KV 63

That no mummies were found in KV 63 — the first tomb discovered in the Valley of the Kings in nearly 84 years — was neither disappointing nor entirely surprising to those who unearthed the tomb and painstakingly worked to preserve all that they found inside.

"We found hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of mummies, but we never discovered something like this," said Dr. Zahi Hawass, Egypt's chief Egyptologist, as he peered at the contents. "Look at what we discovered here. Look at it."

Archaeology is about patience, and about expecting the unexpected. It is about finding a clue in the sand and gently sifting through layers of time. KV 63 has offered up many mysteries. Seven coffins were found inside, and each was filled with items like pillows, linens and broken pottery.

But archaeology is also about show business, and in modern Egypt the master of ceremonies, the only man allowed to pull back the curtain for the audience, is Dr. Hawass, the general secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities. He has a theory about KV 63, but by the end of the day on Wednesday it was hard to know how much of that was show business and how much science, or whether there was a bit of both.