In 1815, following an idea mentioned to him by his friend Johann Ludwig Burckhardt of digging up the statue and bringing it to Britain, the British consul general Henry Salt hired the adventurer Giovanni Belzoni in Cairo for this purpose.
The east wall of the antechamber is interrupted by a large opening flanked by the representation of Osiris to the left and Anubis on the right; this, in turn, leads to the side chamber, decorated with offering-scenes, preceded by a vestibule in which paintings portray Nefertari presented to the deities, who welcome her.
On the north wall of the antechamber is the stairway down to the burial-chamber, a vast quadrangular room covering a surface area of about 90 square metres (970 sq ft), its astronomical ceiling supported by four pillars, entirely decorated.
A day and time were selected to unseal the tomb with about twenty appointed witnesses that included Lord Carnarvon, several Egyptian officials, museum representatives and the staff of the Government Press Bureau.
[27] In June 2000,[28] the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology (IEASM), directed by Franck Goddio, in cooperation with the Egyptian Ministry for Antiquities discovered the ancient sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion in today's Abu Qir Bay.
[37][38][39] In November 2017(2000-10-25), the Egyptian mission in cooperation with the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology announced the discovery of three 2,000-year-old sunken shipwrecks dated back to the Roman Era in Alexandria's Abu Qir Bay.
[40][41] In April 2018, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced the discovery of the head of the bust of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius at the Temple of Kom Ombo in Aswan during work to protect the site from groundwater.
[44] In July 2018, German-Egyptian researchers' team head by Ramadan Badry Hussein of the University of Tübingen reported the discovery of an extremely rare gilded burial mask that probably dates from the Saite-Persian period in a partly damaged wooden coffin in Saqqara.
[49][50] In September 2018, several dozen caches of mummies dating 2,000 years back were found in Saqqara by a team of Polish archaeologists led by Kamil Kuraszkiewicz [pl] from the Faculty of Oriental Studies of the University of Warsaw.
[52][53][54] In November 2018, France's University of Strasbourg announced the discovery of two sarcophagi thought to be more than 3,500 years old with two perfectly preserved mummies and approximately 1,000 funerary statues in the Assasseef valley near Luxor.
[57] In February 2019, fifty mummy collections wrapped in linen, stone coffins or wooden sarcophagi dated back to the Ptolemaic Kingdom were discovered by Egyptian archaeologists in the Tuna el-Gebel site in Minya.
Egypt's Minister of Tourism and Antiquities announced the discovery of the collective graves of senior officials and high clergies of the god Djehuty (Thoth) in Tuna el-Gebel in January 2020.
Italian archaeologist Patrizia Piacentini, professor of Egyptology at the University of Milan, and Khaled El-Enany, the Egyptian minister of antiquities reported that the tomb where the remains of ancient men, women and children were found, dates back to the Greco-Roman period between 332 BC and 395 AD.
[60][61] In July 2019, ancient granite columns and a smaller Greek temple, treasure-laden ships, along with bronze coins from the reign of Ptolemy II, pottery dating back to the third and fourth centuries BC were found at the sunken city of Heracleion.
[64][65] In October 2019, Egyptian archaeologists headed by Zahi Hawass revealed an ancient "industrial area" used to manufacture decorative artefacts, furniture and pottery for royal tombs in Luxor's Valley of the Monkeys.
According to Hawass, mummies were decorated with mixed carvings and designs, including scenes from Egyptian gods, hieroglyphs, and the Book of the Dead, a series of spells that allowed the soul to navigate in the afterlife.
[67][68][69][70] In January 2020, Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities announced the discovery of 16 tombs of high priests of the god Djehuty with about 20 sarcophagi and 5 well-preserved wooden coffins at Al-Ghoreifa area in Tuna el-Gebel, dating back to the 26th Dynasty.
[73][74] In May 2020, Egyptian-Spanish archaeological mission head by Esther Ponce uncovered a unique cemetery dating back to the 26th Dynasty (so-called the El-Sawi era) at the site of ancient Oxyrhynchus.
[83][84][85] In January 2021, The tourism and antiquities ministry announced the discovery of more than 50 wooden sarcophagi in 52 burial shafts which date back to the New Kingdom period and a 13 ft-long papyrus that contains texts from the Book of the Dead.
[86] In January 2021, Egyptian-Dominican researchers led by Kathleen Martínez announced the discovery of 2,000-year-old ancient tombs with golden tongues dating to the Greek and Roman periods at Taposiris Magna.
The tombs also contained the remains of adults and a baby (buried in a jar), a group of ovens, stoves, remnants of mud-brick foundations, funerary equipment, cylindrical, pear-shaped vessels and a bowl with geometric designs.
According to University of Warsaw's Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology, the elaborately decorated tomb belonged to a man named Mehtjetju who served as a priest and an inspector of the royal property.
[105][106] In July 2022, archaeologists from the Prague's Charles University, led by Dr Marslav Barta, discovered the robbed tomb of an ancient Egyptian military official named Wahibre merry Neith.
[111] In February 2023, archaeologists from Barcelona University announced the discovery of 16 individual tombs from the Coptic-Byzantine period and 6 funerary complex from the Roman and Persian eras at the Al-Bahnasa archaeological site in Minya.
[113] In March 2023, archaeologists from the Ain Shams University led by Dr Mamdouh El Damaty announced the discovery of a Roman-era sphinx during the excavation at the lower level of the Dendera Temple complex in Qena.
[114][115] In March 2023, the researchers from the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities with University of Tübingen announced the discovery of the celestial reliefs depicting the heavens with the signs of zodiac during re-coloring works in the Temple of Esna.
[116] In March 2023, German-Egyptian archaeological team announced the new discoveries from the Matriya Sun Temple with a number of quartzite stone from the time of Horemheb and the traces of flooring made from mudbrick and white ash in Heliopolis.
[118] Egyptologist Dr. Dawid F. Wieczorek identified them as components originating from a pharaonic temple, dating back to the first half of the first millennium BCE, which corresponds to the reign of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt.
[119] In October 2023, the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities in Egypt announced the discovery of a cemetery in al-Gurifa archaeological area at Tuna el-Gebel, dated back to the New Kingdom, containing sarcophagi, canopic jars, ushabtis, among other items, including a 15-metre-long "Book of the Dead" papyrus.
[123] In July 2024, a joint French-Egyptian archaeological mission from the Supreme Council of Antiquities and Paul Valéry University uncovered stelae, inscriptions, and miniature images of Pharaohs Amenhotep III, Thutmose IV, Psamtik II, and Apries beneath the Nile waters in Aswan.