Award-Winning Website Illuminates ARCE’s Theban Mapping Project

As part of the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), the Theban Mapping Project (TMP) has been maintaining an award-winning website that helps bring you closer than ever to one of the greatest ongoing excavations in Egypt.

It all began with a forgotten tomb in Thebes and the Valley of the Kings. 3,000 years after it was sealed, the tomb had been emptied by countless acts of looting and washed out by at least 11 flash floods. It was assigned a number - KV5 - in the early 1820s, and had since been dismissed as a minor tomb with only six rooms. The entrance to KV5 had even been used as a dumping ground for debris during the excavations of King Tutankhamun’s tomb.

It was only in 1987 that its true importance came to light. The TMP had been assigned to work around the mouth of the Valley of the Kings. After a week of exploration, TMP discovered that the entrance of KV5 was only a starting point: they had uncovered the existence of many more halls, corridors and chambers to explore.

In 1995, KV5 was announced to be the largest tomb ever to be found in the Valley of the Kings. By then, the occupants of its burial chambers had been revealed to be the many sons of Ramses II, one of the greatest pharaohs in recorded history.

TMP quickly established a website, KV5.com, to keep an enthralled public informed of their developments. It quickly became one of the most popular websites for scholars and Egyptology students, receiving over a million hits a month until 2010, when the website crashed - and would remain offline until 2020, when the ARCE brought it back to life as thebanmappingproject.com.

TMP’s new website serves as a digital guidebook to not just KV5, but the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Queens and the Western Wadis. It’s a one-of-a-kind open access portal giving the public access to scholarly information backed by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, with a bank of over 175,000 unique images. The website continues to offer virtual tours and content bringing you on-ground in the uncovering of one of the most illuminating discoveries in Egypt.