Tomb KV36, located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt, was used for the burial of the noble Maiherpri from the Eighteenth Dynasty.
Discovery of Tomb KV36
Discovered by Victor Loret in his second season in the Valley of the Kings on 30 March 1899, the tomb of KV36 was found to be substantially undisturbed. Still, as it has not been adequately published for a long time, it is not as well known as other burials in the valley. All the objects found were taken to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where they were published in the Catalogue General (short: CG). The only source for arranging the objects in the burial chamber was a short article by Georg Schweinfurth. He visited the tomb briefly before its contents were brought to Cairo. However, Loret’s notebooks were recently found and published, providing a detailed list and description of the objects found and their arrangement in the tomb chamber.
Description
The tomb of Maiherpri is a small shaft tomb with a chamber at the bottom on its west side. It is 3.90 m long and 4.10 m wide. The burial chamber was undecorated, as with all burial chambers of non-royals in the Valley of the Kings.
Not much is known about Maiherpri as he does not appear in sources outside Tomb KV36. The mummy showed that he was a young man when he died. Only two titles appear on the objects within the burial: child of the nursery and fan-bearer on the king’s right side.
Maiherpri was placed in a set of three coffins. The outer one is rectangular, painted black with gilded inscriptions and decorations. It is more a shrine than a coffin. Inside it were two anthropoid coffins, also in black with gilded decoration. A third anthropoid coffin is found next to this coffin ensemble, with its lid next to the box. This caused some confusion and discussion in Egyptology. The ‘extra’ coffin was intended to be the innermost one but was too big to fit into the set and left unused next to it. A similar situation was found in the burial of Tutankhamun, where his second coffin was also slightly too large for the outermost one. There, the coffin was shortened directly in the tomb chamber, while a new coffin was obtained for the burial of Maiherpri.
Maiherpri’s mummy was adorned with a mummy mask. At the foot end of the rectangular coffin, on the east side, was found his canopic box with the four canopic jars still in it. Next to it was the Book of the Dead of Maiherpri, and several boxes were found with mummified pieces of meat. At the head of the coffins, many pottery vessels were found. Other objects from this tomb are stone vases, a senet game, a nicely painted faience bowl, a quiver, a glass vase and a funerary bed with the shape of Osiris laid out in wheat.
