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S o w h e r e a r e t h e Q u e e n s ? by MICHAEL J MARFLEET

Most New Kingdom XIXth & XXth Dynasty queens were buried in their own necropolis, the . The queen of an XVIIIth Dynasty king would have been buried either in her personal tomb in the Valleys of the Kings or in a room adjacent to the burial chamber of her husband.

Valley of the Queens West Bank (Courtesy Dr R L Boyce)

So where are the Queens? July 30th, 2021

The Queens' Valley lies outside the ridge that separates the Valleys of the Kings (VoK) from the extensive Theban Hills necropolis with its multitude of mortuary temples and ancient settlements lying along the West Bank of the River Nile, (Fig. 1). With perhaps the sole exception of the wives of Ramses II/KV7 who were apparently buried with him, the Valley of the Queens accommodates the burials of the queens of pharaohs who reigned during the XIXth and XXth Dynasties, alongside the tombs of lesser members of the ancient Egyptian elite.

Fig. 1

Of the XVIIIth Dynasty kings buried in the VoK only three great wife tombs are currently known: Queen Hatshepsut Meryet-Ra/KV42, great wife of Tuthmosis III/KV34; Queen Tia'a/KV32, great wife of Amenhotep II/KV35; and Queen Ankhesenamun/KV21, great wife of Tutankhamun/KV62 and latterly of Ay/KV23. Other than these KV49, although incomplete and never occupied, appears to have the architecture of a queen tomb (Technical Essay 8 appearing February 11th, 2022), as does KV46, though ultimately it became a nobles' tomb, (Essay X, October 22nd). Additionally, the architecture of KV60 (Essay III), in which the restored mummy of Queen Hatshepsut was found, also bears some similarities, (Bib. 68). This leaves undiscovered the tombs of the great wives of Tuthmosis I & IV and Horemheb, plus possibly those of Tao II, Kamose, Ahmose I, and Amen- hotep I, (tomb locations of these earlier kings have yet to be positively identified, Essay IV). Amenhotep III made provision for the burial of his wives in his own tomb, KV22 in the West Valley. However, his great wife, Queen Tiye, outlived him and was initially laid to rest in the royal necropolis at Akhetaten. Her restored mummy ultimately was removed to KV35 to lie close by the restored remains of her husband, (Essay III, and Essay IX, October 8th).

Fig. 2 - Tombs noted in text

The queens of Tao II, Kamose, Ahmose I and Amenhotep I may have been buried nearby their kings. As for the other Theban kings and queens of the XVIIIth Dynasty: Tuthmosis I = Ahmose (location unknown); Tuthmosis II = Hatshepsut (location known); Tuth- mosis III = Hatshepsut Meryet-Ra (known); Amenhotep II = Tia'a (known); Tuthmosis IV = Mutemwya (unknown); Amenhotep III = Tiye (known); Tutankh- amun = Ankhesenamun (known); Ay = Ankhesenamun (known); & Horemheb = Mut- nodjet (unknown). Of the three 'unknowns':

1. AHMOSE - Because the architecture of KV38 shares features common to know queen tombs - a small tomb with stairway, corridor and burial chamber with a single pillar, (Bib. 68) - it is possible KV38 was originally cut for the queen of Tuthmosis I, his restored mummy being moved there from KV20 during the reparations made by Tuthmosis III.

2. MUTEMWYA - The undiscovered tomb of the great wife of Tuthmosis IV may also lie in this general area. The anonymous KV30 could be a candidate. Situated some 70m east of KV38, it is a shaft tomb with a number of side chambers, one of which has a single pillar, (Bib. 68). Other than its vertical shaft entryway this tomb shares architectural features with mausoleum-like tombs - the pillared chamber may have been that of the queen; the other three chambers for pre- deceased offspring. (It may be no coincidence the known tombs of the earlier queens are to be found in the extreme southern reaches of the VoK). 3. MUTNODJET - The tomb of Horemheb's great wife may already have been found - KV12 - which lies just 35m west of Horemheb's tomb, KV57, and runs north, parallel with it. This curiously designed tomb also has the architecture of a mausoleum for the pre-deceased offspring of the king, (Bib. 68). The entry stair- way opens into a large, single-pillared square room (?the queen's burial cham- ber), with four openings, one in each of its four walls. Three of these are unfinish- ed. The fourth leads via two corridors divided by a stairway into two wide, oblong rooms with four chambers cut off the west side and one off the east, plus provision for the cutting of at least three additional chambers.

It is possible, therefore, that the tombs of as many as seven XVIIth & XVIIIth Dynasty Great Wives (queens) remain to be discovered/confirmed in the VoK. From the cache in DB320 the great wives of Tao II and Ahmose I were recovered and identified along with three other unidentified female mummies. The in- triguing conclusion is that the missing two - perhaps more if one or more of the unidentified females are not queens - may lie in as yet un-violated tombs. Discounting Smenkhkare (Essay V, August 13th), there is an eighth, of course - Neferneferuaten nefertiti - the famously beautiful great wife (and co-regent) of Amenhotep IV. Amenhotep IV had made provision for her to be buried with him in his tomb in the Royal Wadi at Akhetaten, TA26. The tomb was ransacked in antiquity and the remains restored and moved to the VoK, (Technical Essay 8). The unfinished KV49 in the VoK may have been intended for the re-burial of Queen Nefertiti; or she may finally have been laid to rest in KV39 where her body was ultimately destroyed by repeated robberies; or perhaps she lies yet to be discovered, her sepulcher untouched in the unplumbed depths of KV62**, (Essay VII, September 10th).

------* The intervening king, Amenhotep IV, and his great wife, Neferneferuaten nefertiti, are known to have been initially buried in Akhetaten, c400km north of Thebes.

** In 2019 Reeves posted a paper on the www.academia.edu website entitled: 'The Decorated North Wall in the (KV62). The Burial of Nefertiti? II' [7.13.19] (Amarna Royal Tombs Project, , Occasional Paper No.3) accompanied by 'A Review of the Geophysical Data', a paper by George Ballard, FRICS, [7.11.19 & 8.13.16] www.academia.edu. The paper is a follow up to Reeves' original of 2015 - 'The Burial of Nefertiti?' (Amarna Royal Tombs Project, Valley of the Kings, Occasional Paper No.1) www.academia.edu - in which, using the results of the high resolution laser survey of the walls of the burial chamber of KV62 conducted by Factum Arte in preparation for the construction of a full scale facsimile of the tomb, he makes a case for a hitherto undetected walled up doorway leading to (perhaps) the tomb of Neferneferuaten nefer- titi.