Second Front in Egypt

With the world already watching Egypt, hoping that the soul ship of Cheops (TIME, June 7) would prove to be laden with fascinating cargo, a second discovery came to light. Dr. Mohammed Zakaria Ghoneim, Egypt's chief inspector of antiquities, announced that he had found the apparently unrobbed sarcophagus of a Pharaoh of the Third Dynasty (2980-2900 B.C.), even older than Cheops.

For two years Dr. Ghoneim has been digging laboriously into a shapeless hill near the "step pyramid" of Zoser, 15 miles south of the Pyramid of Cheops. Prompted by ancient lore, he suspected that it might be more interesting than it looked. Under the sand, he found the corner of a low wall. As his laborers shoveled the sand away, he found another corner. "I've got a pyramid!" cried Dr. Ghoneim. The hill was indeed the base of a pyramid that was never finished.

By esoteric calculations known only to Egyptologists, Dr. Ghoneim tried to figure where the long-forgotten entrance might be. His laborers poked into the sand and at last found a rubble-choked tunnel slanting down into the hill. Bit by bit the debris was cleared away. The tunnel extended into the living rock and apparently reached a dead end 121 ft. from the entrance. Dr. Ghoneim, wise in such matters, was not discouraged, and eventually he uncovered the entrance of a second tunnel. Unlike the first, it was not barren. Ranged along it were the doorways of 120 separate chambers, some of them containing jars of grain and other foodstuffs. This was a good omen; the soul of a Pharaoh was usually supplied with alabaster-packaged rations.

Sliding Panel. At last Dr. Ghoneim found a granite slab, blocking the corridor and apparently untouched through the ages. Pushing into the chamber behind it, he came on what all Egyptologists dream of finding: an undamaged and apparently unopened sarcophagus. It is 8 ft. long, made of alabaster richly worked with gold and closed at one end by a sliding alabaster panel, through which the mummy must have been inserted. Around it were the portals of many other chambers or passages cut long ago in the rock. They may lead to the tombs of members of a Pharaoh's family and household.

In spite of the three-day Moslem Feast of Bairam, Dr. Ghoneim put 80 laborers to work making the underground passageways navigable for visitors. He declared that the sarcophagus is certainly royal, and that it probably contains the golden mummy case of the Pharaoh Sanakht. If this proves to be so, it will be important indeed. Only a few unrobbed tombs of Pharaohs have been found, and the earliest of them, that of Tutankhamen, is 1,500 years later than the Third Dynasty.

U.S. Egyptologists are not so sure that Ghoneim will find the mummy of Sanakht or of any Pharaoh. If the sarcophagus does prove to be royal, said Dr. William C. Hayes of New York's Metropolitan Museum, it is likely to contain a Pharaoh earlier than Zoser. builder of the step pyramid. Sanakht was probably a son of Zoser, and no prideful Pharaoh was likely to place his tomb, as the new found one was placed, behind that of his father.

Bitter Feud. While VIPs were admiring the new find, a bitter feud broke out between Dr. Ghoneim and Kamal el Mallakh, discoverer of Cheops' soul ship. Cried El Mallakh, who is officially an architect: "The archeologists have opened a second front against me."

Fortified by a written order from one of the chief men in the Egyptian government, he unsealed the chink in the limestone slab above Cheops' soul ship and permitted Photographer David Douglas Duncan of LIFE to poke his camera through the 8-by-12-in. hole. The camera saw more than the human eye. The ship is in excellent condition, its wood still strong enough to support a sizeable chunk of fallen masonry. From end to end it is about 48 ft. long, with high bow and stern.

The full opening of the ship tomb may be delayed by the feud among the experts. Soon after the pictures were taken, the Egyptian Ministry of Education gave control of it to a five-man committee, with El Mallakh the junior member. He has reportedly appealed to Egypt's powerful military.

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