person who died.

The team took X rays of some mummies to get an idea of their health and living conditions. One male mummy showed signs of cancer. Another male wore a gold crown of winged cobras under its wrappings.

The site has earned the nickname "Valley of the Golden Mummies" for the gold-covered masks and chest plates many of the mummies are wearing. Last year Hawass uncovered 105 mummies in four tombs and estimated that there could be as many as 10,000 more. His latest discoveries suggest he may be right.

Hawass believes it will take archaeologists 50 years to explore the whole area. What other secrets of Egyptian life will they discover?

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Zahi Hawass at the entrance of Zed-Khonsu-efankh's tomb

The Man Behind the Mummies
Zahi Hawass is a busy man! He's a famous Egyptian archaeologist in charge of the even more famous Great Pyramids at Giza, where he has worked for more than 20 years. He thought he would never work anywhere else, because there's so much to learn at the pyramids. But in 1996 he heard about a newfound burial site at Bahariya Oasis. He rushed there to see the tombs. When he arrived, recalls Hawass, "one of the tomb ceilings had fallen in, and the sun shone through. I went in and looked at the mummies in the rays of sun. All I could see was gold."

He was amazed by what he saw. Hawass returned to the site in the spring of 1999 to lead an exploration. He has never left. The busy archaeologist has just finished a book about the golden mummies, due out in October. What's next? Hawass and his crew plan to return to the Valley of the Golden Mummies. They hope to find the tombs of Governor Zed-Khonsu-efankh's family.

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