Beneath the Sands of Egypt

For prominent American archeologist Ryan, EgyptÖs famed Valley of the Kings, a royal cemetery from 1500 to 1000 B.C.E., was a gift that kept on giving. Ryan rediscovered a small, undecorated tomb in 1989 that had been found and dismissed in 1903 by Howard Carter (later celebrated for discovering King TutÖs tomb). In this simple tomb, Ryan found a mummy lying on the floor whose bent left arm and clenched left fist suggested an Eighteenth Dynasty royal female grasping a scepter or other ceremonial object. Her identity became a media sensation in 2007 when EgyptÖs most prominent archeologist, Zahi Hawass, provided compelling evidence that she was the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, whose father, Thutmose I, was the first pharaoh buried in the Valley of the Kings 3,400 years ago. Ryan also recounts his collaboration with the controversial and celebrated Norwegian explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his long journey to becoming an archeologist, including graduate school fieldwork mapping petroglyphs in Hawaiian lava fields and studying ancient Egyptian cordage in the British Museum. RyanÖs observations are intimate, frank, and perceptive, and his spirited adventures in underappreciated avenues of exploration are a boon for armchair and budding archeologists. 32 b&w photos.