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Young World
Flowers for remembrance
ANCIENT GARLAND: Delicate dehydrated flowers. PHOTO: REUTERS
The last of eight sarcophagi from a recently discovered burial chamber in Egypt's Valley of the Kings revealed ancient garlands of flowers. A gaggle of researchers and media had gathered for the opening of the 3,000-year-old coffin, which archaeologists had hoped would contain the famous boy king Tutankaman's mother. But instead the coffin contained strips of fabric and woven laurels of delicate dehydrated flowers. "I prayed to find a mummy, but when I saw this, I said it's better-it's really beautiful," Nadia Lokma, the chief curator of Cairo's Egyptian Museum, told reporters gathered for the opening. The flowers are likely the remains of garlands strung with gold strips that were worn by ancient Egyptian royalty. The Valley of the Kings is a desert region near Luxor that was used as a royal burial ground for several hundred years. The newfound chamber is the first one discovered since King Tut's was found in 1922. Bell said the newly discovered tomb, known as KV63, is "largely, if not exclusively, the remains of an embalming cache having to do with the funeral-preparations process." In ancient Egypt garlands were worn by loved ones of the deceased and also left at their tomb, just as many people leave flowers at a cemetery today, Bell says.
COMPLIED BY ROHINI RAMAKRISHNAN
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