Otto John Schaden (August 26, 1937 – November 23, 2015) was an American
Egyptologist. He was the field director of the
Amenmesse Tomb Project
Amenmesse (also Amenmesses or Amenmose) was the fifth pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty in Ancient Egypt, possibly the son of Merneptah and Queen Takhat. Others consider him to be one of the innumerable sons of Ramesses II. Very little is known ...
of the
University of Memphis (
Tennessee). In addition to his work on the tomb of
Amenmesse (
KV10) in the main arm of the
Valley of the Kings, he has also cleared and reinvestigated tombs
WV23,
WV24
Tomb WV24 is an ancient Egyptian tomb located in the western arm of the Valley of the Kings. It was reported by Robert Hay and John Wilkinson in the 1820s and visited by Howard Carter; however, it was not fully explored until Otto Schaden's ex ...
, and
WV25
Tomb WV25 is an unfinished and undecorated tomb in the West Valley of the Valley of the Kings, Egypt. It is clearly the beginning of a royal tomb, and is thought to be the start of Akhenaten's Theban tomb. It was discovered by Giovanni Battista Bel ...
in the Western Valley.
Biography
Schaden taught the Middle Egyptian language at the University of Minnesota in the early 1970s. On 8 February 2006, it was announced that his team had discovered
KV63, an intact chamber at first thought to be a tomb. The tomb was slowly excavated from March to July 2006 and appears to have been a mummification storage area for another royal tomb—possibly an unsanctioned tomb prematurely labeled KV64.
''
Harper's Magazine
''Harper's Magazine'' is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts. Launched in New York City in June 1850, it is the oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. (''Scientific American'' is older, b ...
'' for January 2008 contains a long essay by
Gregory Jaynes
Gregory may refer to:
People and fictional characters
* Gregory (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Gregory (surname), a surname
Places Australia
*Gregory, Queensland, a town in the Shire of ...
about his March 2006 visit to the
KV63 tomb, in which he describes Otto Schaden's dispute with his superior
Lorelei Corcoran
The Lorelei ( ; ), spelled Loreley in German, is a , steep slate rock on the right bank of the River Rhine in the Rhine Gorge (or Middle Rhine) at Sankt Goarshausen in Germany, part of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley UNESCO World Heritage Site. Th ...
from the
University of Memphis. The
University of Memphis and Dr. Schaden severed their relationship and Schaden's research was to continue under the auspices of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, a very unusual move because most are conducted under a university. He died on November 23, 2015, at the age of 78.
Otto Shaden Obituary
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References
External links
KV63 Official Website
Managed by Bill and Roxanne Wilson
KV10: The Amenmesse Project
Managed by Bill and Roxanne Wilson
MSNBC Science online.
"Egyptian ‘tomb’ was mummy workroom: Sarcophagi contained supplies, not royalty, top archaeologist says."
American Egyptologists
University of Missouri faculty
1937 births
2015 deaths
{{Egyptologist-stub