Archaeologists working in Luxor, Egypt, recently made several discoveries in the area around Deir al-Bahari (also spelled Deir el-Bahari and Dayr al-Baḥrī), the famous mortuary temple built by Hatshepsut, a woman who ruled Egypt as a pharaoh.
The team found the temple's "foundation deposit" — objects that the ancient builders buried when they began construction of the temple. The artifacts found include an adze, a tool used to cut and shape wood; a wooden hammer; two chisels; a wooden cast model for making mud bricks; and two stones that contain Hatshepsut's cartouches, ovals with hieroglyphs that can represent a ruler's name, Zahi Hawass, a former head of Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities who is leading the excavation team, told Live Science in an email.
