Even today, many tombs remain to be excavated, promising yet more amazing finds to come. Many of the mummies themselves had gone missing as well, making those who were found (like King Tut, Ramses II and Hatshepsut) even more valuable.Įxcavations of Egypt’s ancient sites have continued steadily since the early 20th century, with each new discovery offering insight into the intricacies of a civilization that made striking advances in nearly every area of human knowledge, including art, mathematics, agriculture, engineering and written language. Unfortunately, looters got to many tombs centuries before modern archaeologists arrived, robbing them of gold, jewelry and other valuable goods intended to accompany the dead in their journey to the afterlife.
This desert also contained oases, five of which are still known today. Its geography largely consisted of valleys, sand dunes and some mountainous areas. The Western Desert was actually part of the Libyan Desert and covered 262,000 square miles. With each new tomb or secret underground chamber discovered, Egyptologists began to gain a clearer understanding of the ancient civilization’s fascination with death and the afterlife, including its highly sophisticated mummification practices. The deserts of ancient Egypt were the Red Lands, situated on both sides of the Nile. Through painstaking excavations, research and translation, modern scholars have used these written records to trace Egypt’s history and divide it into three distinct periods-known as the Old, Middle and New Kingdoms-with periods of relative instability in between. Many of ancient Egypt’s rulers-known today as pharaohs-built themselves elaborate monuments and tombs, inscribing them with their names and achievements in hieroglyphics.
