Luxor's Lost Golden City Named Top Discovery of 2021

In April 2021, Luxor saw the discovery of one of the largest ancient Egyptian cities ever unearthed. The ‘Golden City’, found buried along the west bank of the Nile, was discovered by a stroke of luck during an archaeological dig for the mortuary temple of Tutankhamun. Now, the Golden City has been named as the top discovery of 2021 by Archaeology Magazine, one of the foremost publications in the world on archaeological happenings.

In a spectacularly rare occurrence, the city was found in a great state of preservation. Houses, streets, and walls - some of which still stand at 10 feet tall - contained everyday objects like ceramic vessels, children’s dolls, bakeries, kitchens, pounds of dried meat, and limestone gaming pieces. Inscriptions tell us that the city was called ‘Tehn Aten’, which means ‘dazzling Aten’, and that it was founded by Tutankhamun’s grandfather, Amenhotep III.

Other discoveries that landed on the magazine’s top 10 list include a Bronze Age map found in France, footprints of the first Americans in Mexico, a mass grave of Crusaders in Lebanon, and the oldest animal art discovered in Saudi Arabia.