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 because it has two subsidiary burial chambers for the pharaoh’s wives, Tiye and Sitamen (his daughter). 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. Theodore M. Davis first excavated the tomb, the details of which are lost.
Howard Carter carried out the first documented clearance 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 burial. The tomb’s layout and decoration follow the buryings of the king’s predecessors, Amenhotep II (KV35) and Thutmose IV (KV43); however, the decoration is much more refined in quality. Several images of the pharaoh’s head have been cut out and can be seen today in the Louvre.
Location and discovery of Tomb WV22
The tomb is situated in a bay on the east side of the wadi, 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the entrance to the Western Valley. Unlike earlier tombs, it is not cut into the solid rock at the cliff base but in the talus slope away from it. Sixty metres (200 ft) south of the tomb is WVA, which, based on jar sealings and the types of pottery found there, likely functioned as a storeroom for overflow from WV22.
The tomb was first noted in August 1799 by Édouard de Villiers du Terrage and Prosper Jollois, engineers in Napoleon’s expedition; it is possible it was known to the traveller William George Browne several years earlier. They planned the tomb and drew some of the artefacts (ushabti) found published in Description de l’Egypte. The tomb was visited in 1804 by a confident John Gordon, who carved his name at the entrance. Jean-François Champollion and L’Hôte saw in 1829, leaving graffiti in chamber I; Champollion was the first to identify the tomb’s owner as Amenhotep III.
Karl Richard Lepsius visited in the mid-nineteenth century and copied parts of the Amduat in the burial chamber. Countless other tourists visited the tomb during the nineteenth century, many of whom carried off small souvenirs of their visit; at some point, several portraits of the king were cut from the walls and are now in the Louvre.
The layout of Tomb WV22
The tomb is 85 metres (279 ft) long and follows the same layout as KV43, the burial of Amenhotep’s father, Thutmose IV, although it exhibits some changes to this fundamental design. The structure consists of two descending corridors separated by stairs leading to a well-chamber, the shaft of which is 7.5 metres (25 ft) deep. A well-chamber opens to the west from the base of the shaft. The room seems to have been expanded to the west, as the chisel marks in this section are quite different from those elsewhere.
On the other side of the well, the room is a pillared hall leading to another descending passageway and stairs. Uniquely, there is no doorway separating these elements. The passage was likely planned for the same scale as its equivalent in KV43 but was altered during construction. This made the steps’ angle rather steep, chiselling above the doorway to the antechamber, likely to allow passage of the sarcophagus. The square antechamber leads onto the pillared burial chamber with sarcophagus emplacement; a rectangular pit, possible for the king’s canopic equipment, is at the southern end of the section.
Three small side rooms lead off the burial chamber and two larger sections with a single pillar; each has an additional side chamber. One of these suites seems to have always been intended for the burial of a queen, while the other seems to have been a fourth side chamber and only enlarged after the fact, based on chisel marks and the position of the magical niches. The expansion is presumably due to Sitaumun’s elevation of Great Royal Wife late in Amenhotep III‘s reign. This situation is paralleled at Malkata, where Sitamun’s rooms were squeezed between her parents.
The burial chamber has eleven magical niches, five of which are cut into the walls and columns surrounding the sarcophagus emplacement. Two niches were found with half of a wood panel that initially sealed them still in place. They would have contained protective figures similar to those discovered in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
Excavations of Tomb WV22
The first excavation of the tomb was carried out on behalf of Theodore M. Davis sometime between 1905 and 1914, but the details of this clearance are entirely unknown.
Howard Carter investigated the tomb on behalf of Lord Carnarvon between February 8 and March 8, 1915. Carter’s interest in the tomb stemmed from his purchase of three bracelet plaques bearing the names of Amenhotep III and Tiye on the antiquities market in 1912, possibly strays from Davis’s excavation. Digging began in the watercourse below the tomb, yielding fragments of faience, glass, and the foot of an ushabti inscribed for Tiye.
Carter found five intact foundation deposits outside the entrance placed into holes cut into the rock, two on each side and one in the centre. These contained calf heads placed on top of groups of miniature vessels of pottery and alabaster having food remains model tools such as chisels and adzes, and blue faience plaques bearing the names of Amenhotep III’s father Thutmose IV, indicating that construction was initiated for this king. Inside the tomb, work focused on areas Davis had not investigated, namely the deep protective well shaft fill and the well-chamber at its base. Carter’s finds from the well-shaft included the hub of a wooden chariot wheel, a faience bracelet plaque, and fragments of Third Intermediate Period coffins. He also investigated the burial chamber, where pieces of the king’s calcite canopic chest were found.
Re-clearance
In September 1989, the Waseda University Egypt Archaeological Mission began a re-clearance to create a precise plan and elevation of the tomb. An excavation was conducted outside the entrance to look for traces of Carter’s work. Carter’s spoil heap was located, and re-investigation uncovered many small items, including pieces of a lotus-shaped collar terminal from the same artefact as fragments in Highclere Castle recovered by Carter from the well-shaft, fragmentary jar labels, wooden labels, and a wooden uraeus body from a statue. While the location of the foundation deposits could not be confirmed, an additional foundation deposit was uncovered outside the entrance.
The antechamber was relatively straightforward, with only 50 centimetres (20 in) of fill; it contained various small fragments of pottery and painted plaster. Unlike previously discovered, it was not in a hole cut into the rock but seemed to have been placed on the surface. It contained small pottery vessels, a carved wooden knot, and a wooden rocker, all set in a rush basket; a calf’s head was placed on top. Inside the tomb, evidence of previous excavations was encountered: stone blocks were stacked at the base of the well-shaft, and the well-chamber only contained stacked debris from Carter’s excavation.
The enlarged side chamber for Sitamun had another large spoil heap hemmed in by a stone wall, likely from Davis’ excavation. Careful sieving yielded painted plaster from the walls and ceiling, fragmentary pottery and stone vessels, and wooden objects. Fill from the clearance of the burial chamber and side rooms was also moved into this chamber. Finds included two yellow faience faces from ushabti, lapis lazuli inlays and amulets, a lapis uraeus head with inlaid eyes set in gold surrounds, and pieces of wooden and stone ushabti for Amenhotep III.
Contents
Following his death in Year 38 or 39 of his reign, Amenhotep III was interred with a range of burial goods similar to Tutankhamun‘s. The king was likely buried inside nested wooden coffins with inlaid rishi (feather) decoration and possibly fitted with a gold mask; such a coffin or mask is the suggested source of the lapis uraeus head found by the Japanese team. The coffins and mummies were buried within a sizeable cartouche-shaped sarcophagus made of granite instead of the usual quartzite, the first use of this stone for a royal burial in the Eighteenth Dynasty.
Only the lid remains, some 3 metres (9.8 ft) long, now broken into two main pieces. The lid is inscribed with a central vertical band of text and eight horizontal bands; the underside is decorated with a winged figure of the goddess Nut. The upper surface of the lid was once covered with gold leaf. Wooden fragments suggest the coffin was enclosed in a series of gilded wooden shrines. The king’s canopic shrine was protected by a gilded shrine with figures of four protective goddesses, as wooden fragments of a head wearing the khat-headdress attest; this head is the same scale as the figures on Tutankhamun‘s canopic shrine. Pieces of the calcite canopic chest reveal winged goddesses standing astride each corner, and the stoppers took the shape of the king’s head wearing a nemes-headdress.
Amenhotep was equipped with over eighty ushabtis. Many surviving examples are in stones such as serpentine, calcite, granodiorite, and extensive benchmarks in red granite. Wooden ushabti is the most numerous of the surviving ushabti. They are made of imported woods such as ebony and cedar and feature inlaid eyes, crowns or wigs, and pigment-filled inscriptions.
Despite making preparations for the burials of Tiye and Sitamun, it is doubtful that they were ever buried in the suites intended for them. Both outlived Amenhotep and were buried elsewhere, as placing them within the tomb would have involved dismantling the blocked and painted doorways at the well-chamber and antechamber. Nothing is known of Sitamun’s burial, but Tiye survived well into the reign of her son Akhenaten and was seemingly buried in the Royal Tomb at Amarna.
The badly damaged mummy of Amenhotep III was moved from the tomb and restored in Year 13 of Smendes. It was ultimately discovered cached in KV35, the tomb of Amenhotep II, together with other Eighteenth Dynasty mummies, including Tiye and The Younger Lady. Carter considered that the ushabti naming Tiye indicated she was interred in WV22. Still, the ushabti bears the titles ‘Great Royal Wife’ and ‘Royal Mother,’ meaning they were prepared in the reign of Akhenaten. This may support a period of co-regency between Amenhotep III and Amenhotep IV/Akhenaten; alternatively, they may be votives. Another theory is that they may indicate Tiye was reburied in WV22 after removing the royal burials from Amarna.
It is clear from the fragmentary remains found by excavators that the tomb had been thoroughly robbed in antiquity. All the gold fittings from the coffins had been stripped and emptied of their inlays, a few of which were found in the tomb, such as a lapis lazuli vulture headdress worn by a queen or goddess. Carter carried a mass of inlays and gold foil to the central valley and found cached near KV36, the tomb of Maiherpri, in 1902. The sarcophagus box is missing, and no fragments of it were found in the course of the excavation. It was likely removed for reuse during the official emptying of the royal valley in the Third Intermediate Period.
The fragments of intrusive burials found by Carter in the well, also from the Third Intermediate Period, were likely introduced after the king’s body and coffin were removed. One coffin belonged to a man named Padihor, while the other belonged to a woman whose name was lost but whose mother was Tabesheribet.
Decoration
The walls and ceilings of the burial chamber, antechamber, and well shaft are all wholly decorated; the room for Tiye is partly decorated with kheker-friezes. The paintings were executed over the blocked and plastered doorways in the well-chamber and antechamber. The king is accompanied by his ka and seen before Hathor for the first time, now differentiated from her role as Mistress of the West and Nut. In the well-chamber, Amenhotep is accompanied by the ka of his father, suggested by Betsy Bryan to show that the king considered the foundation of the tomb by his father to be necessary. Alternatively, Kondo sees this as remnants of decoration, indicating the tomb was initially intended for Thutmose. The burial chamber is decorated with complete and abridged versions of the Amduat, with the figures and text executed in cursive style.
Lepsius, who visited and copied sections of the Amduat from the burial chamber’s walls, described the tomb as “…covered with beautiful sculptures, though, alas! much mutilated by time and human hands.” Unfortunately, from the time of discovery, the decoration has been in poor condition. The paintings are damaged by salt efflorescence, and sections of plaster have detached from the underlying rock, especially on the lower portions of the walls. Pieces of decoration have been cut out, now seen in the Louvre. As part of the Waseda excavations, paintings were restored by a team of Japanese, Egyptian, and Italian experts who had previously worked on the restoration of QV66, the tomb of Nefertari.
Graffito
A hieratic graffito is high up on the wall in the doorway leading to the antechamber from the final flight of stairs. It reads, “Year 3, the third month of Akhet, day 7.” It appears to be contemporary with the era of the tomb. Although it is unclear what exactly it refers to, it may indicate the final closing of the burial, with the ‘Year 3’ presumably referring to the reign of his son and successor, Akhenaten. The graffito may indicate the date that the tomb was inspected for Tiye’s reburial or the date of her reburial.
Nozomu Kawai identifies the reburial as occurring in Year 3 of the reign of Tutankhamun. Marianne Eaton-Krauss attributes the graffito to the rule of Smenkhkare. At the same time, Marc Gabolde suggests the graffito is contemporary with the graffito of Pawah, dating the reburial to the power of Neferneferuaten.
