Tomb KV35 is the tomb of Pharaoh Amenhotep II, located in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt. Victor Loret discovered it in March 1898. Later, it was used as a cache for other royal mummies.
Layout and history of Tomb KV35
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 rectangular and divided into upper and lower pillared sections, with the lower part holding the king’s sarcophagus. This style of burial chamber became standard for royal burials in the later New Kingdom.
Buried Individuals in Tomb KV35
Later 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 (the original tomb owner found in his original coffin)
Side Chamber:
- Thutmose IV
- Amenhotep III
- Merneptah
- Seti II
- Siptah
- Ramesses IV
- Ramesses V
- Ramesses VI
- Queen Tiye was identified as the 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, the elder son of Amenhotep III and Tiye
- In June 2003, British Egyptologist Joann Fletcher controversially claimed the Younger Lady to be Nefertiti. In contrast, Egyptologist Zahi Hawass believed it to be Kiya, another Akhenaten‘s wife, considered by some to be the birth mother of Tutankhamun. Some thought 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, and the daughter of Amenhotep III and Tiye (making her both the sister and wife of Akhenaten). However, her name remains unknown, leaving the possibility that she is likely Nebetiah or Beketaten.
- An “unknown woman D” in an upturned coffin’s lid inscribed for Setnakhte (maybe queen Tawosret).
- Two skulls were found in the well, and an unspecified arm was found with the above “Younger Lady”. A body on a boat was stolen or destroyed at the start of the twentieth century.
