An architect who lived well over 3,000 years ago had left instructions that would not be out of place in the construction of a building today, reports Nevine El-Aref Following three years of excavation inside the tomb of the 19th-Dynasty Pharaoh Seti I, archaeologists have found that a mysterious tunnel cut into the bedrock near the end of Seti's tomb is 174-metres long, much longer than was previously believed. They also found that it comes to an abrupt cut at a second staircase. On reaching the end of a 136-metre section which was partially excavated in 1960 by workmen employed by Sheikh Ali Abdel-Rassoul, the excavation team led by Zahi Hawass, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), uncovered a descending passage measuring 25.6 metres in length and 2.6 metres in width. The mission also discovered a 54-step descending staircase cut into the rock. At the beginning of this passage the team found a false door bearing a hieratic text that reads: "Move the door jamb up and make the passage wider." "This written instruction must have been left by the architect to the workmen who were digging out the tunnel," Hawass says. He told Al-Ahram Weekly that when he first went inside the tunnel he noticed that the walls were well finished and that there were remains of preliminary sketches of decoration that would be placed on the wall. Hawass said he was very surprised to find a second staircase inside the tunnel, and added that the last step was apparently never finished and the tunnel ended abruptly after the second staircase. The mission has also unearthed a number of ushabti (model retainer) figures and pottery fragments dating from the 18th Dynasty. By Nevine El-Aref
