Last updated Some of the pottery, dishes and other items found in KV54, the Embalming cache of Tutankhamun, on display at the Metropolitan Museum.
An embalming cache is a collection of material that was used by the ancient Egyptians in the mummification process and then buried either with or separately from the body. It is believed that because the materials had come in contact with the body, they had possibly absorbed part of it, and needed to be buried in order for the body to be complete in the afterlife.[1]
The best known embalming cache is KV54,[2] sometimes called the Embalming cache of Tutankhamun, discovered and excavated by Edward R. Ayrton in 1907. Theodore M. Davis showed the find to Herbert E. Winlock who could not see much in it at that time, so Davis donated the whole lot to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1909. In 1940, Winlock took the matter up again and bones from food in a storage jar were examined in the American Museum of Natural History as well as analysis of the bandages made. The hieratic and hieroglyphic inscriptions from the cache have been discussed by scholars of that time. Winlock presented the results 1942 in his book Material used at the embalming of king Tut-Ankh-Amun.[3] Not so much a tomb as a pit, it contained about a dozen large sealed storage jars. Within them were contained pottery, dishes, bags of natron, animal bones, floral collars and linen containing text dated to the final years of the then little-known 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Tutankhamun.[4] It was later determined that that material not only contained material used in the embalming process (such as bags of natron and linen), but the remains of food used in the funerary banquet held at the conclusion of the pharaoh's interment.[5] When Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered in 1922, many small items similar to those found in the KV54 cache were found in the initial entryway, leading to the suggestion that following the initial robbery of the tomb, the embalming materials and burial party refuse were moved to KV54.[1]
The most recently excavated tomb in the Valley of the Kings, KV63, is also thought by many to be another embalming cache. Like the KV54 cache, it contained no mummies, but its many jars contained similar materials, including natron, wood, seeds, shells, carbon, assorted pottery, small animal bones, papyrus fragments, mud trays, mud seals, and pieces of twine or rope.[6]
Not all embalming materials were necessarily kept separate from their owners. At least two non-royal interments in the Valley of the Kings, KV36 (The Tomb of Maiherpri), and KV46 (Tomb of Yuya and Thuya), contained dozens of jars within their tombs holding embalming refuse.[1]
Notes
1 2 3 Bickerstaffe, Dylan (2007). "Embalming Caches in The Valley of the Kings". KMT: A Modern Journal of Ancient Egypt. KMT Communications. 18 (2): 49.
↑ Forbes, Dennis C. (1998). Tombs, Treasures, Mummies: Seven Great Discoveries of Egyptian Archaeology. Sebastopol, CA: KMT Communications. ISBN1-879388-06-5. p. 322.
KV55 is a tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It was discovered by Edward R. Ayrton in 1907 while he was working in the Valley for Theodore M. Davis. It has long been speculated, as well as much disputed, that the body found in this tomb was that of the famous king, Akhenaten, who moved the capital to Akhetaten. The results of genetic and other scientific tests published in February 2010 have confirmed that the person buried there was both the son of Amenhotep III and the father of Tutankhamun. Furthermore, the study established that the age of this person at the time of his death was consistent with that of Akhenaten, thereby making it almost certain that it is Akhenaten's body. However, a growing body of work soon began to appear to dispute the assessment of the age of the mummy and the identification of KV55 as Akhenaten.
The tomb of Tutankhamun, also known by its tomb number, KV62, is the burial place of Tutankhamun, a pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of ancient Egypt, in the Valley of the Kings. The tomb consists of four chambers and an entrance staircase and corridor. It is smaller and less extensively decorated than other Egyptian royal tombs of its time, and it probably originated as a tomb for a non-royal individual that was adapted for Tutankhamun's use after his premature death. Like other pharaohs, Tutankhamun was buried with a wide variety of funerary objects and personal possessions, such as coffins, furniture, clothing and jewelry, though in the unusually limited space these goods had to be densely packed. Robbers entered the tomb twice in the years immediately following the burial, but Tutankhamun's mummy and most of the burial goods remained intact. The tomb's low position, dug into the floor of the valley, allowed its entrance to be hidden by debris deposited by flooding and tomb construction. Thus, unlike other tombs in the valley, it was not stripped of its valuables during the Third Intermediate Period.
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 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 Belzoni in 1817; he found eight Third Intermediate Period mummies inside. The tomb was excavated in 1972 by the University of Minnesota's Egyptian Expedition (UMEE) led by Otto Schaden. The project uncovered pieces of the eight mummies, along with artefacts from a late Eighteenth Dynasty royal burial.
Tomb KV46 in the Valley of the Kings is the tomb of the ancient Egyptian noble Yuya and his wife Thuya, the parents of Queen Tiye and Anen. It was discovered in February 1905 by Chief Inspector of Antiquities James E. Quibell, excavating under the sponsorship of American millionaire Theodore M. Davis. Despite robberies in antiquity, the undecorated tomb preserved a great deal of its original contents including chests, beds, chairs, a chariot, and numerous storage jars. Additionally, the riffled but undamaged mummies of Yuya and Thuya were found within their disturbed coffin sets. Prior to the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, this was considered to be one of the greatest discoveries in Egyptology.
Thuya was an Egyptian noblewoman and the mother of queen Tiye, and the wife of Yuya. She is the grandmother of Akhenaten, and great grandmother of Tutankhamun.
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.
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.
Tomb KV21 is an ancient Egyptian tomb located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It was discovered in 1817 by Giovanni Belzoni and later re-excavated by Donald P. Ryan in 1989. It contains the mummies of two women, thought to be Eighteenth Dynasty queens. In 2010, a team headed by Zahi Hawass used DNA evidence to tentatively identify one mummy, KV21A, as the biological mother of the two fetuses preserved in the tomb of King Tutankhamun.
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.
KV31 is an ancient Egyptian tomb located in the Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt. Only the top of the shaft was known prior to excavation by the University of Basel Kings' Valley Project in 2010, and no earlier excavations are known, although it is suggested that the stone sarcophagus excavated by Giovanni Battista Belzoni in 1817 may have originated from this tomb. The tomb was found to be filled with mixed debris of pottery sherds and linen fragments, as well as the remains of five mummified elite individuals dating to the Eighteenth Dynasty.
Tomb KV54 is located in the Valley of the Kings, in Egypt. It was originally excavated by Edward R. Ayrton on behalf of the American lawyer Theodore M. Davis, who funded the work.
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.
Herbert Eustis Winlock was an American Egyptologist and archaeologist, employed by the Metropolitan Museum of Art for his entire career. Between 1906 and 1931 he took part in excavations at El-Lisht, Kharga Oasis and around Luxor, before serving as director of the Metropolitan Museum from 1932 to 1939.
KV63 is a chamber in Egypt's Valley of the Kings pharaonic necropolis. Initially believed to be a royal tomb, it is now believed to have been a storage chamber for the mummification process. It was found in 2005 by a team of archaeologists led by Dr. Otto Schaden.
Theodore M. Davis was an American lawyer and businessman. He is best known for his excavations in Egypt's Valley of the Kings between 1902 and 1913.
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.
KV65 is a tomb commencement located in the Western Valley of the Kings, near Luxor, Egypt. It was discovered in 2018 by a team led by the Egyptologist Zahi Hawass and announced in 2019. The tomb consists of a sloping rectangular pit of similar proportions to the entrances of royal tombs from the Eighteenth Dynasty. It contained a variety of items consisting of construction tools, pieces of rope, animal bones, leather, pottery, and food remains. It may represent a cache where the remains of a funerary feast and embalming material was buried, similar to the embalming cache of Tutankhamun, KV54.
The Younger Lady is the informal name given to a mummy discovered within tomb KV35 in the Valley of the Kings by archaeologist Victor Loret in 1898. The mummy also has been given the designation KV35YL and 61072, and currently resides in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Through recent DNA tests, this mummy has been identified as the mother of the pharaoh Tutankhamun and a daughter of pharaoh Amenhotep III and his Great Royal Wife Tiye. Early speculation that this mummy was the remains of Nefertiti was argued to be incorrect, as nowhere is Nefertiti accorded the title "King's daughter."
Mummies 317a and 317b were the infant daughters of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Their mother is presumed to be Ankhesenamun, his only known wife, who has been tentatively identified through DNA testing as the mummy KV21A. 317a was born prematurely at 5–6 months' gestation, and 317b was born at or near full term. They are assumed to have been stillborn or died shortly after birth.
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