Royal Wadi and tombs

Last updated

The Royal Wadi (known locally as Wadi Abu Hassah el-Bahari) is a necropolis in Amarna, Egypt. It is the burial place of the Ancient Egyptian royal family of Amarna, which reigned during the 18th Dynasty. The cemetery is a local parallel to the Valley of the Kings.

Contents

There has been a great deal of work to ease access to the Royal Tomb of Akhenaten, and to protect the tombs from damage by flash flooding. The wadi can now be journeyed along on a metalled road, and the tomb is protected by a covering and channels to divert water away from its entrance. The angle of the entrance and descent allows sunlight (Aten) to reach all the way down to the burial chamber, however the tomb is unfinished and had it been finished at the time, sunlight would not have been able to reach the chamber.

In the wadi itself, there are five tombs, the Royal Tomb of Akhenaten, three unfinished tombs in a side wadi, and what seems to be a cache, near to the Royal Tomb.

Royal Tomb

The Royal Tomb (Tomb 26) is the only decorated tomb, and contained the burial of the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Akhenaten. It includes a suite of chambers for his daughters, his mother and probably Nefertiti, although she was never buried there.

Tomb 27

The next of the tombs, Tomb 27, seems to have been intended for a Royal Burial, as the doorway and entrance are of a similar size to that of the Royal Tomb. However, it was never finished and no burial material has ever been found. It may have been intended for the burial of Akhenaten's successor.

Tomb 28

This is the only finished tomb in the Wadi. It may have been used by a lesser wife of Akhenaten, perhaps Kiya and their child Baketaten (if she was their child and not a sister of Akhenaten).

Tomb 29

This tomb was plastered, but never decorated. It consists of four corridors, and in plan is similar to the suite of rooms in the Royal Tomb of Akhenaten, and may have been intended for a lesser Royal Wife.

A docket found in this tomb refers to a Year 1, so the tomb must have been open in the time of Akhenaten's successors.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nefertiti</span> Wife of Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten

Neferneferuaten Nefertiti was a queen of the 18th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt, the great royal wife of Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a radical change in national religious policy, in which they promoted a form of proto-monotheism centred on the sun god Aten. With her husband, she reigned at what was arguably the wealthiest period of ancient Egyptian history. Some scholars believe that Nefertiti ruled briefly as Neferneferuaten after her husband's death and before the ascension of Tutankhamun, although this identification is a matter of ongoing debate. If Nefertiti did rule as Pharaoh, her reign was marked by the fall of Amarna and relocation of the capital back to the traditional city of Thebes.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sekhemkhet</span> Ancient Egyptian Pharaoh of 3rd dynasty

Sekhemkhet was an ancient Egyptian king (pharaoh) of the 3rd Dynasty during the Old Kingdom. His reign is thought to have been from about 2648 BC until 2640 BC. He is also known under his later traditioned birth name Djoser-tety and under his Hellenized name Tyreis. Sekhemkhet was probably the brother or eldest son of king Djoser. Little is known about this king, since he ruled for only a few years. However, he erected a step pyramid at Saqqara and left behind a well known rock inscription at Wadi Maghareh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maya (treasurer)</span>

Maya was an important figure during the reign of Pharaohs Tutankhamun, Ay and Horemheb of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. Maya's titles include: fan bearer on the King's right hand, overseer of the treasury, chief of the works in the necropolis, and leader of the festival of Amun in Karnak.

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 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.

Southern Tomb 23 is a sepulchre in Amarna, Egypt. It was used for the burial of Any, whose titles included, Royal scribe, Scribe of the offering-table of the Aten, Steward of the estate of Aakheperura.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royal Tomb of Akhenaten</span>

The Royal Tomb of Akhenaten, located in the Royal Wadi at Amarna, is the burial place of the Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh Akhenaten.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TT188</span>

Tomb TT188, located in the necropolis of El-Khokha in Thebes in Egypt, is the tomb of the Steward and King's Cupbearer Parennefer. It has been excavated by the Akhenaten Temple Project.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valley of the Kings</span> Necropolis in ancient Egypt

The Valley of the Kings, also known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings, is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, rock-cut tombs were excavated for the pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Meryre II</span> Ancient Egyptian official

Meryre II was an ancient Egyptian noble known as the superintendent of Queen Nefertiti, and held the title of royal scribe, steward, overseer of the two treasuries, overseer of the royal harem of Nefertiti. He had a tomb constructed at Amarna, although his remains have never been identified. The tomb has the last dated appearance of Akhenaten and the Amarna family.

Carl Nicholas Reeves, FSA, is a British Egyptologist, archaeologist and museum curator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TT55</span>

Tomb TT55 is located in Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, part of the Theban Necropolis, on the west bank of the Nile, opposite to Luxor. It is the burial place of the ancient Egyptian Vizier Ramose. It has a main room originally containing thirty-two columns and a corridor with eight columns. This tomb is notable for the high quality decorations in both the traditional and Amarna styles.

Mahu was Chief of Police at Akhetaten.

The Tomb of Meryra is part of a group of tombs located near Amarna, Upper Egypt. Placed in the mountainsides, the graves are divided into north and south groupings; the northern tombs are located in the hillsides and the southern on the plains. Meryra's burial, identified as Amarna Tomb 4 is located in the northern cluster. The sepulchre is the largest and most elaborate of the noble tombs of Amarna. It, along with the majority of these tombs, was never completed. The rock cut tombs of Amarna were constructed specifically for the officials of King Akhenaten. Norman de Garis Davies originally published details of the Tomb in 1903 in the Rock Tombs of El Amarna, Part I – The Tomb of Meryra. The tomb dates back to the 18th Dynasty.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Necropolis</span> Large ancient cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments

A necropolis is a large, designed cemetery with elaborate tomb monuments. The name stems from the Ancient Greek νεκρόπολις nekropolis, literally meaning "city of the dead".

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amarna Tomb 3</span>

Amarna Tomb 3 is a rock-cut cliff tomb located in Amarna, Upper Egypt. The tomb belonged to the Ancient Egyptian noble Ahmes (Ahmose), who served during the reign of Akhenaten. The tomb is situated at the base of a steep cliff and mountain track at the north-eastern end of the Amarna plains. It is located in the northern side of the wadi that splits the cluster of graves known collectively as the Northern tombs. Amarna Tomb 3 is one of six elite tombs belonging to the officials of Akhenaten. It was one of the first Northern tombs, built in Year 9 of the reign of Akhenaten.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amarna Tomb 5</span>

Amarna Tomb 5 is an ancient sepulchre in Amarna, Upper Egypt. It was built for the courtier Pentu, and is one of the six Northern tombs at Amarna. The burial is located to the south of the tomb of Meryra. It is very similar to the tomb of Ahmes. The sepulchre is T-shaped and its inner chamber would have served as the burial chamber.

The Anonymous Tombs in Amarna are ancient Tombs of Nobles at the Royal Wadi in Amarna, Upper Egypt. They consist of both sepulchres and burial pits in varying stages of construction.

References

Coordinates: 27°37′26″N30°59′02″E / 27.6239°N 30.9839°E / 27.6239; 30.9839