KV11
Tomb KV11 is the tomb of Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Ramesses III. Located in the main valley of the Valley of the Kings, the tomb was started by Setnakhte, but abandoned when it broke into the earlier tomb of Amenmesse. Setnakhte was buried in KV14; the tomb KV11 was restarted and extended and on a different axis for Ramesses III. The tomb has been open since antiquity, has been known variously as Bruce's Tomb and The Harper's Tomb; the 188-metre-long tomb is beautifully decorated. The second corridor is decorated with the Litany of Re. At the end of this corridor the axis of the tomb shifts; this third corridor is decorated with the Book of Gates and the Book of Amduat, leads over a ritual shaft, into a four-pillared hall. This hall is again decorated with the Book of Gates. A fourth corridor (decorated with scenes of the opening of the mouth ceremony and leads into a vestibule, with scenes of the Book of the Dead, into the burial chamber proper; the burial chamber is an eight-pillared hall in. This chamber is decorated with Book of divine scenes and the Book of the Earth.
Beyond this is a further set of annexes, decorated with the Book of Gates. Reeves, N & Wilkinson, R. H; the Complete Valley of the Kings, 1996, Thames and Hudson, London. Siliotti, A. Guide to the Valley of the Kings and to the Theban Necropolises and Temples, 1996, A. A. Gaddis, Cairo. Theban Mapping Project: KV11 - Includes description and plans of the tomb. Images taken from 3d models showing the breakthrough into KV10 from KV11
KV46
Tomb KV46 in the Valley of the Kings is the tomb of Yuya and his wife Tjuyu, the parents of Queen Tiye, the wife of Amenhotep III, King Ay. It was discovered in February 1905 by James E. Quibell. Quibell was sponsored by Theodore M. Davis, who published an account of the excavation in 1907. KV 46 consists of a staircase leading down to a further descending corridor and a unique burial chamber; the walls of the tomb are not decorated and were never meant to be: the walls are unplastered and were not smoothed. Until the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, this was the richest and best preserved tomb found in the valley, the first to be found with major items in situ apart from the Tomb of Kha or TT8, rather the tomb of an Egyptian nobleman. Located in a small branch of the main valley between two Ramesside tombs, KV46 contained the intact sarcophagi of Yuya and Tjuyu. Differences in the embalming techniques used for Yuya and Tjuyu indicates that they died at different times and were placed in the tomb accordingly.
KV46 was robbed in antiquity, most three times: a first time shortly after the closure of the tomb, twice during the construction of the adjacent tombs KV3 and KV4. During the first looting, only perishable products such as oil were removed; the second and third times however the looters took most of the jewellery but were not able to remove Yuya and Tjuyu's funerary masks. Davis, Theodore M; the Tomb of Iouiya and Touiyou. London: Duckworth Press, 2000. ISBN 0-7156-2963-8 Theban Mapping Project: KV46 - Includes detailed map of the tomb
KV32
Tomb KV32, located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, is the burial site of Tia'a, the wife of Amenhotep II and mother of Thutmose IV. The tomb was discovered in 1898 by Victor Loret, it is unfinished and undecorated, runs back some 40 metres into the mountainside. A portion of it was penetrated by workmen digging the original burial chamber in the tomb of Siptah KV47. KV32 has not yet been cleared or excavated, but work is underway by a team from the University of Basel's MISR Project. Theban Mapping Project: KV32 - Includes detailed maps of most of the tombs
KV35
Tomb KV35 is an ancient Egyptian tomb located in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. It was discovered by Victor Loret in March 1898 and contains the tomb of Amenhotep II, it was used as a cache for others. It has a dog's leg shape, typical of the layout of early Eighteenth Dynasty tombs, but several features make this tomb stand out; the burial chamber is a rectangular shape and divided into upper and lower pillared sections, with the lower part holding the sarcophagus of the king. This style of burial chamber became'standard' for royal burials in the New Kingdom; the tomb was used as a mummy cache. Mummies belonging to the following individuals were relocated here during the Third Intermediate Period and were identified by inscriptions on their burial wrappings: Amenhotep II Side Chamber: Thutmose IV Amenhotep III Merneptah Seti II Siptah Ramesses IV Ramesses V Ramesses VI Queen Tiye, identified as the so-called Elder Lady in February 2010 via DNA testing. A prince, identified by some as Webensenu son of Amenhotep II whose canopic jars were found in the tomb or Thutmose, elder son of Amenhotep III and Tiye The Younger Lady who, in June 2003, was controversially claimed to be Nefertiti by British Egyptologist Joann Fletcher, whereas Egyptologist Zahi Hawass believed it to be Kiya, another wife of Akhenaten, believed by some to be the birth mother of Tutankhamun.
Some believed this mummy to be a male. However, with DNA testing, this mummy was shown in February 2010 to be a woman, the mother of Tutankhamun, the daughter of Amenhotep III and Tiye, her name, remains unknown, leaving open the possibility that she is either Nebetiah or Beketaten. An unknown woman D in an upturned lid of a coffin inscribed for Setnakhte. Two skulls were found in the well and an anonymous arm was found with the above "Younger Lady". A body on a boat was destroyed at the start of the twentieth century. William Max Miller's Theban Royal Mummy Project
KV2
Tomb KV2, found in the Valley of the Kings, is the tomb of Ramesses IV, is located low down in the main valley, between KV7 and KV1. It contains a large amount of graffiti. There are two known plans of the tomb's layout contemporary to its construction. One on papyrus provides a detailed depiction of the tomb at 1:28 scale. All of the passages and chambers are present, with measurements written in hieratic script; the papyrus plan depicts the pharaoh's sarcophagus surrounded by four concentric sets of shrines, the same layout of shrines that were found intact within Tutankhamun's tomb. The other plan of the tomb was found inscribed on a slab of limestone not far from the tomb's entrance, is a rough layout of the tomb depicting the location of its doors; the latter plan may have just been a "workman's doodle" but the papyrus plan certainly had a deeper ritual meaning, may have been used to consecrate the tomb after it was built. A hieratic ostracon has been discovered mentioning the founding of the tomb, its place selected by the local Governor and two of the pharaoh's chief attendants in the second year of his reign.
Ramesses IV ascended the throne late in life, to ensure that he would have a sizable tomb, he doubled the size of the existing work gangs at Deir el-Medina to a total of 120 men. Though sizable, KV2 has been described as being "simplistic" in its decoration; the tomb was excavated at the base of a hill on the northwest side of the Valley of the Kings. Like other tombs of the 20th Dynasty, KV2 is laid out along a straight axis; the successors of Ramesses III from this dynasty constructed tombs that follow this pattern and most were decorated in a similar manner to each other. The tomb has a maximum length of 88.66 m and consists of three descending corridors labeled B, C, D. This is followed by an enlarged chamber, the burial chamber. Past the burial chamber lies a narrow corridor flanked by three side chambers; the tomb is intact and is decorated with scenes from the Litany of Ra, Book of Caverns, Book of the Dead, Book of Amduat and the Book of the Heavens. The sarcophagus is broken, the mummy was relocated to the mummy cache in KV35.
The tomb was one of about eleven tombs open to early travelers. KV2 contains the second-highest number of ancient graffiti within it, with 656 individual griffitos left by both Ancient Greek and Roman visitors; this tomb contains around 50 or so examples of Coptic graffiti sketched onto the right wall by the entranceway, The tomb was used as a dwelling by Coptic monks, there are depictions of Coptic saints and crosses on the tomb's walls. Early European visitors to the area included Richard Pococke, who visited KV2 and designated it "Tomb B" in his Observations of Egypt, published in 1743; the savants accompanying Napoleon's campaign in Egypt surveyed the Valley of the Kings and designated KV2 as "IIe Tombeau" in their list. Other visitors of note included James Burton who mapped out the tomb in 1825, the Franco-Tuscan Expedition of 1828-1829 did an epigraphic survey of the tomb's inscriptions. Archeologist Edward Ayrton excavated the entranceway to the tomb during 1905/1906, followed by Howard Carter in 1920.
Both of them found remnants of the materials which had come from inside the tomb, such as shabtis, numerous ostraca and fragments of wood and Faience. Reeves, N & Wilkinson, R. H; the Complete Valley of the Kings, 1996, Thames and Hudson, London Siliotti, A. Guide to the Valley of the Kings and to the Theban Necropolises and Temples, 1996, A. A. Gaddis, Cairo Theban Mapping Project: KV2 - Includes description and plans of the tomb
Book of the Dead
The Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian funerary text, used from the beginning of the New Kingdom to around 50 BCE. The original Egyptian name for the text, transliterated rw nw prt m hrw, is translated as Book of Coming Forth by Day or Book of Emerging Forth into the Light. "Book" is the closest term to describe the loose collection of texts consisting of a number of magic spells intended to assist a dead person's journey through the Duat, or underworld, into the afterlife and written by many priests over a period of about 1000 years. The Book of the Dead was part of a tradition of funerary texts which includes the earlier Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts, which were painted onto objects, not papyrus; some of the spells included were drawn from these older works and date to the 3rd millennium BCE. Other spells were composed in Egyptian history, dating to the Third Intermediate Period. A number of the spells which made up the Book continued to be inscribed on tomb walls and sarcophagi, as had always been the spells from which they originated.
The Book of the Dead was placed in the burial chamber of the deceased. There was no canonical Book of the Dead; the surviving papyri contain a varying selection of religious and magical texts and vary in their illustration. Some people seem to have commissioned their own copies of the Book of the Dead choosing the spells they thought most vital in their own progression to the afterlife; the Book of the Dead was most written in hieroglyphic or hieratic script on a papyrus scroll, illustrated with vignettes depicting the deceased and their journey into the afterlife. The finest of examples we have of the Egyptian Book of the Dead in antiquity is the Papyrus of Ani, an Egyptian scribe, it is at the British Museum in London, was discovered by and was taken out of Egypt in 1888 by Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, was brought to the British Museum, where it resides; the Book of the Dead developed from a tradition of funerary manuscripts dating back to the Egyptian Old Kingdom. The first funerary texts were the Pyramid Texts, first used in the Pyramid of King Unas of the 5th dynasty, around 2400 BCE.
These texts were written on the walls of the burial chambers within pyramids, were for the use of the Pharaoh. The Pyramid Texts were written in an unusual hieroglyphic style; the purpose of the Pyramid Texts was to help the dead King take his place amongst the gods, in particular to reunite him with his divine father Ra. Towards the end of the Old Kingdom, the Pyramid Texts ceased to be an royal privilege, were adopted by regional governors and other high-ranking officials. In the Middle Kingdom, a new funerary text emerged, the Coffin Texts; the Coffin Texts used a newer version of the language, new spells, included illustrations for the first time. The Coffin Texts were most written on the inner surfaces of coffins, though they are found on tomb walls or on papyri; the Coffin Texts were available to wealthy private individuals, vastly increasing the number of people who could expect to participate in the afterlife. The Book of the Dead first developed in Thebes toward the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period, around 1700 BCE.
The earliest known occurrence of the spells included in the Book of the Dead is from the coffin of Queen Mentuhotep, of the 13th dynasty, where the new spells were included amongst older texts known from the Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts. Some of the spells introduced at this time claim an older provenance. By the 17th dynasty, the Book of the Dead had become widespread not only for members of the royal family, but courtiers and other officials as well. At this stage, the spells were inscribed on linen shrouds wrapped around the dead, though they are found written on coffins or on papyrus; the New Kingdom saw the Book of the Dead spread further. The famous Spell 125, the'Weighing of the Heart', is first known from the reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, c.1475 BCE. From this period onward the Book of the Dead was written on a papyrus scroll, the text illustrated with vignettes. During the 19th dynasty in particular, the vignettes tended to be lavish, sometimes at the expense of the surrounding text.
In the Third Intermediate Period, the Book of the Dead started to appear in hieratic script, as well as in the traditional hieroglyphics. The hieratic scrolls were a cheaper version, lacking illustration apart from a single vignette at the beginning, were produced on smaller papyri. At the same time, many burials used additional funerary texts, for instance the Amduat. During the 25th and 26th dynasties, the Book of the Dead was updated and standardised. Spells were ordered and numbered for the first time; this standardised version is known today as the'Saite recension', after the Saite dynasty. In the Late period and Ptolemaic period, the Book of the Dead remained based on the Saite recension, though abbreviated towards the end of the Ptolemaic period. New funerary texts appeared, including the Book of Book of Traversing Eternity; the last use of the Book of
KV6
Tomb KV6 in Egypt's Valley of the Kings was the final resting place of the 20th-dynasty Pharaoh Ramesses IX. However, the archaeological evidence and the quality of decoration it contains indicates that the tomb was not finished in time for Ramesses's death but was hastily rushed through to completion, many corners being cut, following his demise, it is located in the central part of the Valley. Its unusually wide entrance stands between, above, those of two other interesting tombs: KV5 and KV55. Running a total distance of 105 metres into the hillside, the tomb begins with a gate and a shallow descending ramp. Following on from the ramp come three successive stretches of corridor; the first of these has four side chambers – two on each side – but none of these are decorated or finished. At the end of the corridors come three chambers; the first of these is decorated with the Opening of the Mouth ritual, it is possible that a well shaft would have been dug here had the builders been afforded more time.
The second chamber contains four large columns, but neither the stonecutting nor the decoration work were completed. At the far end of this chamber, a ramp slopes down to the actual burial chamber, where the pharaoh's sarcophagus was placed; the ceiling is vaulted, is decorated with splendid pictures of the goddess Nut. The side walls show scenes from the Book of the Earth; the far wall depicts Ramses on his barque, surrounded by a host of gods. The yellows, dark blues, blacks used to decorate this chamber are visually striking and unusual among the tomb decorations in the Valley. While the sarcophagus itself has long since vanished, Ramesses IX's mummy was one of those found in the Deir el-Bahri cache in 1881. KV6 has been open since antiquity, as can be seen by the graffiti left on its walls by Roman and Coptic visitors. Ramesses IX Tomb-plan Ostracon Reeves, N & Wilkinson, R. H; the Complete Valley of the Kings, 1996, Thames and Hudson, London Siliotti, A. Guide to the Valley of the Kings and to the Theban Necropolises and Temples, 1996, A.
A. Gaddis, Cairo KV6
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