“KV-63 is located in the Valley of the Kings approximately 14.5 meters from the south edge of KV-62, the Tomb of Tutankhamun. Dr. Zahi Hawass
officially pronounced our newly discovered tomb, KV-63 on 10 February 2006. However, the initial shaft was discovered a few days before the end of our
2005 season. KV-63 is the first tomb to be discovered in the Valley of the Kings since 1922.”
Source
Image: Valley of the Kings
Some of the information in this thread I owe to the diligent investigative work of the German researchers G.F.L. Stanglmeier and A.Liebe.
The Egyptian Ministry of Culture announced the discovery of tomb KV 63 on the 8th of February 2006, saying that the Tomb was discovered
yesterday (7th of February 2006). Meanwhile it is known that this official press release, which was heralded as “Breaking News” at the
time, was a
false statement.
The Egyptian Ministry of Culture has, to this day, not felt it necessary to retract the statement let alone explain to the public why it lied.
In their book
The Head of Osiris (transl., not available in English) the German/Austrian Authors G.F.L. Stanglmeier and A.Liebe noticed the
following inconsistency: Although the Ministry of Culture said the Tomb was discovered in February 2006, the German Conspiracy-Magazine "Mysteries"
already published an article on it in December 2005. Not only did they publish the find but they also gave its exact location on a map detailing the
exact location of the find.
To be found in this issue of the German Magazine "Mysteries", December 2005".
How did a “fringe science” magazine know of the find before it was officially announced? Did someone “leak” information? Did the Ministry of
Culture in Egypt then feel forced to reveal something it hadn't planned to reveal yet?
It is only after this incongruency had been widely noticed by the “fringe-Egyptology community” in Europe that the supposed discoverer of the tomb
– the American Otto Schaden –
admitted to have discovered the tomb in March 2005.
So why was this sensational discovery kept secret for at least a year?
University of Memphis scientist Otto Schaden has meanwhile received backup from Dr. Zahi Hawass (Boss of the SCA, the leading authority on ancient
Egypt) who went on record saying in 2006:
“They did already find it last year but I told them they cant make it public until they excavate
it”. Hawass has neither given a reason for this statement nor explained why it was first said that it was discovered in 2006.
But the mystery did not stop at that. A few days after these circumstances became known the British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves entered the scene. On
the 12th of February 2006 he proclaimed to already have discovered the tomb KV-63 in the year
2000! As proof of his claims Reeves posted
radar-images of the discovery on his website.
While these radar images are sufficient proof that the location was known in 2000 he failed to explain why he didn't make his findings public and why
he did not start archaeological work and excavation. Most Egyptologists agree that his press-statement on this is less than credible:
“This find
is rare and can contain unique material. We wanted to progress systemically rather than only pick the cherries”.
We´re supposed to believe that he was fine doing without fame, wealth, and the joy of discovery for so many years? Two more likely explanations come
to mind:
1.He did not want to report it to Zahi Hawass Supreme Council of Antiquities.
2.Hawass himself forbid Reeves to talk about the find.
No matter what the case, this is another excellent example of renowned Egytologists keeping sensational finds a secret.
Whichever of those two options is true, in the year 2000 (after Reeves says he discovered the tomb through radar) animosities between him and the
Supreme Council of Antiquities began. Hawass SCA blamed Reeves for being involved in stealing and smuggling ancient artifacts. Subsequently Reeves and
his organization ARTP were revoked their permission to work at all sites and kicked out of Egypt. That´s what Reeves ARTP says. The official version
of the SCA is that Reeves has been “rehabilitated” and that there are no longer any misgivings in the case.
From Archeology Magazine, as if to soothe fringe-researchers worries about the inconsistencies surrounding this case:
From 1998 to 2002, the Amarna Royal Tombs Project (ARTP), led by Nicholas Reeves, undertook controlled stratigraphic excavation and geophysical
surveying in the central area of the supposedly worked-out Valley of the Kings. Its impetus was both theoretical and practical, according to the
project's website (www.valleyofthekings.org). It was influenced by a study of the immediate post-Amarna burials Tomb KV55 and Tomb KV62 (Tutankhamun)
and what these two tombs seemed to reveal about other possible burials of the period in the immediate vicinity. And it was driven by a physical threat
that the rubble fill of the Valley, and along with it most of the archeology, might be removed wholesale to combat the seriously damaging effects of
flash-flooding on the open tombs. "My particular quarry was the burial place of Nefertiti, Akhenaten's wife and coregent (who, I concluded, had been
buried in the Valley as and when she died)," says Reeves. Also of interest were the "whereabouts of Akhenaten's secondary consort Kiya, his second
daughter Meketaten and other lesser members of the royal family who had originally been interred at El-Amarna." As the work progressed, however,
Reeves discovered that extensive key areas in the Valley were archaeologically intact, and priorities necessarily changed. But the project was brought
to a halt in 2002. Reeves was falsely accused of involvement in antiquities smuggling and his permit was revoked. In August 2005, he was officially
cleared of any wrongdoing by Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), though not allowed to return to his work in the Valley. In the interim,
the area under investigation by ARTP had begun to be excavated by Otto Schaden and a team from the University of Memphis, which had been at work on
KV10, the nearby tomb of Amenmesse. In 2005, Schaden found the top of the shaft leading to KV63, not knowing that it had been detected during
geophysical prospecting by ARTP in 2000. While admitting an understandable "obvious disappointment," Reeves states that it was "Otto Schaden who
physically uncovered it and confirmed its character. Under those circumstances there can be no question that the credit for actual discovery should go
to him and to the University of Memphis." Reeves immediately shared his geophysical evidence for the existence of KV63 with Dr. Zahi Hawass and the
SCA and with Schaden and his colleagues.
Article
Here we learn, among other things, that Reeves was
"falsley accused" of smuggling. We also learn that Reeves has changed his mind about Otto
Schaden and now admits that it was Schaden who “discovered” the tomb. Reeves even says he shared all of his evidence of KV-63 with Otto Schaden.
Why he would need that evidence after the discovery is unexplained. Schaden claims KV-63 was found during “Routine Excavations”.This claim is
contradicted by his own Co-Director Edwin Bock who says that KV-63 was “coincidentally” found while working excavations at an adjacent site.
Reeves retracted his claims of being the discoverer only a few weeks later on his website. Why? It is obvious he is the discoverer, why act like he is
not? Maybe because he wants to get the permission to return to Egypt to excavate what he believes to be the radar-echo discovery of KV-64.
First we learn that KV-63 was kept secret for at least one year. Then we learn it was kept secret for at least 6 years. But quite possibly, its been
kept secret more than 25 years!
In 1980 T. Dolphin of the SRI (Stanford Research Institute) and partially funded by the ARE (Edgar Cayce Foundation) published the report “Locating
Hidden Tombs in the Valley of Kings”. In the papers “Figure 3: Underground Sonic Survey Results” and “Figure 4” the reader actually sees
that he discovered hollows that match the exact location where Reeves and Schaden discovered KV-63 much later. The only problem was, that Egyptology
didn't care much about the findings (apparently) and they were only “re-discovered” by Thomas Simms of the “Department of Computer Sciences”
of Calgary University in the 1990s. And even then Egyptology was not much interested, maybe because Simms was not “one of them” but an outsider
and maybe because T.Dolphin was also not “one of them” but a physicist.
Or was it possibly ignored because it is was again a “find” funded by the Edgar Cayce Foundation (ARE), meaning information gained through
Channeling information in a state of Trance rather than through “scientific means”? We know how much mainstream Egyptology despises
“Pyramidiots” and believers in Atlantis and Extraterrestrials.
For related info see my thread
Forbidden Egyptology
[edit on 23-9-2008 by Skyfloating]
[edit on 23-9-2008 by Skyfloating]
