Tutankhamun Tomb Will be Closed

Zahi Hawass, head of the antiquities of Egypt, announced yesterday that the Tutankhamun tomb, the most visited in the Valley of Kings, the great pharaonic necropolis of ancient Thebes (modern Luxor), would be shut down to prevent the damage that tourism has caused to the grave.

Hanwass is planning to create replicas of the most important tombs in order to preserve the original ones and transfer tourism to the identical copies. Two other graves that are going to be closed are the one that belong to Seti I and Queen Nefertari, the principal wife of Ramses II, tomb found in Valley of Queens, in fact these two tombs, highly sensitive due to its paintings, were already closed to the public for quite a time.

In 2007, the young king’s mummy began to be exposed in a tomb of heated glass, which increased visits to the tomb in discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter.
Hanwass neither confirmed the date of closing nor what will happen to the mummy of the king.