King Ramsses VI was the fifth king of the 20th dynasty (1156-1145 BC.). He came to the throne after the death of his predecessor, Ramsses V, who had ruled Egypt for only one year. Ramsses VI ruled for six years and usurped the tomb of Ramesses V as his own final resting place. He enlarged this rock-cut sepulcher into one of the largest in the Valley of the Kings, with a series of halls and descending corridors stretching in a straight line for about 100 meters, culminating in a burial chamber 45 meters deep. Its walls are decorated with painted scenes and inscriptions from ancient religious texts. The king’s mummy was buried inside two stone sarcophagi that had been fitted one within other and placed within a pit cut in the sunken floor of the burial chamber. The massive outer sarcophagus is of red granite; the inner one is an anthropoid sarcophagus carved out of a rare hard greenish stone. Both sarcophagi had been broken into pieces centuries ago; the inner sarcophagus had been shattered into hundreds of small pieces.

Between June 2001 and 2003, a major conservation project for the inner sarcophagus of Ramesses VI and its lid was carried out by the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), in collaboration with the SCA. This was funded by the United States Agency for International Development and led by Egyptologist Edwin Brock.
 

All of the fragments of the inner sarcophagus have now been collected, cleaned and re-assembled. Although many pieces are missing, enough has been preserved for the stone box to be partly reconstructed up to its original height, and to give a clear idea of its size and decoration. It is carved with scenes designed to assure the perpetual rebirth of the king through his identification with the sun god Re and with Osiris, and bears traces of paint. It now rests on a large limestone base that has been shaped to represent in size and outline the original red granite outer sarcophagus. This newly restored sarcophagus gives the visitor the opportunity to see the last surviving remains of the many splendid artifacts that once accompanied the king into his afterlife.



The Mortuary Temple of Seti I in Qurna
The mortuary temple of Seti I lies in the northern portion of the Theban necropolis, on the western side of the ancient village of Qurna (Gurna). It was constructed by Seti I, second king of the 19th Dynasty, and dedicated to his father, Ramesses I, and the god Amun-Re. It once stood as the first station on the west bank along a processional street of temples and tombs that led from the state temple of Amun at Karnak on the east bank, across the river to this temple, and then south to the temple of Deir el-Bahari.

Modern excavations have been carried out in this temple complex by the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo, which began work in 1970. Since this time, much of the complex has been cleared; the temple has been photographically and photogrammetrically documented; the inscriptions have been copied; and the reliefs have been analyzed. Some reconstruction was also carried out, in cooperation with the Egyptian Antiquities Organization. Devastating thunderstorms in 1994 did significant damage to this restoration work, but the modern walls served to protect the ancient ones to a certain extent. The restoration work was completed in the winter 1998-1999, under the supervision of Dr. Rainer Stadelmann and Dr. Gunter Dreyer, respectively former and current directors of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo.


A Hippo from Kom El-Hittan
The European mission working on the Amenhotep III Temple Conservation Project at Kom el-Hittan (the site of the Colossi of Memnon) has stumbled upon the large headless statue of a hippopotamus made of alabaster. This was uncovered in the northern portico of the Hypostyle Court of Amenhotep III’s temple, which was built sometime between c. 1410 and 1372 BC.
Hourig Sourouzian, head of the European mission, reports that the newly discovered statue had been previously seen during excavations carried out during the 1970’s, but that it had been recovered and no record of its location had been made; neither had it been drawn or photographed. The height of the statue is 130cm, its width is 73 cm and its length is 118cm.
This is the first time that such a large statue of a hippopotamus has been found; previously discovered images are restricted to wall scenes and small models. Four statues of the lioness goddess Sekhmet have been also found in the area. All of the newly discovered statues will be the focus of major restoration work.
This project is funded by the Association of the Colossi of Memnon; the thirty-plus members of the working team hail from 12 different countries, including Egypt, Germany, Austria, Armenia, Belgium, France, Japan, Luxemburg, Poland, Russia, Spain, and the Czech Republic.



The Extension of Luxor Museum

The newly organized extension of Luxor museum, which will be opening in late April, illustrates the history of the ancient Egyptian military, with a special focus on the army of the New Kingdom (c. 1539-1075). The 140 artifacts on display include weapons such as swords, knifes, war chariots, shields, and arrows; stone balls and instruments used to sharpen arms; and statues of well-known warriors kings such as Tuthmosis III, Seti I, Ramesses II, and Ramses III.
The high point of the exhibit will be the mummies of two kings: Ahmose I, first king of the 18th Dynasty; and Ramesses I, founder of the 19th Dynasty. Ahmose I set the stage for the great empire of the New Kingdom by defeating the Hyksos, foreign settlers who had ruled much of Egypt for a century. His mummy was discovered in the late 19th century in a cache of mummies at Deir el-Bahari. This cache had first been found by a local family, the Abd el-Rassuls, who successfully hid their find for ten years. The mummy of Ramesses was recently returned to Egypt after 130 years of roaming around museums and archaeological laboratories in the United States. It was bought by the Niagara Falls Museum in the 1870s, and is thought to have been taken from the royal cache by the Abd el-Rassuls. It was purchased recently by the Michael C. Carlos Museum in Atlanta, who subjected it to a number of intensive, but non-invasive, tests. When the likelihood that this mummy was in fact Ramesses I was determined to be 90%, the Michael C. Carlos offered to return it to Egypt.