The Valley of the Queens is a site in Egypt, where the wives of pharaohs were buried in ancient times. It was known then as Ta-Set-Neferu, meaning "the place of beauty". It was most famous for being the burial site of many wives of Pharaohs. Pharaohs themselves were buried in the Valley of the Kings.
Tomb KV60 is an ancient Egyptian tomb in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt. It was discovered by Howard Carter in 1903, and re-excavated by Donald P. Ryan in 1989. It is one of the more perplexing tombs of the Theban Necropolis, due to the uncertainty over the identity of one female mummy found there (KV60A). She is identified by some, such as Egyptologist Elizabeth Thomas, to be that of the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Hatshepsut; this identification is advocated for by Zahi Hawass.
Tomb WV22, also known as KV22, was the burial place of the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Amenhotep III. Located in the Western arm of the Valley of the Kings, the tomb is unique in that it has two subsidiary burial chambers for the pharaoh's wives Tiye and Sitamen. It was officially discovered by Prosper Jollois and Édouard de Villiers du Terrage, engineers with Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in August 1799, but had probably been open for some time. The tomb was first excavated by Theodore M. Davis, the details of which are lost. The first documented clearance was carried out by Howard Carter in 1915. Since 1989, a Japanese team from Waseda University led by Sakuji Yoshimura and Jiro Kondo has excavated and conserved the tomb. The sarcophagus is missing from the tomb. The tomb's layout and decoration follow the tombs of the king's predecessors, Amenhotep II (KV35) and Thutmose IV (KV43); however, the decoration is much finer in quality. Several images of the pharaoh's head have been cut out and can be seen today in the Louvre.
Tomb KV42 is an ancient Egyptian tomb located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It was constructed for Hatshepsut-Meryetre, the wife of Thutmose III, but she was not buried in the tomb. It may have been reused by Sennefer, a mayor of Thebes during the reign of Amenhotep II, and by several members of his family. The tomb has a cartouche-shaped burial chamber, like other early Eighteenth Dynasty tombs.
Tomb KV43 is the tomb of Pharaoh Thutmose IV in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. It has a dog-leg shape, typical of the layout of early 18th Dynasty tombs. KV43 was rediscovered in 1903 by Howard Carter, excavating on behalf of Theodore M. Davis.
KV20 is a tomb in the Valley of the Kings (Egypt). It was probably the first royal tomb to be constructed in the valley. KV20 was the original burial place of Thutmose I and later was adapted by his daughter Hatshepsut to accommodate her and her father. The tomb was known to the Napoleonic expedition in 1799 and had been visited by several explorers between 1799 and 1903. A full clearance of the tomb was undertaken by Howard Carter in 1903–1904. KV20 is distinguishable from other tombs in the valley, both in its general layout and because of the atypical clockwise curvature of its corridors.
Tomb KV19, located in a side branch of Egypt's Valley of the Kings, was intended as the burial place of Prince Ramesses Sethherkhepshef, better known as Pharaoh Ramesses VIII, but was later used for the burial of Prince Mentuherkhepshef instead, the son of Ramesses IX, who predeceased his father. Though incomplete and used "as is," the decoration is considered to be of the highest quality.
Tomb KV39 in Egypt's Valley of the Kings is one of the possible locations of the tomb of Pharaoh Amenhotep I. It is located high in the cliffs, away from the main valley bottom and other royal burials. It is in a small wadi that runs from the east side of Al-Qurn, directly under the ridge where the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina lies. The layout of the tomb is unique. It has two axes, one east and one south. Its construction seems to have occurred in three phases. It began as a simple straight axis tomb that never continued past the first room. In the subsequent phase, a series of long descending corridors and steps were cut to the east and south. It was discovered around 1900 by either Victor Loret or Macarious and Andraos but was not fully examined. It was excavated between 1989 and 1994 by John Rose and was further examined in 2002 by Ian Buckley. Based on the tomb's architecture and pottery found, it was likely cut in the early Eighteenth Dynasty, possibly for a queen. Fragmentary remains of burials were recovered from parts of the tomb but who they belong to is unknown. KV39's location may fit the description of the tomb of Amenhotep I given in the Abbott Papyrus but this is the subject of debate.
Tomb KV56, also known as the Gold Tomb, is a tomb located in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt. It was discovered by Edward R. Ayrton in January 1908 and contained what is thought to be the intact burial of a royal child from the late Nineteenth Dynasty. The burial and casket have disintegrated, leaving a thin layer of gold leaf and stucco in the original location. Most famously the tomb contained spectacular gold and silver jewellery including earrings, rings, silver bracelets with the names of Seti II and Twosret inscribed, and a pair of small silver gloves. The original occupant of this tomb is unknown but was possibly an Eighteenth Dynasty queen.
Tomb KV61 is an unused tomb in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. It was discovered by Harold Jones, excavating on behalf of Theodore M. Davis, in January 1910. The tomb consists of an irregularly-cut room at the bottom of a shaft. It was apparently unused and undecorated, thus its intended owner is unknown.
Tomb KV1, located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, was used for the burial of Pharaoh Ramesses VII of the Twentieth Dynasty. Although it has been open since antiquity, it was only properly investigated and cleared by Edwin Brock in 1984 and 1985. The single corridor tomb is located in Luxor's West Bank, and is small in comparison to other tombs of the Twentieth Dynasty.
Tomb KV47, located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, was used for the burial of Pharaoh Siptah of the Nineteenth Dynasty. It was discovered on December 18, 1905 by Edward R. Ayrton, excavating on behalf of Theodore M. Davis; Siptah's mummy had been found earlier, cached in KV35. It was the last of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasty kings tombs to be uncovered in the Valley. Ayrton stopped his excavation in 1907 due to safety fears, and Harry Burton returned in 1912 to dig further. The cutting of a side passage was halted after the workmen cut into Side Chamber Ja of the tomb of Tia'a (KV32). The tomb was unfinished at the time of its use.
Tomb KV57 is the royal tomb of Horemheb, the last pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty and is located in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt.
Tomb KV26 is an ancient Egyptian tomb of the Eighteenth Dynasty located in Egypt's Valley of the Kings. It is located in a side valley leading to the tomb of Thutmose III (KV34). It was visited by the early Egyptologist James Burton in the 1820s or 1830s, and by Victor Loret in 1898. It was mapped in the 1980s by the Theban Mapping Project. The first documented excavation of the tomb was carried out in 2009 by the University of Basel's Kings' Valley Project. The tomb contained evidence of at least one burial and fragmented pottery and stone vessels of mid-Eighteenth Dynasty date but nothing is known about its occupant(s).
Tomb KV49, located in the Valley of the Kings, in Egypt is a typical Eighteenth Dynasty corridor tomb. It was the first of a series of tombs discovered in 1906 by Edward R. Ayrton in the course of his excavations on behalf of Theodore M. Davis. The tomb was abandoned before it was completed, and the work was halted as the stairwell in the single chamber was being cut. It was probably used as a store for royal linen, or was used as a mummy-restoration area in the later New Kingdom.
Tomb KV29 is an ancient Egyptian tomb in the Valley of the Kings, in the Theban Necropolis of Egypt. It is located near the mid-Eighteenth Dynasty tombs of Tiaa (KV32), Thutmose II or Merytre-Hatshepsut (KV42), and Thutmose III (KV34). The tomb was known since the 1830s and given the number KV29 in 1899 but no records of an earlier excavation exist. The entrance shaft was previously planned by the Theban Mapping Project in the 1990s. The tomb was first excavated by the University of Basel King's Valley Project in 2011. Excavation continued in 2016 but the rest of the tomb is filled with debris and its layout is unknown.
Tomb KV27 is located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. This tomb was visited by John Wilkinson, but was not fully explored until the 1990s, by Donald P. Ryan of Pacific Lutheran University. The tomb consists of four rooms and is undecorated; nothing is known about its occupant.
The Valley of the Kings, also known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings, is an area in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the Eighteenth Dynasty to the Twentieth Dynasty, rock-cut tombs were excavated for pharaohs and powerful nobles under the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt.
KV64 is the tomb of an unknown Eighteenth Dynasty individual in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt that was re-used in the Twenty-second Dynasty for the burial of the priestess Nehmes Bastet, who held the office of "chantress" at the temple of Karnak. The tomb is located on the pathway to KV34 in the main Valley of the Kings. KV64 was discovered in 2011 and excavated in 2012 by Susanne Bickel and Elina Paulin-Grothe of the University of Basel.
The majority of the 65 numbered tombs in the Valley of the Kings can be considered minor tombs, either because at present they have yielded little information or because the results of their investigation was only poorly recorded by their explorers, while some have received very little attention or were only cursorily noted. Most of these tombs are small, often only consisting of a single burial chamber accessed by means of a shaft or a staircase with a corridor or a series of corridors leading to the chamber, but some are larger, multiple chambered tombs. These minor tombs served various purposes, some were intended for burials of lesser royalty or for private burials, some contained animal burials and others apparently never received a primary burial. In many cases these tombs also served secondary functions and later intrusive material has been found related to these secondary activities. While some of these tombs have been open since antiquity, the majority were discovered in the 19th and early 20th centuries during the height of exploration in the valley.
