KV44

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KV44
Burial site of unknown
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KV44
Coordinates 25°44′24.5″N32°36′10.8″E / 25.740139°N 32.603000°E / 25.740139; 32.603000 Coordinates: 25°44′24.5″N32°36′10.8″E / 25.740139°N 32.603000°E / 25.740139; 32.603000
Location East Valley of the Kings
Discovered26 January 1901
Excavated by Howard Carter (1901)
Donald P. Ryan (1991)
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KV44 is an ancient Egyptian tomb located in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt. It was discovered and excavated by Howard Carter in 1901 and was re-examined in 1991 by Donald P. Ryan. The single chamber accessed by a shaft contained three intact Twenty-second Dynasty burials; the remains of seven mummies from the original interment were found within the fill. The original cutting of the tomb is dated to the Eighteenth Dynasty. [1]

Contents

Location, discovery and layout

KV44 is located in a small side wadi that runs east from the main valley. It is located near KV28 and next to KV45. [2] The location of the tomb was already known in Western Thebes some time before late January 1901 and was opened by Howard Carter on 26 January 1901 after two days of excavation. The tomb consists of a shaft 5.5 metres (18 ft) deep ending in a single chamber. The doorway to the room was securely, if roughly, sealed. [3]

Contents

The chamber was partly filled with water-washed earth. On top of this fill sat three wooden coffins placed beside each other against one wall and draped in floral wreaths. Nearest the wall was a black-painted wooden coffin with yellow decoration and red text; this coffin contained the well wrapped mummy of Iuf'a. [3] [4] Beside this was another coffin, also painted black with yellow designs but with inlaid eyes housing a cartonnage coffin covered in resin; inside was a mummy identifiable only as a chantress by the legible portion of the inscription. [3] However, Porter and Moss identify her as Keramama. [4] The third coffin was of rough wood but contained a beautifully decorated cartonnage coffin; inside was the well wrapped mummy of Tentkeresherit, fitted with red leather mummy braces stamped at the ends with the cartouche of Osorkon I. [3] [4] Percy Newberry identified the floral wreaths as being composed of Mimusops , Mimosa nilotica , Centaurea depressa , and Nymphaea cerulea . [3]

These three burials were not the original occupants however, as Carter noted that the room was a fifth full of debris "amongst which were remains of earlier mummies without either coffins or funeral furniture". The tomb had evidently stood open for some time in the past as several bee nests were seen on the ceiling. [3]

Re-investigation

In 1991 the tomb was re-investigated by the Pacific Lutheran University Valley of the Kings Project headed by Donald P. Ryan. Other than removing the three coffins to Cairo, Carter had undertaken little work in the tomb. Careful excavation of the fill recovered the remains of seven individuals; two were young women, and three were children including one two year-old. [5] [6] The foot board of a child's coffin was also found along with an uninscribed piece of a canopic jar. Small finds included pottery fragments and a blue cylinder bead. [1]

The project resumed in 2005, and found that water had penetrated several of the tombs under study, likely during the 1994 flood events. All artefacts from KV44 and KV45, barring pottery and human remains, were moved to KV21 for protection from further flooding. [5]

Intended occupants

The intended occupants of KV44 are not known. Elizabeth Thomas proposed that this was a tomb for Anen, the brother of Tiye, the Great Royal Wife of Amenhotep III. This theory was proposed based on the clustering of late Eighteenth Dynasty tombs in this area and the fact that Anen was not buried in his known intended tomb TT120. However, Ryan's excavations found no material in the tomb to date later than the middle of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and as such there is no archaeological evidence for the burial of Anen within KV44. [7]

Citations

  1. 1 2 Reeves & Wilkinson 1996, pp. 184.
  2. Carter 1903.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Carter 1901.
  4. 1 2 3 Porter & Moss 1964, pp. 587.
  5. 1 2 Ryan 2007.
  6. Ryan 1995.
  7. Brock 1999.

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Donald P. Ryan is an American archaeologist, Egyptologist, writer and a member of the Division of Humanities at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. His areas of research interest include Egyptian archaeology, Polynesian archaeology, the history of archaeology, the history of exploration, ancient languages and scripts and experimental archaeology. He is best known for his research in Egypt including excavations in the Valley of the Kings where he investigated the long-neglected undecorated tombs in the royal cemetery. His work there resulted in the rediscovery of the lost and controversial tomb KV60, the re-opening of the long-buried KV21 with its two female and likely royal occupants, and tombs KV27, KV28, KV44, KV45 and KV48. In 2017, he rediscovered three small tombs in the Valley of the Kings which when first encountered in 1906 contained the mummies of animals including a dog and monkeys.

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.

References