🤯 Did You Know (click to read)
Several royal mummies, including that of Ramesses II, were relocated in antiquity to a hidden cache at Deir el-Bahri for protection.
The Valley of the Kings served as the primary royal burial site during the New Kingdom. Despite hidden entrances and sealed chambers, economic decline during the late 20th Dynasty led to widespread tomb robberies. Judicial papyri such as the Abbott Papyrus document investigations into these crimes. Officials recorded interrogations and confessions from workers and guards. Precious metals were stripped from coffins and funerary objects melted down. Some mummies were later reburied collectively to protect them. The looting reveals severe fiscal stress within state institutions. Sacred burial spaces became targets of survival-driven theft.
💥 Impact (click to read)
Tomb robberies exposed administrative collapse during the reigns following Ramesses XI. Economic instability reduced wages for workers. Precious metals represented portable wealth during crisis. Judicial records demonstrate attempts at legal accountability. The state's inability to prevent looting undermined royal aura. Institutional safeguards proved vulnerable under economic strain.
For laborers, looting was both crime and desperation. Confessions describe nighttime excavations through sealed corridors. The psychological rupture of violating royal tombs reflects collapsing taboos. Reburial efforts by priests attempted to restore sanctity. Modern excavations uncover layers of intrusion. Even eternity required maintenance in times of decline.
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