Tomb KV55 is a burial in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. Edward R. Ayrton discovered it in 1907 while working in the Valley for Theodore M. Davis. It has long been speculated and much disputed that the body found in this tomb was that of the famous king, Akhenaten, who moved the capital to Akhetaten (modern-day Amarna). The results of genetic and other scientific tests published in February 2010 confirmed that the person buried there was Amenhotep III‘s son and Tutankhamun’s father. Furthermore, the study established that this person’s age at the time of his death was consistent with that of Akhenaten, making it almost sure it was 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’s history and identifying its single occupant have been problematic. It is presumed to be a royal cache and reburial dating from the late eighteenth dynasty, prepared after Amarna’s abandonment and the royal cemetery’s dismantling there. Based on the recovered artefacts, it is also suggested that the burial once contained more than a single occupant interred on one occasion or over time. Queen Tiye is most often named in this context.
It is also clear that the tomb was re-entered later, almost certainly during the twentieth dynasty. At that time, any additional hypothetical occupants of the tomb would have been removed and (possibly) relocated to KV35. At the same time, the remaining mummy and some of the other artefacts were desecrated and abandoned.
The tomb is often referred to as the “Amarna cache”, given the diverse nature of its contents.
Discovery and excavations of Tomb KV55
Ayrton uncovered the entrance to KV55 on 6 January 1907. Its discovery was brought to Davis’s attention on the following day. The tomb was first entered on 9 January by Ayrton, Davis, Joseph Lindon Smith and (as the representative of the antiquities service) Arthur Weigall. On 11 January 1907, the finds were photographed. Ayrton then began clearance of the tomb. On 25 January 1907, the coffin and mummy were investigated in situ.
According to a letter from Davis to Gaston Maspero, some of the objects found in KV55 were still in place in January 1908. Their study and conservation attempts were still ongoing later. In 1921, while excavating south of the tomb, Howard Carter discovered several items that originated in KV55. These include a jasper burnisher and some fragments of copper rosettes from a funerary pall.
After excavation, the tomb’s entrance was fitted with a steel door, which was later removed and replaced by stone blocking. By 1944, this blocking had collapsed and filled the tomb’s entrance with debris. In 1993, the tomb was cleared again by Lyla Pinch Brock. In 1996, she undertook conservation work on the stairs and the plastering inside the burial chamber through a grant from the American Research Centre in Egypt.
KVC
Three days before the discovery of KV55, Ayrton uncovered a recess in the rock (now designated as KVC) located immediately above the entrance to KV55 and containing jars of the twentieth dynasty type. This recess may have been an unfinished tomb commencement, and its contents may be analogous to the embalming cache found in KV54. Still, because the find was never properly published, its contents’ precise nature, the jars’ date, and its relation (if any) to KV55 is now unclear.
The tomb
Location and general appearance
KV55 is a relatively small, undecorated, single-chamber tomb, its total length measuring only 27.61 meters. It is located in the central area of the valley, immediately adjacent to and below KV6 (Ramesses IX) and across the valley floor from KV7 (Ramesses II) and the near-contemporary tomb KV62 (Tutankhamun). Oriented almost due east, its entranceway consists of a set of stairs cut into the valley bedrock that leads to a gently sloping corridor and then to the single chamber of the tomb.
The tomb appears unfinished: in the south wall of the burial chamber is a small niche, the commencement of an unfinished antechamber, while red masonry marks within the burial chamber indicate plans for yet another room. When finished, these would have made the tomb’s layout roughly similar to that of the tomb of Tutankhamun. Such a plan indicates that KV55, like KV62, was initially intended as a private burial site and only later taken over for a royal interment.
Entranceway
A flight of 20 steps accesses the tomb, cut into the bedrock and covered by an overhanging rock. An ostracon found by Pinch Brock in 1993 has been interpreted as a plan of burial and possibly indicates a widening of the entrance after its initial cutting. This possibility is also suggested by Mason’s marks on the tomb entrance’s walls. The stairwell has been enlarged, its ceiling raised, and the number of steps increased.
When the tomb was discovered in 1907, the stairwell was covered with debris, probably originating from the cutting of KV6 directly above. The upper layer of this filling consisted of chips cemented together by water; underneath, the chips were dry and clean.
Doorway and blocking
When it was discovered, the tomb’s outer door was blocked by two consecutive walls. The primary blocking consisted of a wall of cemented limestone blocks, plastered and stamped with the seal of the Royal Necropolis (with the jackal and nine captives motif). Weigall later stated that a fragment of Tutankhamun‘s seal had been recovered from this original blocking. However, other reports dating from the initial discovery do not corroborate his statement, leaving Weigall’s claim open to question.
The first wall had been partially pulled down in antiquity, and the tomb was closed again by a second wall made of loose limestone fragments erected in front of the remains of the first wall. Because Weigall described these consecutive blockings in ambiguous terms, it is unclear whether the second wall was found intact or partially dismantled, like the primary wall.
Corridor
The sloping corridor beyond the entrance was partially filled with rubble. Since the secondary wall was built on top of material from this rubble, the fill seems to date from the time of the original interment. By 1907, this rubble had spread down into the burial chamber. Stains on the ceiling and walls of the corridor indicate that water had infiltrated the tomb in the past.
On top of the rubble, a panel and door of a large gilded shrine were found, although the exact position of these items is unclear. Additional pieces of the same shrine were recovered from the burial chamber.
Burial chamber and niche
The walls of the burial chamber were plastered but otherwise undecorated. Rubble fill from the corridor had spread into the room, partially covering its floor with debris. Elsewhere in the burial chamber, the bottom and numerous objects were covered with fragments of plaster falling from the walls and stones falling from the ceiling. This plastering seems to have been done some years after the cutting of the tomb, and repairs are evident.
Items found in the burial chamber can be grouped into several categories:
- Parts of a dismantled, gilded shrine: Related to the panel and door in the corridor. A door was found lying on the rubble inflow near the entrance to the chamber; large panels were lying on the floor or stacked against the eastern wall; and more minor elements (such as doorjambs, a lintel and possibly parts of the cornice) were lying on the floor.
- Coffin, mummy and related items: Lying against the southern wall and resting on the decayed remains of a lion-headed bier was a badly damaged coffin. Its lid was ajar, and the coffin box had rotted. The mummy in this coffin was poorly preserved, but its linen wrappings appear intact. The damaged skull had been separated from the body and was found with a vulture pectoral wrapped around it. The body’s left arm was crossed over the chest, and the right arm was extended. Four canopic jars were found in the niche above this coffin. Also related to this group of items were four “magical bricks”.
- Remains of boxes and their contents: At least two poorly preserved boxes were found in the southeastern corner of the room, their contents spread on the floor. These included faience objects related to the “Opening of the Mouth” ceremony.
- Seal impressions: Several small seal impressions were found underneath the panels of the gilded shrine. These carry Tutankhamun’s prenomen and are identical to seal type N found in Tutankhamun’s tomb.
Other items: Their exact location in the chamber is not always precise. A vase stand, a fragment of furniture, a silver head of a goose, pall discs of gilded copper and a statue plinth are included.
Some wooden objects in the burial chamber seem to have suffered water damage, most notably the coffin, bier and boxes; however, the elements of the gilded shrine appear to have been reasonably solid. Moisture is also the likely cause of the discolouration visible on some of the faience objects, although other, similar objects appear unaffected.
Interpretation
The problems surrounding the interpretation of KV55 are mainly due to the shortcomings of Davis’s original publication of the excavation. Its mix of fact, assumption, error and omission has obscured a complete understanding of the deposit. The blame for these shortcomings usually falls on Davis (as editor of the publication) and Ayrton (as supervising archaeologist). Recent careful re-examinations of the original publication, eyewitness reports, and photographs taken before the tomb was cleared have clarified the situation.
Although the tomb was disturbed in antiquity and its contents have been described as disordered and chaotic, Martha Bell argued that this disarray was more apparent than real. Her reconstruction of the tomb’s layout indicates an orderly and deliberate arrangement of artefacts. She suggests that the impression of chaos might be due to the collapse of wooden objects caused by falling plaster and stone. The “cemented” chips and stains in the corridor indicate water entering the tomb along the corridor ceiling. Still, the amount of water might not have been significant, and most damage could have been caused by increased humidity rather than direct contact with water. Bell also suggested that the moisture under the mummy might have resulted from rainfall shortly after the tomb’s opening in 1907. Other damage to wooden objects might result from an insect attack.
The shrine and Tiye’s burial
A recent reconstruction of the shrine, based on photographic evidence, drawings, eyewitness descriptions and two surviving planks on display in Cairo, indicates that it resembled Tutankhamun’s second and third shrines in general appearance and size. The copper rosettes suggest that a funeral pall was draped on a frame associated with the shrine, comparable to Tutankhamun‘s shrines. However, the decoration and inscriptions on the shrine are markedly different from those of Tutankhamun: the decoration was dominated by large offering scenes rather than a multitude of more miniature mythological scenes; the text was far briefer and seems primarily concerned with titles, names and the shrine’s dedication, rather than with excerpts from funerary books; and the interior of the shrine was uninscribed and undecorated.
The text on the shrine states that Akhenaten made it for his mother, Tiye. With one exception, the names of Akhenaten were erased and, in some places, were replaced by those of Amenhotep III (the father of Akhenaten) in ink. The text also refers to the “House of the Aten in Akhetaten”, perhaps indicating that the shrine was made and used initially in Amarna. The decoration, which appears to have been very similar on all sides of the shrine, features Akhenaten and Tiye making offerings to the Aten, focusing on the king rather than his mother. As with his name, Akhenaten’s figure was erased from the scenes, with one exception.
The orderly arrangement of the shrine parts inside the tomb indicates that it once stood up, fully assembled, with its doors facing south, and was later dismantled inside the tomb. It appears that only a single shrine was used in KV55, rather than a suite of four nested shrines, as in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
The presence of a shrine dedicated to Tiye is usually seen as evidence that Tiye’s mummy once reposed inside the shrine in KV55. Other objects inscribed with her name (such as the piece of furniture) and those of Amenhotep III also belong to her funerary equipment. The seal impressions near the east wall might indicate different items removed with the queen’s mummy later.
Coffin, canopic jars and magical bricks
When KV55 was initially opened, Theodore Davis believed that he had found the tomb of Queen Tiye. However, it was quickly recognised that the human remains interred there was male. Georges Daressy further deduced that the gilded coffin found in the tomb was initially made for a woman and only later adapted to accommodate a king through alterations to its inscriptions and the addition of a false beard, a uraeus and the royal sceptres, crook and flail.
The identity of the coffin’s original owner has been much discussed over the years, with Tiye, Nefertiti, Meketaten and Meritaten all proposed as candidates. It is widely accepted that the coffin was initially intended for Akhenaten’s secondary wife, Kiya. It is also recognised that the four canopic jars discovered near the coffin belonged to Kiya and that the female heads on the stoppers of the jars portray her. Like the coffin, the canopic jars were altered for the burial of a king through the erasure of Kiya’s titulary and the addition of a royal uraeus to each portrait head.
All personal names inscribed on the coffin and the canopic jars were excised in antiquity, rendering the identity of the human remains inside the coffin a matter of long debate. Over the past century, the chief candidates for this individual have been either Akhenaten or Smenkhkare, another male member of the Amarna royal family.
The four magical bricks prove that the coffin’s occupant was Akhenaten inside the tomb. Two were inscribed in hieratic but are poorly preserved, and their owner’s name is lost. The other two, however, are better quality, with hieroglyphic inscriptions naming the Osiris Neferkheprure Waenre, referencing Akhenaten’s nomen. All four bricks were oriented correctly, and three were positioned in close association with the coffin, suggesting that they were intended as a set and were made for the coffin’s final occupant, who, therefore, would be Akhenaten.
The identification of the mummy
The mummy found in the tomb was, however, at first identified as belonging to a woman by two visiting physicians who examined the remains in situ. This led Davis to conclude he had found the mummy of Queen Tiye and, therefore, published his account of the discovery as The Tomb of Queen Tiyi. As possible reasons for this initial identification, the (typical female) position of the mummy’s arms, post-mortem damage to the pelvic bones and the absence of male genitalia have been suggested.
But when anatomist Grafton Elliot Smith examined the skull and bones in Cairo a few months later, he concluded they were a young male with wide hips, a pendent chin, and a distorted cranium by chronic hydrocephalus. He estimated the age of death as around 25 years, although he later suggested the possibility that the body had suffered from Frölich’s syndrome, which delayed normal skeletal maturation. These results supported the initial claims by Weigall, Maspero and Smith, based on other evidence found in the tomb (see above), that the body was that of Akhenaten.
Later re-examinations of the remains confirmed Smith’s original identification of the mummy as belonging to a young male (although with feminine trends). Still, they pushed the estimated age of death back to around 20 years. These re-examinations also indicated that the body showed no signs of delayed maturation and that, while the skull was unusual, it certainly wasn’t abnormal and showed no indication of hydrocephalus. Reconstruction of the facial features of the skull also indicated that the mummy’s face in life bore no particular resemblance to Akhenaten’s representation on his monuments.
However, as Akhenaten’s depictions were highly stylised, the lack of similarity is inconclusive. After the tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered, a close resemblance was noted between his mummy and the body found in KV55. Later tests showed that both shared the same blood group(A2) and serum antigen (MN), suggesting that Tutankhamun and the individual found in KV55 were closely related, either as father-son or brother. Based on these results, it was concluded that the KV55 body was too young to be Akhenaten, and they were seen to support the claim that the mummy was that of Smenkhkare, an idea first proposed by Rex Engelbach in 1931.
Before February 2010, it was pointed out that the reliability of methods to assess the age of death for mummies, in general, was uncertain. For these reasons, the correctness of the age estimates was repeatedly called into question. Several studies estimated the mummy to be of a man who died around age 25–26; besides Smith, Douglas E. Derry and Ronald G. Harrison both came to this conclusion.
John R. Harris in the late 1980s offered 35 years as its age, while Joyce Filer in the early 2000s suggested early 20s. Elsewhere, an analysis of the skeletal remains based on dentition and X-rays of the long bones indicated 35 years. Finally, examinations using CT scans from the late 2000s, published in 2010 and 2016, showed the mummy to have died between the ages of 35–45, which the examiners believe supports the theory that the mummy is Akhenaten. The archaeological, inscriptional, and now genetic evidence indicates that the ancient Egyptians who buried (and later desecrated) the body in KV55 believed this to be Akhenaten’s.
However, several experts dispute these findings, claiming that Hawass et al. have not provided sufficient evidence to assume the older age at death. The original 2010 paper only cites a single point of spinal degeneration, while other analyses, such as Strouhal’s, cite multiple indicators for a younger age.
Further complicating the identity of the KV55 mummy is that he does not seem to be the father of the female mummy KV21a. The latter has been identified as a likely candidate for the mother of two foetuses found in Tutankhamun’s tomb, thus probably making her Ankhesenamun, the daughter of Akhenaten and the only known wife of Tutankhamun. The identity of the KV55 mummy, therefore, remains controversial for many.
In March 2021, the results of a new forensic facial reconstruction were released.
Reconstruction
As found in KV55, the deposit presents a mixture of chronological and religious anomalies. Objects inscribed with Amenhotep III’s nomen and prenomen might be contemporary with that king’s reign and could be interpreted as possessions of Queen Tiye. Other items marked with Tiye’s name (such as the shrine and furniture elements) also clearly belonged to her.
Akhenaten’s presence is indicated by items originally inscribed for him (such as the magical bricks) and items adapted for his use (such as the coffin and canopic jars). It is nevertheless doubtful that either of these two burials within KV55 was original. In the case of Tiye, evidence found in tomb WV22 suggests that Amenhotep III prepared her burial in his tomb. However, Tiye outlived her husband by possibly twelve years and seemed to have disrupted such plans. From inscriptional evidence on the KV55 shrine, on the other hand, it seems likely that Tiye was buried at Amarna by her son Akhenaten. In the case of Akhenaten, it seems almost certain that he was initially buried in the tomb he prepared for himself in the Amarna royal wadi.
Although it is unclear whether or not the original blocking of the tomb was stamped with Tutankhamun’s seal, the several small seal impressions carrying his prenomen are most likely related to the reburial(s) in KV55 since he was probably not involved in the original burial preparations of either Tiye (who died several years before Tutankhamun came to the throne) or Akhenaten (who presumably was buried by his co-regent and probable immediate successor Smenkhkare).
One scenario, suggested by Nicholas Reeves, is as follows: Akhenaten and his mother, Queen Tiye, were initially interred at Akhenaten’s new capital, Akhetaten (modern Amarna), but their mummies were moved to KV55 following the total abandonment of Akhetaten during the reign of Tutankhamun, who was Akhenaten’s son. The door to KV55 was sealed with Tutankhamun’s name. There, the mummies remained for about 200 years until the tomb was rediscovered by workers excavating the tomb of Ramesses IX (KV6) nearby. By this time, Akhenaten was reviled as the “heretic king”; consequently, Queen Tiye’s sarcophagus was hastily removed from his defiling presence, except for its surrounding gilded wooden shrine, which would have had to be dismantled for removal. Akhenaten’s likeness was chiselled off the shrine’s carved relief.
Moreover, the gold face mask was ripped from Akhenaten’s sarcophagus, and his identifying cartouche was removed from its hieroglyphic inscription, thus consigning its occupant to oblivion. As a final insult, a large rock was thrown at the coffin. However, a finely made vulture pectoral—a symbol of royalty in Ancient Egypt—was still found around this mummy’s head.
Later use of KV55
In 1923, Harry Burton used KV55 as a darkroom to develop his photographs documenting Howard Carter’s excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb.
