#British Sector

[the-time-lord-oracle]

Intercity Swallow appreciation

Intercity Swallow livery, as carried by HST, class 47s, 73s, 86s, 87s, the 89, 90s and 91s in the early 1990's. A very smart colour scheme which suited all of these classes and is leagues above most modern rail company liveries!

[givepie]

Hm! I feel a rant coming on! Everyone duck!

MY THOUGHTS ON THE HYPERIA STORY AND ITS THEMING. ALSO A GENERAL RANT ON COASTER THEMING.

Let start with a general question: what counts as theming?

To me, theming is the set pieces, pre-show, and anything laid out in a rides area to help develop a story. Most of the time this helps world-building more than anything. To me, even music can be a piece of theming because it helps to set a tone. For example, when riding Smiler, the laughter sounds almost manic and it makes you realise straight away that something is off, before you even step foot into X-sector.

Anything that DOESN'T fall into this classification such as website and app pages, falls into "storytelling". In a theme park, it is almost impossible to tell the entire story from one repeated instance inside of said story. To tell a complicated story like that of the Smiler, it would take so much exposition, which is very much not the point and would take away from the experience as a whole.

So storytelling isn't a bad thing, it's how they handle it.

To me, there are three behemoths of theme park theming and storytelling worldwide. That I know of.

Baron 1898, X-Sector post-Smiler, And Forbidden Valley post-Reborn.

Baron 1898 is pretty easy to grasp while you're there, even as a non-speaker of the language. You're going on a mine tour and 3 ghost ladies are PISSED that you're going down there. The actual theming is downright impressive ans I would love to see it in real life. You can then look up the story to find out who the ghosts are, who the Baron is, and how the mine came to be. Really good treat for people who decide to look.

Forbidden Valley has a story that has remained relatively consistent throughout the years. It has wondering actors that establish the world in a realistic yet entertaining way rather quickly. There are an official operation; there are people opposing the operation so there is something sneaky going on; there is a tour group taking advantage of the centrepiece so the Alien is a tourist attraction in this universe, too. Just little things that help put together a bigger picture.

Of course this starts coming apart a little bit when the audio starts explicitly telling you what is happening, but it still holds. You see someone's office, a crashed helicopter, weapons for warding off the alien. All things to help build up this universe you are now ankle-deep in. And then there's the 3 pages on the Internet that break down the story for you, which can also be seen in the shop.

Finally, of course, there's X-sector. It doesn't usually have roaming actors, and the theme suits better that way. Without the roaming actors, you see that the Ministry are secretive. Trying to stay out of the limelight, except for the skeleton crew they send out to keep the coaster safe and operational. It shows a tone.

However, people casually wondering what this is about can never get an easy answer. Cause the answer is spread out across what remains of a decade-old marketing campaign. Fun for people who want a deep dive, not so fun for people who are just lightly curious. The website barely tells you anything either.

But, on a positive light, the story is so complex it keeps a fandom. Not many coasters have that. It's an insane accomplishment.

And I have a theory as to why. Now, stay with me here I think I'm about to upset some people:

It has aspects of social and political commentary. "Not everything is political" ALL GOOD ART IS A COMMENTARY ON THE TIMES AND CIRCUMSTANCES YOU WERE RAISED IN SIT YOUR ARSE BACK DOWN.

RIGHT, so, Smiler is a story about the government dedicating an organisation to keeping people artificially content to keep people compliant. What are Brits notorious for doing, in comparison to the French?

Doing fuck all. This wasn't always the case. We would riot, we would strike. Now we strike but while the other half of the country complains and just tells the strikers to sit back down and take the mistreatment. We are miserable, we complain, and we go about our day. And that's the joke. Its funny. So why bother changing it?

And if we can't be bothered changing something cause it's funny, what happens if they make everything purposefully funny? They'd never have to deal with the strikes in the first place.

The government functions off of our social compliance, which can come from making jokes at our own expense. We even see it now with our drowned-rat-faced PM as he continues to make a fool out of himself so he's funny. If he's funny, we want to see him more. That's a valid strategy nowadays.

Smiler. Is about how Keep Calm And Carry On is a stand against progress.

Smiler. Is a political and social commentary on the people of Britain. You're welcome.

Anyway!

HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO THE NEW WORLD-STAGE COASTER IN STAINES?

The problem is: it doesn't. Instead of taking inspiration from its sister park, Alton, Thorpe decided to take inspiration from Icon and its shoebox station.

Where is Fearless Valley taking place? When is Fearless Valley taking place? What point in the story are we looking at here? The issue [only issue, really] with Hyperia, is it entirely relies on storytelling and a few bits and bobs in the queue.

Remember the shortcoming in Nemesis? Where you can get a good grasp of the story without it being blasted in your ear? Yeah here they straight up tell you the story, too. The theming has BECOME the storytelling.

Next question: what is Hyperia, the coaster, supposed to be? Yes, we know the story is that a goddess called hyperia overcame her fear of the sea by building wings and escaping the island she was trapped on [for some unspecified reason. Is hyperia evil?], but what IS the coaster supposed to be?

Smiler is the Marmaliser, the machine that transforms you into a smiling advocate. Nemesis is the tentacles of the monster overtaking the metal that pins it down. Baron is the track the drill takes to get into the mine.

What is Hyperia? Are we following Her as she soars, were we stuck with Her; the Icarus to her Daedalus? Are we following in her footsteps as part of a ceremony Her followers reenact for her blessing? Are we supposed to be Her? It's never really specified.

The station is chocked full of a last-ditch attempt of theming, which in comparison with the whole lotta nothing you get from the queueline? It feels cramped. It feels cheap. It barely feels like it belongs on a stage alongside Taron, Velocicoaster and Voltron Nevera. If they didn't have the budget to do the storytelling and the theme, they should've gone for theme.

Any story with no theme feels cheap and artificial. Any theme with no story still stands out and has breathtaking scenes. If they focused more on the white-gold colour palate and maybe had a few statues around and about they could pass it as some sort of pantheon, like climbing Olympus.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm disappointed in all aspects of the Hyperia theming. It feels lazy, tacky and underwhelming when you consider Swarm is a 5 minute walk away. I'm hoping it improves at some point.

I geniunely think the stone head of Collosus is much better than anything in Fearless Valley and its inconsistencies. The Black and gold buildings feel very sleek and out of place for a story ultimately about a goddess who forged. She forged her own wings. She forged her own bravery. Shouldnt the building look a little home made? Where are the bolts? The soldering? I want to see her anvil and hammer pride-of-place, not shoved in the corner of the station.

Cmon thorpe. Get your arse in gear.

[carbone14]

Débarquement des commandos du quartier général de la 4th Special Service Brigade à Juno Beach – Secteur Nan Red – Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer – Calvados – Normandie - France – 9 h 00 – Opération Neptune – Opération Overlord – 6 juin 1944

Photographe : Lieutenant Handford - No. 5 Army Film and Photo Section, Army Film and Photographic Unit

©Imperial War Museums - B 5218

[ruban94]

🚘 Many of you know me as a project manager in the field of transportation and logistics. Today, I’m excited to share that I’ve expanded my expertise to include Automotive Engineering.

🎓 I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve completed my studies and earned a certificate in “Automotive Industrial Engineering” from Starweaver on Coursera! Huge thanks to Lluís Foreman his invaluable guidance and support throughout this journey.

[enyementv]

Health Minister discusses support for the healthcare sector with the British ambassador.

Today, Dr. Qassem Baheeb, Yemen’s Minister of Public Health and Population, met with British Ambassador to Yemen, Abda Sharif, to explore ways to enhance support for the healthcare sector in Yemen. Current Priorities for Yemen’s Healthcare During the meeting, Minister Baheeb outlined the current priorities for the healthcare sector amid Yemen’s challenging circumstances. He expressed gratitude…

[review-anon]

root beers soda, not regular beer

//Forgive me I am a non American and this is a non existant drink over here.

//No seriously it just flat out doesn't exist here.

[kommabortsig]

Leaving_Waverley,_cab-first_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1236603.jpg

[ham44vibes]

I need Lewis to channel his inner Prince for quali plz! Bring the purple rain and blitz the field! 🕯️🕯️💜💜🕯️🕯️💜💜🕯️🕯️💜💜 manifesting

[rangeinternationalproperty]

Dubai's real estate sector is witnessing an extraordinary surge, and at Range International Property Investments, we're excited to shed light on the driving force behind this boom: British investors. As Dubai solidifies its position as a global investment hotspot, the influx of British nationals into the UAE's property market is reshaping the landscape and presenting unparalleled opportunities for long-term growth.

[mybritishexpress]

English Speaking Practice

Solving a riddle like How to Practice English Speaking has become handier than before. First things first, there are a plethora of English language training institutes that offer training through seamless spoken English courses. Suppose, in a place like Delhi in India, British Express is one such language learning franchise where you can accomplish this feat of becoming a good English speaker in the present times. What follows after gelling with the faculty and participants of a language learning hub is English Speaking Practice. The entire time that the aspirants spend in the institute keeps them motivated to speak in English. As such they get a good turf to try and practice simultaneously all that they learn from the experts of the English language. However, before getting into the boots of speaking with fluency there are some pinpoints to take care of for commanding a fleet in all aspects of language. There are three major tasks that you need to practice ardently for carving a niche in speaking the English language. So, let us take a mental stroll through all of them below in a jiffy. 1. Listening: Never underestimate the power of listening. If you want to become a master at speaking the English language fluently then start listening to conversations in English by native speakers, listen to some of the good songs that make you feel happy, and at the same nourish your understanding of the English language in a more entertaining manner. You can even watch some good movies but remember unless you are unaware of the basic rules and concepts--that are better learned in a language school--then all this may end up being worthless. 2. Reading: read and read out loud yes... that is how you can improve your enunciation in the English language. When you join a language learning hub you get the chance to practice reading vehemently. You are encouraged to read from whatever you like. As it can be a book, a magazine, or a newspaper and you are taught the right way to emphasize the right words. After that, you can even practice the same thing at home. You can read your favourite books and blogs, letters and journals for hours and improve your personality to speak beautifully. 3. Writing: As Francis Beacon once said that reading market a man full, and writing an exact man. So, the point is what you have learned is better to write. As writing is the most eloquent way of seeking precision and decisiveness in learning any language in the world. It enriches our ability to remember and understand various aspects of language at a full stretch. So, all those aspirants who are learning English speaking should also try some writing drills for riding against all odds of inaccuracies they face. The best part of language learning hubs is that such drills are commenced each day and learners are elated to find these drills creative and beneficial. Finally, when all is done it reflects colors of charm in your personality. And, pursuing all these tasks adherently enhances your speaking abilities to get more exactness and accuracy than ever before.

[metamatar]

Employers desire foreign workers who are accustomed to the hazardous work sites of industrial construction; in particular, they specifically solicit migrants who do not have a history of labor organizing within SWANA. In response, labor brokerage firms brand themselves as offering migrant workers who are deferential. Often, labor brokers conflate the category of South Asian with docility; [...] as inherently passive, disciplined, and, most important, unfettered by volatile working conditions. "We say quality, they [U.S. employers] say seasoned. We both know what it means. Workers who are not going to quit, not going to run away in the foreign country and do as they are told.” [...]

For migrants, the U.S. oil industry presents a rare chance to apply their existing skill set in a country with options for permanent residency and sponsorship of family members. Migrants wish to find an end to their tem­porary worker status; they imagine the United States as a liberal economy in which labor standards are enforced and there are opportunities for citizenship and building a life for their family. [...] What brokers fail to explain is that South Asian migrants are being recruited as guest workers. Migrants will not have access to U.S. citizenship or visas for family members; in fact, their employment status will be quite similar to their SWANA migration.

While nations such as the Philippines have both state-mandated and independent migrant rights agencies, the Indian government has minimal avenues for worker protection. These are limited to hotlines for reporting abusive foreign employers and Indian consulates located in a few select countries of the SWANA region. [... Brokers] emphasize the docility of Indian migrants in comparison to the disruptive tendencies of other Asian migrant workers. [...] “Some of these Filipino men you see make a lot of trouble in the Arab countries. Even their women, who work as maids and such, lash out. The employer says one wrong thing and the workers get the whole country [the Philippines] on the street. [...] But you don’t see our people creating a tamasha [spectacle] overseas.” [...] Just as Filipinx migrants are racialized to be undisciplined labor, Indian brokers construct divisions within the South Asian workforce to promote the primacy of their own firms. In particular, Pakistani workers are racialized as an abrasive population.

[...] While the public image of the South Asian American community remains as model minorities, presumed to be primarily upwardly mobile professionals, the global reality of the population is quite to the contrary. [...] From the historic colonial routes initiated by British occupation of South Asia to the emergence of energy markets within the countries of SWANA, migrants have been recruited to build industries by contributing their labor to construction projects. Within the last decade, these South Asian migrants, with experience in the SWANA oil industry, have been actively solicited as guest workers into the energy sector of the United States. The growth of hydraulic fracturing has opened new territory for oil extraction; capitalizing on the potential market are numerous stakeholders who have invested in industrial construction projects across the southwestern United States. The solicitation of South Asian construction workers is not coincidental. [...] Kartik, a globally competitive firm’s broker, explains the connection of Indian labor to practices of the past. “You know we come from a long history of working in foreign lands. Even the British used to send us to Africa and the Arab regions to work in the mines and oil fields. It’s part of our history.”

Seasoning Labor: Contemporary South Asian Migrations and the Racialization of Immigrant Workers, Saunjuhi Verma in the Journal of Asian American Studies

[ayeforscotland]

Keir Starmer currently setting out the plan to ‘unleash’ artificial intelligence across the UK to boost growth.

There’s more than a few issues with this though. It’s almost definitely going to be handed to one of the big 4 consultancies, they’ll use ChatGPT to do a white paper and call it a whopping success.

They’ll maybe extend that to the government quangos who’ll do a similar thing. They’ll talk up AI’s great potential at reducing workloads - only to find that Generative AI only increases them.

Government will continue to not have a clear picture of where its data actually resides, who uses it, and who should and shouldn’t have access to it.

Since Thatcher, the British government has done nothing but chase trends that promise growth and the only thing we have to show for it is a huge cost of living crisis, some of the highest electricity bills in the world, and a massively unequal society.

[heritageposts]

In his seminal The Wretched of the Earth, Frantz Fanon could be writing about Gaza when he said: “In all armed struggles, there exists what we might call the point of no return. Almost always it is marked off by a huge and all-inclusive repression which engulfs all sectors of the colonial people.” In Israel, Gaza and the West Bank, that point has arrived. From Gaza to the Red Sea, on all fronts the West is now unmasked as a lawless killing machine in terror of losing control. Genocide, starvation and war, defended with Olympic-level diplomatic double-speak, are its only answers to the fact that the Global South, and the nations of the Middle East (if not their leaders) no longer wish to live under US hegemony. Jean-Paul Sartre, in his preface to Fanon's work, wrote of western colonialism: “Our Machiavellianism has little purchase on this wide-awake world that has run our falsehoods to earth one after the other. The settler has only recourse to one thing: brute force… the native has only one choice, between servitude and supremacy.” Fanon was a revolutionary thinker and a practising psychiatrist of colonial racism and its psychic impact on the colonised, and the coloniser. He and Sartre were writing about France’s imminent defeat in Algeria after seven years of brutal war. [...] Western powers are involved in conflicts thousands of miles from home, as they were in Fanon's time in Algeria, Congo and Indochina. Today the western political class has united behind Ukraine and Israel, but for millions of people it is no longer clear that the wars are worth fighting.  As Yemen’s spokesman, Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, put it: “The war today is between Yemen which is struggling to stop the crimes of genocide, and the American and British coalition [who] support its perpetrators. Every party or individual in this world has two choices that have no thirds… who do you stand with as you watch these crimes?” Fanon, writing 63 years ago, agrees: “The colonial world is a Manichaean world… at times this Manichaeism goes to its logical conclusion and dehumanises the native, or to speak plainly, it turns him into an animal. The native is declared insensible to ethics; he represents not only the absence of values, but the negation of values… he is the enemy of values, and in this sense he is the absolute evil. “The native knows all this, and laughs to himself every time he spots an allusion to the animal world in the other’s words. For he knows he is not an animal, and it is precisely at the moment he realises his humanity that he begins to sharpen the weapons with which he will secure victory.”

. . . full article on MEE (1 Feb 2024)

You can also find a free copy of Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth on the Internet Archive (available as a PDF, EPUB etc.)

[mariacallous]

For much of living memory, the United States has been a global leader of scientific research and innovation. From the polio vaccine, to decoding the first human chromosome, to the first heart bypass surgery, American research has originated a seemingly endless list of health care advances that are taken for granted.

But when the Trump administration issued a memorandum Monday that paused all federal grants and loans—with the aim of ensuring that funding recipients are complying with the president’s raft of recent executive orders—US academia ground to a halt. Since then, the freeze has been partially rescinded for some sectors, but it largely remains in place for universities and research institutions across the country, with no certainty of what comes next.

“This has immediate impact on people’s lives,” says J9 Austin, professor of psychiatry and medical genetics at the University of British Columbia. “And it’s terrifying.”

The funding freeze requires agencies to submit reviews of their funded programs to the Office of Management and Budget by February 10. The freeze follows separate orders issued last week to US health agencies—including to the National Institutes of Health, which leads the country’s medical research—to pause all communications until February 1 and stop almost all travel indefinitely.

The confusion is consummate. If the funding freeze continues through February, and even beyond, how will graduate students be paid? Should grant applications—years long in the writing—still be submitted by the triannual grant submission deadline on February 5? What does this mean for clinical trials if participants and lab techs can’t be paid? Will all that research have to be scrapped thanks to incomplete data?

Even if Trump fully reverses the freeze on research funding, the damage, multiple sources say, has been done. Although for now the funding freeze is temporary, the administration has shown how it might wield the levers of government. The implication is that withdrawing funding could be done more permanently, and could be done to individual institutions, individual organizations, both private and public. This won’t just set a precedent for the large East Coast or West Coast universities, but those located in both red and blue states alike.

While always an imperfect arrangement, science in the US is largely funded by a complex system of grant applications, reviews by peers in the field (both of which have had to be halted as part of the communications pause), and the competitive distribution of NIH funds, says Gerald Keusch, emeritus professor of medicine at Boston University and former associate director of international research for the NIH. According to its website, the NIH disburses nearly $48 billion in grants per year.

When it comes to medical research, America truly is first, and if it abdicates that position, the void left behind has global ramifications. “In Canada, we have always looked to NIH as an exemplar of what we should be trying to do,” says Austin, speaking to me independently of any roles and affiliations. “Now, that’s collapsed.”

Science is, in its very nature, collaborative. Many consortiums and alliances within scientific fields cross borders and language barriers. Some labs may be able to find additional funding from alternative sources such as the European Union. But it is unlikely that a continued withdrawal of NIH funding could be plugged by overseas support. And Big Pharma, with its seemingly endless funds, is unlikely to step up either, according to sources WIRED spoke with.

“This can’t be handed off to drug companies or biotech, because they’re not interested in things that are as preclinical as a lot of the work we’re discussing here,” says a professor of genetics who agreed to speak anonymously out of fear of retribution. “Essentially, there’s a whole legion of university-based scientists who work super damn hard to try to figure out some basic stuff that eventually becomes something that a drug company can drop $100 million on.”

The millions of dollars awarded to high-achieving labs is used to fund graduate students, lab techs, and analysts. If the principal investigator on a research team is unsuccessful in obtaining a grant through the process Keusch describes, often that lab is closed, and those ancillary team members lose their jobs.

One of the potential downstream effects of an NIH funding loss, even if only temporary, is a mass domestic brain drain. “Many of those people are going to go out to find something else to do,” the professor of genetics says. “These are just like jobs for anything else—we can’t not pay people for a month. What would the food service industry be like, for example, or grocery stores, if they don’t pay somebody for a month? Their workers will leave, and pharma can only hire so many people.”

WIRED heard over and over, from scientists too fearful for their teams and their jobs to speak on the record, that it won’t take long for the impact to reach the general population. With a loss of research funding comes the closure of hospitals and universities. And gains in medical advancement will likely falter too.

Conditions being studied with NIH funding are not only rare diseases affecting 1 or 2 percent of the population. They’re problems such as cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s—issues that affect your grandmother, your friends, and so many people who will one day fall out of perfect health. It’s thanks to this research system, and the scientists working within it, that doctors know how to save someone from a heart attack, regulate diabetes, lower cholesterol, and reduce the risk of stroke. It’s how the world knows that smoking isn’t a good idea. “All of that is knowledge that scientists funded by the NIH have generated, and if you throw this big of a wrench in it, it’s going to disrupt absolutely everything,” says the genetics professor.

While some are hopeful that the funding freeze for academia could end on February 1, when the pause on communications and therefore grant reviews is slated to lift, the individuals WIRED spoke with are largely skeptical that work will simply resume as before.

“When the wheels of government stop, it’s not like they turn on a dime and they just start up again,” says Julie Scofield, a former executive director of NASTAD, a US-based health nonprofit. She adds that she has colleagues in Washington, DC, who have had funding returned to their fields, and yet remain unable to access payment through the management system.

Austin says that already the international scientific community is holding hastily arranged online support groups. Topics covered range from the banal—what the most recent communication from the White House implies—to how best to protect trainees and the many students on international visas. But mostly they’re there to provide support.

“I’ve had a lot of messages from people just expressing gratitude that we could actually get together,” Austin says. “There’s just so much unaddressable need. None of us has the answers.”

Scientists, perhaps more than any other profession, are trained to “learn and validate conclusions drawn from observation and experimentation,” says Keutsch. That applies to the current situation. And what they observe during this pause of chaos does not portend well for the future of the United States as a pinnacle of scientific excellence.

“If people want the United States to head toward being a second-class nation, this is exactly what to do. If the goal is, in fact, to make America great, this is not a way to do it,” says the genetics professor. “This is not a rational, thoughtful, effective thing to do. It will merely destroy.”

This story has been written under a pseudonym, as the reporter has specific and credible concerns about potential retaliation.

[aithusarosekiller]

Can't wait for when everyone stops making all the marauders American and instead focuses on the fact that Lily (+severus) was raised in an industrial midlands town in the years between WW2 and Thatcher. And then choose to think about how that may have impacted her life as someone who was raised in a lower-middle class family who likely had dangerous jobs in the industrial sector while her schoolmates for from ancient prestigious bloodlines who hated her for existing.

Or that the fact despite his parents being well-off, Remus as an outcast is a stereotype of the entire British working class and the way the government will always blame minorities or those on benefits as a way to keep them down and maintain power, ESPECIALLY when he grows up and has to scramble to keep his life together, as many council-housed Brits have to do

Or how the black brothers and James were both raised in really posh parts of the south. The black traditional family being strategically placed in a rich borough of London, only a small drive from Westminster itself to reinforce the way their family uphold and push for oppressive traditional values, mainly at the expense of those in typically poorer areas (like the midlands and north). James was likely raised in a large, wealthy rural area with a great separation from the rest of society, allowing him to form as an arrogant boy, disconnected from the rest of society until he was in school.

But that's probably never gonna happen tbf

[blueiscoool]

Egypt Announces Discovery of the Lost Tomb of King Thutmose II

Egyptian officials announced Tuesday the discovery of the tomb of King Thutmose II, the last of the lost tombs of the kings of ancient Egypt's Eighteenth Dynasty, which reigned for over two centuries between about 1550 BC and 1292 BC. It's the first royal Egyptian tomb to be discovered since King Tutankhamun's final resting place was found in 1922.

A joint Egyptian-British archaeological mission discovered Thutmose II's tomb in the mount of Thebes area, west of Luxor and the renowned Valley of the Kings. The team and the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, which made the announcement, said evidence was discovered that clearly indicates it was King Thutmose II's tomb during excavations of what had previously been known only as tomb No. C4.

The entrance and main passage into the structure were discovered in 2022, and internal excavations have continued meticulously since then.

Dr. Mohamed Ismail Khaled, Secretary-General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said when the mission first found the entrance to the tomb and its main passage almost three years ago, the team believed it could belong to one of the wives of the kings, given its proximity to the tomb of the wives of King Thutmose III and its proximity to the tomb of Queen Hatshepsut, which was prepared for her as a royal wife before she became ruler of the ancient kingdom. She ended up being buried in the Valley of the Kings, due to her ascent to the throne.

As the excavation work and examination of artifacts continued, the mission found new evidence that identified the owner of the mysterious tomb as King Thutmose II, suggesting also that his burial rites were carried out by Queen Hatshepsut, who was his wife and half-sister.

Khaled said parts of alabaster vessels found in the ruins have inscriptions bearing the name of King Thutmose II and identifying him as the "deceased king," along with the name of his wife, Hatshepsut, all of which he said had helped to confirm Thutmose II as the owner of the tomb.

He described the discovery as one of the most important archaeological finds in recent years. The artifacts discovered are important additions to the body of knowledge around the history of the area and the reign of King Thutmose II.

The mummy of King Thutmose II was discovered during the 19th century, not far away at another archaeological site known as the Deir el-Bahari Cachette, to which the it was likely moved centuries after being looted by tomb raiders, according to the relatively new National Museum of Egyptian Civilization. His mummy is now on display, among those of other ancient royals, at the museum.

The tomb is in a poor state of preservation due largely to exposure to floods shortly after Thutmose II's death, according to Mohamed Abdel Badie, Head of the Egyptian Antiquities Sector at the Supreme Council of Antiquities and Head of the Egyptian team that has worked on the dig. Abdel Badie said initial studies also indicate much of the original contents of the tomb were moved to another location after the ancient floods.

He said the teams had discovered mortar in the tomb with remnants of blue inscriptions and yellow stars, and some paragraphs from the book of "Imydwat," which is one of the most important funerary books found in ancient Egyptian tombs, written to help guide the late royals through their underworld journey.

Dr. Piers Litherland, head of the English team at the site, said the tomb is characterized by a simple architectural design typical of those chosen by the successive rulers of Egypt who came after Thutmose II.

Litherland said the mission would continue its survey work and try to determine where the rest of the contents from Thutmose II's tomb were relocated to, and to uncover any further secrets that may have been locked beneath the earth for millennia.

By Ahmed Shawkat.