Also in Sheikh Sobey, I discovered near the tomb of Djedkhonsu the tomb of his father Badi-Isis and that of his wife Natsa, as well as his brother, whose name was not found. The knowledge of the location of these tombs came to me through two young people of Bahariya. They came to me while I was excavating in the Valley of the Golden Mummies and told me they knew about tombs hidden under the ground. At first I did not believe them, because there are many people who gossip and tell tales about antiquities. But finally I went with them, and they took me to a shaft next to the house of an old lady, and we went down into the shaft about 35 feet underground. I found myself in a maze corridor of beautifully decorated tombs. I began to excavate in this area, and found many wonderful things, but the tomb of the governor was the most exciting.

 

This past week I returned, because my team was demolishing three houses in the area of Sheikh Sobey, where we know there are many tombs under the ground. We were able to negotiate with the people who lived there, because their houses were not very good quality. We bought them a good piece of land and built new houses with better materials, and moved them to the new houses so we could demolish the old ones. Last week I was able to witness the demolition of two houses with hands and tools by the workmen, and one house we destroyed with a bulldozer. It was very exciting that while I watched, the bulldozer uncovered a tomb shaft underneath the house, which shows how many tombs there are in this area.

 

My excavations at Sheikh Sobey found a large 26^th Dynasty tomb with several shafts, which I explored. One shaft was cut into the ground about 20 feet and had no inscriptions. On one side of the shaft we saw a room with a sealed sarcophagus. We opened the sarcophagus for the first time in 2500 years and discovered a typical 26^th Dynasty mummy as well as another mummy in a hole in the wall, with no sarcophagus. In the west side of the shaft we found three sarcophagi, and opening one, we found a beautiful 26^th Dynasty mummy. The second shaft we investigated has four sarcophagi; we opened one to find a mummy, and left the others for examination at another time.

 

On the same trip, I visited another site within the village of el-Bawiti called el-Qasr. In this location we have moved about 25 houses in the last few months. Here we had found the chapel that the governor Djedkhonsu built for the god Amun-Re. One room of this chapel was being used by people as a house and living space until very recently. We were able to relocate the people to a better house and we are hoping to restore this chapel. We are now trying to discover the rest of the chapel in the area of el-Qasr.