A pyramid dating back more than 3000 years was discovered close to Luxor, at Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, near the Valley of the Kings. Dimitri Laboury, FNRS senior research associate at the University of Liège, and Laurent Bavay, his colleague at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), are responsible for this extraordinary discovery. The pyramid is that of Vizier Khay, an important figure in the New Kingdom and Pharaoh Ramesses II right-hand man.

Standing on the hill overlooking the funerary temple of Ramesses II, and covered in a dazzling white coating, the pyramid of Vizier Khay benefited from significant visibility in the landscape of the Theban necropolis.  Originally 15 metres high with a base 12 metres long, the mud-brick pyramid is nevertheless small compared with the monumental pyramids of the Old Kingdom, such as the Great Pyramid of Giza, which was more than 140 metres high.

The pyramid was already largely dismantled during the transformation of the site into a Coptic hermitage in the 6^th and 7^th centuries AD. Only its base and its lower parts survive, thus explaining why it has eluded and remained completely unknown to archaeologists for so long. Moreover, the researchers weren’t expecting to discover a pyramid here...

“We weren’t looking for this pyramid"

We need to go back to 1999 to understand the incredible journey that led the Belgian Egyptologists to the discovery of Khay’s pyramid. At that time, Roland Tefnin, professor at the Free University of Brussels (ULB), launched a large scale mission in Luxor, where he obtained the concession of two tombs situated close to the Valley of the Kings, in the middle of the Theban necropolis. These two tombs became the main field of research for Roland Tefnin and his team, which included Laurent Bavay and Dimitri Laboury. When the eminent professor died in 2006, it was uncertain whether or not the mission would continue. The two Belgian colleagues jumped at the opportunity, officially setting up a partnership between their two universities, the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and the University of Liège.

Their complementary skills allowed them to successfully continue the research. An art historian, archaeologist and philologist by training, Dimitri Laboury was particularly interested in the study of ancient Egyptian art and culture; he therefore naturally took responsibility for the Egyptological interpretation of the concession’s tombs and, above all, their decorative paintings. As for Laurent Bavay, director of CReA-Patrimoine, ULB’s Centre for Archaeological and Heritage Research, his expertise lay in the domain of Egyptian archaeology; he was responsible for the actual excavations. The two Belgians put together a large international interdisciplinary team, who assisted them in their research, as well as some hundred or so Egyptian workers and colleagues.