page_title: DB320
section_title: Discovery and clearance
hierarchical_section_title: DB320 / Discovery and clearance
caption_attribution_description: Català: Localització i esquema de la tomba TT320 a Deir el Bahari, l'amagatall de mòmies reials. Français&#160;: Emplacement et disposition de la tombe TT320 à Deir el-Bahari, la cachette des momies royales. English: The location of the tomb TT320 at Deir el-Bahari, known as the Royal Cache.
context_page_description: Tomb TT320, otherwise known as the Royal Cache, is an Ancient Egyptian tomb located next to Deir el-Bahri, in the Theban Necropolis, opposite the modern city of Luxor. It contains the last resting place of High Priest of Amun Pinedjem II, his wife Nesikhons, and other close family members, in addition to an extraordinary collection of mummified remains and funeral equipment of more than 50 kings, queens, and other New Kingdom members of the royalty, as it was later used as a cache for royal mummies during the Twenty-first Dynasty.
context_section_description: In 1881, a tomb-robber named Abd el-Rassul discovered TT320. Later research, conducted by Gaston Maspero, stated that Abd el-Rassul's family discovered TT320 as early as 1871, because items such as canopic jars and funeral papyri from this tomb showed up on the antiquities market in Luxor as early as 1874. For example, the Book of the Dead of Pinudjem II was purchased in 1876 for £400. The story that Abd el-Rassul Ahmed told was that one of his goats fell down a shaft and when he went down the shaft to retrieve the goat, he stumbled across this tomb. As he looked around, he discovered that this was no ordinary tomb. He saw that the mummies entombed in TT 320 were royal. This was indicated by the royal cobra head dress on some of the coffins. Abd and his brother plundered this tomb and lived off of the profits for many years until they were caught. Local authorities were expecting to find several tombs belonging to the family of Herihor. When items started appearing on the antiquities market with their names on them began, local authorities started to investigate the items and were able to trace them back to the Abd el-Rassul family. Authorities interrogated and tortured the two brothers until one of the brothers eventually gave up the location of the tomb where the items were plundered from. Authorities were sent out to TT320 immediately to secure it.
  Authorities arrived at TT320 without the head of the Egyptian Service of Antiquities, because he was on vacation. Instead, the only other European member of the team, Emil Brugsch, was sent with one of the first Egyptian Egyptologists, Ahmed Kamal, to explore and examine TT320. Rather than just exploring, Brugsch had all of the contents, including the mummies, of this tomb removed within 48 hours of them entering this tomb. Neither Brugsch nor Kamal documented the tomb before having the contents removed, which made future study of this tomb difficult. Locations of the coffins were not documented and items were not catalogued. Brugsch went back later to document the tomb but the problem with this is that when he went back, he was not able to remember every detail of the tomb. His recollection of the tomb is questionable since he did not document the details immediately upon entering the tomb. The removal of the items from TT320 so quickly presented problems that the removal team at the time did not take into account.
  The hasty removal of the items in TT320 was not done carefully. When the items were received in Cairo, it was discovered that some coffins had damage that would have happened if they were banged around during removal or transport. Evidence suggests that the damage to the coffins happened during removal from TT320. Brugsch documented the height of the different parts of the tomb and the measurement of the opening was just big enough to drag out the coffins. In addition to this, there were fragments of royal coffins and other items found in the bottom meter of debris in TT320. However, there were approximately ten coffins that were found with their foot ends missing. It is believed that this happened before they were placed in TT320 because there was no mention, by Brugsch, of foot ends whether they were whole, in pieces or fragments being found. A research team entered TT320 in 1998 for research and that team did not find any evidence of foot ends either. In addition to plundering of TT 320 and the royal tombs of the mummies found here, the mummies themselves were plundered also.
  Once the coffins/mummies and items made it back to Cairo they were examined. It was found that not only were the tombs plundered but so were the mummies, and that some of the mummies were found in the wrong coffins. Some of the mummy's heads and limbs had been removed by tomb robbers to be able to get to amulets found under the wrappings of the mummies in addition to other precious ornaments found on the mummies. 
  Considering the inconsistencies of some of the mummies mentioned previously, one mummy in particular raises many questions due to inconsistencies in two of his papyri. The firs
caption: The location of the tomb above the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "150", "Image YResolution": "150", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2011:12:05 19:02:56", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4922", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1846", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1213"}