To reach this tomb we must leave the Valley of the Kings, and enter the
Western Valley, which branches off from the road to the main valley about four
hundred yards before the latter is reached .
Amenhotep III was considered the
first king putting his tomb in the somewhat remote side valley of the Valley of
the Kings ( West Valley WV ) .
The Western Valley ( WV ), a counterpart in wildness
to its more famous neighbour, has only a few tombs ( four tombs ), and that of
Amenhotep III, the most gorgeous of the great 18th Dynasty emperors,
is the most important of these, and the one of all the royal tombs which one
would have most desired to be found unrifled . Far from that, it was robbed in
the days of Ramses IX, the mummy of Amenhotep III was one of those found in the
tomb of his ancestor ( grandfather ) Amenhotep II in 1898 by Victor Loret .
This tomb was discovered in 1799 by Édouard de Villiers du Terrage, Jean-Baptiste
Prosper Jollois and Édouard René de Laboulaye ( but it was discovered before by
William George Browne ) . It will also be mapped by these members of the
Napoleonic expedition . The excavations resumed with Theodore Monroe Davis of
1905 and 1914, but the results of his work are not known, then with Howard
Carter in February March 1915 .
In its plan of construction it is very similar to the tomb KV43 of
Thutmosis IV . A long passage with the usual three corridors slopes somewhat
rapidly downwards, and is interrupted by a well, round which are paintings of
the king before the gods .
Then comes a pillared burial-hall, with fragments of the broken sarcophagus,
and one or two subsidiary chambers which also served as funerary chamber for
Queen Tiy I and Princess or Queen Sitamun ( or Sitamen ), daughter and other
wife of Amenhotep III . Nothing remains to show the splendour of the most
splendid of Egyptian Pharaohs except a few objects escaped from looting outside
of a few Ushabti which are exhibited in various Egyptological museums of the
world and a number of funeral items found, associated with the funeral of Queen
Tiy I .
The tomb extends over a total length of just under
126.70 m, total area is about 555 m² . The funerary chamber are decorated with
the same motifs as the tomb KV43 of Thutmosis IV, and there are texts of The Book of Amduat ( Funerary Chamber ) and representations of the
deceased with deities .
Corridor ( B ) is too sloping, and undecorated . This corridor leads to
sixteen steps of the stairway which leads to another undecorated corridor ( D )
that is slopes down to the well chamber .
The well chamber E ( or shaft chamber ) is decorated with
representations of the king before deities . In this chamber, we see the Hathor
receives not only Amenhotep III . Also, standing behind him, the Ka of
Thutmosis IV . The Ka is the life force of a man and is inherited by the
ancestors . On the right wall, there are four scenes, the first shows the king
before Osiris holds an ankh and wearing the Nemes headscarf, the ceremonial
beard, a short skirt with stem, the bull tail on the belt, a broad necklace,
and the wrist straps .
The second scene shows the king before the goddess of the west, The left
hand of the goddess is on the king 's shoulder, the right hand holding an ankh
sign in his nose. The king is dressed in the same way as in the first scene .
The king's head was cut out .
The third scene shows the king before Anubis wearing the same in the
first scene . The last scene shows the king stands before the goddess Nut
wearing the same but the bull tail is missing and his head is cut out, and
behind the king stands his Ka, which touches the king's shoulder .
On the left wall, there are scenes that shows the king before Hathor,
Anubis, the Western Goddess, and Osiris .
There is a gate in the right of the west wall at the bottom of the well
chamber, and after two steps from this gate opens into the undecorated side
antechamber .
Beyond the well is an undecorated two-pillared hall ( F ), with a
stairway in its floor, leading down to a small chamber with ruined paintings of
the usual type . The door that leads to the two-pillared hall was broken after
completion .
The pillared burial-hall divides into two parts : the first, with six
pillars in two rows in the upper level that shows the king before various gods
in each pillar, such as, the Western Goddess, Osiris, Anubis, and Hathor . Then
a staircase leads down to the lower part, here stood the cartouche-shaped
sarcophagus, of whose lid fragments lie on the floor . It is of red granite,
and it measures 3 m in length, 1.33 m in width, and 0.34 m in height .
On the
walls of this rectangular hall, starting from the entrance wall, is a complete texts
and figures of The Book of Amduat .
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