What did pharaohs stash inside the pyramids?

When British archaeologist Howard Carter cracked open King Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, he reported seeing "wonderful things." Tut's tomb was filled with extraordinary treasures, including the golden death mask of Tutankhamun, a golden throne and even gold sandals. But did all royal tombs in ancient Egypt have such plush grave goods? 

The answer is no. While the Great Pyramid of Giza and other ancient Egyptian pyramids are incredible monuments, the burial goods inside them were likely relatively modest compared with those buried in the tombs of later pharaohs, such as Tutankhamun.

"The burials in the biggest pyramids might have looked quite simple in comparison to Tutankhamun," Wolfram Grajetzki, an honorary senior research fellow at University College London in the U.K. who has studied and written extensively about ancient Egyptian burial customs and burial goods, told Live Science in an email.

Pyramids were used as Egyptian pharaohs' tombs from the time of Djoser (reign circa 2630 B.C. to 2611 B.C.) to Ahmose I (reign circa 1550 B.C. to 1525 B.C.). Most of these pyramids were plundered centuries ago, but a few royal tombs have remained relatively intact and provide clues about their treasures, Grajetzki said. 

For instance, Princess Neferuptah (who lived around 1800 B.C.) was buried in a pyramid at the site of Hawara, around 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Cairo. Her burial chamber was excavated in 1956 and "contained pottery, a set of coffins, some gilded personal adornments and a set of royal insignia that identify her with the Underworld god Osiris," Grajetzki said.

King Hor (who lived around 1750 B.C.) was buried with a similar set of objects, although he wasn't buried in a pyramid, Grajetzki said. "The body of [Hor] was wrapped in linen, the entrails placed into special containers, called canopic jars," Grajetzki said. "His face was covered with a mummy mask." 

The tomb of Queen Hetepheres, the mother of Khufu (the pharaoh who built the Great Pyramid), is a bit more elaborate. Built at Giza, the tomb had a bed and two chairs that were decorated with gold, along with pottery and miniature copper tools, Grajetzki wrote in an article published in January 2008 in the magazine "Heritage of Egypt."

The substructure (the lower part) of the unfinished pyramid of King Sekhemkhet (circa 2611 B.C. to 2605 B.C.) was found unrobbed at Saqqara, Reg Clark, an Egyptologist who is author of the book "Securing Eternity: Ancient Egyptian Tomb Protection from Prehistory to the Pyramids" (American University in Cairo Press, 2019), told Live Science in an email. The king's sarcophagus was empty, but archaeologists did find "21 gold bracelets, a golden wand or sceptre and various other items of gold jewellery" in a corridor, Clark said. While these are impressive burial goods, they don't come close to the riches found in Tutankhamun's tomb.

The artifacts found in these royal burials suggest that pharaohs entombed in pyramids were probably buried with grave goods that were more modest than those found buried with Tutankhamun, Grajetzki noted. Unlike the early pharaohs, Tutankhamun's tomb was located in the Valley of the Kings — a remote valley near modern-day Luxor that was used as a royal burial site for over 500 years during the New Kingdom, according to Britannica.

"This does not mean that he [Khufu] was poorer [than Tutankhamun]. His pyramid proves the opposite. He was just buried following the customs of his day," Grajetzki wrote in the article.

Large treasures haven't been discovered in any of the known Egyptian pyramids. "There were no large 'treasures' in the pyramids, like in the tomb of Tut," Hans-Hubertus Münch, a scholar who has researched and written about ancient Egyptian burial finds, told Live Science in an email. In addition, no tomb containing vast amounts of lavish grave goods has been found dating to earlier times when pyramids were built, Münch said.

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