Egyptologists find vast millenia-old 'lost golden city'

Archaeologists hailed on April 8the discovery of "the largest" ancient city found in Egypt, buried under sand for millenia, which experts said was one of the most important finds since unearthing Tutankhamun's tomb.

Famed Egyptologist Zahi Hawass announced the discovery of the "lost golden city", saying the site was uncovered near Luxor, home of the legendary Valley of the Kings.

"The Egyptian mission under Dr. Zahi Hawass found the city that was lost under the sands," the archeology team said in a statement.

"The city is 3,000 years old, dates to the reign of Amenhotep III, and continued to be used by Tutankhamun and Ay," the statement added.

It called the find "the largest" ancient city ever uncovered in Egypt.

Betsy Bryan, Professor of Egyptian Art and Archaeology at Johns Hopkins University, said the find was the "second most important archeological discovery since the tomb of Tutankhamun", according to the team's statement.

Items of jewelry such as rings have been unearthed, along with colored pottery vessels, scarab beetle amulets and mud bricks bearing seals of Amenhotep III.

"Many foreign missions searched for this city and never found it," said Hawass, a former antiquities minister.

The team began excavations in September 2020, between the temples of Ramses III and Amenhotep III near Luxor, some 500 kilometers (300 miles) south of the capital Cairo.

"Within weeks, to the team's great surprise, formations of mud bricks began to appear in all directions," the statement read.

"What they unearthed was the site of a large city in a good condition of preservation, with almost complete walls, and with rooms filled with tools of daily life."

After seven months of excavations, several...