Hawass Dig Days - Valley of the Golden Mummies
Al Ahram Weekly
Being in Bahariya to film this programme brought back many good memories for me, memories that I will never forget. The discovery happened by accident, when a guard who worked at the temple of Alexander the Great was riding his donkey. The donkey stepped into a hole and fell, and when the guard bent down to investigate he could see through the hole mummies covered in gold. The site falls under the Giza antiquities authority, of which I was the head at that time. I went to Bahariya with a team that I myself had trained in excavation techniques.
First we stopped at a café to discuss how we should proceed with what we already knew would be a discovery of enormous significance. While we were there, the owner of the café came over and said to me, "Sir, when you appear on TV, please talk about our town." A month later Bahariya became the most famous place in Egypt. Of course, there were only two hotels there. One was old, and very few people who come to Bahariya stayed there. The other one had just been finished at the time of the discovery, and that is where we stayed. The owner made back all the money he had invested in his new hotel after the Valley of the Golden Mummies became famous.
Before we began our excavation I walked all over the site, surveying it carefully. I estimated that there could be more than 10,000 mummies buried at Bahariya, most of them covered in gold. The mummies were amazing not only because they were covered in gold, but also because they were decorated with scenes of gods and goddesses, of mummification and the Hall of Judgement, and even with royal symbols such as the uraeus, which had earlier been associated only with royalty but by that time had become common among the upper class.
See the above page for the full story.
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