Missing tomb of Egyptian pharaoh solves one of ancient Egypt’s great mysteries

CAIRO — A long lost tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh has been found, the country’s antiquities ministry said Tuesday, answering a great mystery of one of ancient Egypt’s most prosperous eras.

King Thutmose II of the 18th dynasty, who reigned during the 15th century B.C., was the husband of one of ancient Egypt’s greatest pharaohs, Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled over an era of prolific building and expanding trade routes.

He was also an ancestor of Tutankhamen’s, whose tomb was discovered in 1922 and remains one of the most intact royal Egyptian tombs ever found.

While Thutmose II’s mummy was found in the 19th century as part of a trove of mummies, his tomb had not, leaving a gap in what archeologists knew about a king who ruled during one of Egypt’s most prosperous eras.

“It was a very rich period,” said British Egyptologist Chris Naunton, who was not involved in the excavation. But the mystery of Thutmose’s tomb “was a glaring gap, and that gap has now been filled.”

The entrance and main corridor of the tomb, located just west of the Valley of the Kings, was first uncovered in 2022. A team of British and Egyptian archeologists later identified the tomb, initially believed to be that of a royal wife, as belonging instead to a pharaoh.