General view
This tomb was excavated by Mr. Howard Carter and Mr. Theodore
Monroe Davis in 1903 . The results of the work are now to be seen in the Cairo
Museum ( see No. 3000, U 48, east, there, the front of the king's
battle-chariot ) .
Tuthmosis IV reigned from about 1420 to 1412 B.C., his
mummy shows him to have been always delicate, and he died before attaining the
age of twenty-six .
His tomb had been rifled certainly before 1340 B.C.,
for in the eighth year of the reign of Haremhab ( 1346-1322 B.C. ) instructions
were issued by that Pharaoh to an official named May, Harbour Master in Thebes
or Superintendent of Works in Theban Necropolis as follows : " Command of
His Majesty, to commission the fan-bearer on the king's right hand, May … to
restore the burial of King Menkheperure ( Tuthmosis IV ), in the august house
on the west of Thebes " . This order was found written in ink on a wall of
a chamber of the tomb .
The king's mummy was subsequently taken to the tomb of
Amenhotep II, where it was found with others in 1898 .
The tomb lies not far from the tombs of Hatshepsut (
KV20 ) and MontuHerKhopeschef ( KV19 ) .
A flight of steps leads into a corridor, from which a
second flight leads down to a second corridor . Then follows the well, which
has upon its upper walls some paintings representing the Pharaoh before the
gods . These are interesting in that they show the first change from the
outline method of decoration which we have seen in the tombs of Tuthmosis III (
KV34 ) and Amenhotep II ( KV35 ) to the method of complete painting which we
have seen reaching its conclusion in the tomb of Ramses I ( KV16 ) .
Crossing the well we have a flight of steps, a
corridor, and another flight of steps ; then comes a chamber which has on its
walls paintings of the king before the gods, and the inscription relating to
May's restoration, already quoted .
We then enter the four-pillared burial-hall, which
contains the fine sarcophagus of the king, which, as will be seen from the
illustration, has not developed the guardian goddess symbolism at the four
corners which is characteristic of later examples such as the sarcophagus of
Tutankhamun or that of Haremhab .
Historical notes
Tuthmosis III's warlike nature, which had been shared
by his son and successor, Amenhotep II, seems not to have been inherited by the
subsequent kings, Tuthmosis IV ( c. 1401-1391 BC ) and Amenhotep III ( c.
1391-1353 BC ) . These two reigns ushered in an extended period of peace and
prosperity on a scale Egypt had never before enjoyed . Diplomacy took over from
the sword as the principal instrument of Egyptian foreign policy, and peace was
made with the kingdom of Mitanni in northern Syria, Egypt's main rival, which
now found itself threatened by the Anatolian Hittites . Pharaoh became fat,
self-indulgent and ever more convinced of his power and infallibility . please
note that the name of Amenhotep is the same of Amenophis ( in the Greek version
or Hellenization ) .
Tuthmosis IV, a son of Amenhotep II's second queen,
Tiaa, had come to the throne following the premature death of an elder
half-brother . Like his two predecessors, he was buried in the main part of the
royal valley, within tomb KV43 . His son and successor, Amenhotep III, was born
to the lady Mutemwia and would be married by Year 2 of the reign to Tiye,
daughter of the commoners Yuya and Tjuyu, whose burial was discovered by
Theodore Davis in tomb KV46 in 1905 .
Amenhotep III's own tomb, founded by his father, was the first to be
located in the western Valley of the Kings, better known today as the West
Valley .
Discovery the tomb of Tuthmosis IV ( KV43 )
Howard Carter tell us : " … our eyes became more
accustomed to the dim light of our candles, and … we realized in the gloom that
the upper part of the walls of this well were elaborately sculptured and
painted . The scenes represented the Pharaoh … standing before various gods and
goddesses of the Netherworld … Here was final proof that I had found the tomb
of Tuthmosis IV … " .
The formal opening of KV43 took place on 3 February
1903 . However, Carter had first entered the tomb on 18 January to ensure that
he had indeed uncovered more than an unfinished pit . The burial had, of
course, been plundered in antiquity – which was to be expected . The work had
been thoroughly done : everything of any conceivable value had been carried
off, from the smallest scrap of metal to large, re-usable pieces of wood such
as doors and lintels . What was left had been smashed and scattered around the
tomb .
Architecture and decoration
Clearly
a development of KV35 ( Amenhotep II ), KV43 follows the earlier tomb's
location preference ( it is the last tomb to be sited under a storm-fed
waterfall ), size and complexity, while further increasing its precision of
plan . The carefully cut entrance stair and first three corridors push in a
straight line to a large well with an offset chamber cut at the base of its far
wall . The axis then turns 90 degree into the first pillared hall from which a
staircase, sloping corridor and another staircase lead to the anteroom and burial
chamber . Different from KV35 is the lowering of the far third of the burial
chamber to from the " crypt ", the alignment of the storage rooms and
the tomb's more careful cut-thing . Also, two small rectangles – one on a
pillar, the other ( in outline ) on the entrance wall – represent the first
occurrences of the " magical niches " which are found in all
succeeding tombs until the time of Ramses II .
Despite the careful cutting of the tomb, the burial chamber is
undecorated and austere . Only section of the well shaft and antechamber were
decorated, and the representations were evidently hastily prepared . The two
decorated areas were afforded similar treatments : the ceilings of both the
well shaft and anteroom are painted with yellow stars on a dark blue ground and
kheker-friezes appear at the top of the decorated walls, which are painted a
uniform golden yellow .
In the well shaft, six images of the king receive the gift of "
life " ( the ankh ) before various deities,
and in the antechamber the king is seen again before images of the same deities
.
In both locations the representations of the king are virtually
identical, and those of the various goddesses are distinguished only by
differing patterns in the materials of their dress . The inscriptions are also
very similar, and consist only of the names of the deities shown and,
alternately, the throne – and birth – names of the king .
Robbers and restorers
Two large and beautifully written hieratic texts on
the south wall of the antechamber read as follows :
(1) " Year 8, 3rd month of akhet-season
( also known as " The Season of the Inundation or Flood ", it was the
first season in the ancient Egyptian calendar, and the name refers to the
annual flooding of the Nile ), day 1, under the majesty of the King of Upper
and Lower Egypt, Djeserkheprure-setepenre, son of Re Horemheb-merenamun . His
majesty life! prosperity! health! Commanded that the fan-bearer on the king's
right hand, the king's scribe, overseer of the treasury, overseer of works in
the Place of Eternity [ i.e. the royal necropolis ] and leader of the festival
of Amun in Karnak, Maya, son of the noble Iawy, born of the lady of the house
Weret, be charged to renew the burial of King Menkheprure [ Tuthmosis IV ],
true of voice, in the noble mansion upon the west of Thebes " .
(2) " His assistant, the steward of the southern city, Djehutymose,
whose mother is Iniuhe of the city [ i.e. Thebes ] " .
The text refers to a restoration, by the pharaoh Horemheb ( 1319-1307 BC
), of the burial of Tuthmosis IV within KV43, made necessary by illicit entry,
perhaps during the troubled years following the Amarna period . Robbery in the
valley was evidently a rare occurrence at this time, and the repairs seem to
have been carried out with far more care and attention than during later
restorations, Carter noting quite elaborate repairs to the tomb's faience in
" blue paste " or " yellow plaster " . A further response
to this 18th Dynasty robbery may have been the plastered blocking
erected in front of the original wooden door to the burial chamber, further
bolstering the protection it offered . Again, we owe the evidence of this to
Carter .
" [ Those who carried out the robbery ] must have
been bold spirits … : they were evidently in a great hurry, and we have reason
to believe that they were caught in the act . If so, we may be sure they died
deaths that were lingering and ingenious " .
A second intrusion may be discerned in the breached
reblockings to the doorways at D-E and I-J . This took place at an undetermined
date, but it may have been at this time that a number of items removed from the
tomb were hidden in KV37 . This later phase of theft may also have been the
prompt for the official removal of the king's mummy . With the king gone, the
dismantling of the burial began in earnest . The thoroughness of the workers is
shown by the fact that they were concerned to remove even the small bronze
eye-surrounds of the royal and divine statuettes, two of which, after
treatment, had been casually thrown into the now-empty royal sarcophagus . The
job done, they abandoned the tomb to posterity, taking care to close off (
albeit with a simple dry-stone wall ) the entrance after they had left .
The royal mummy
The
mummy of Tuthmosis IV would eventually be cached within a side chamber of the
tomb of Amenhotep II ( KV35 ), where it was discovered by Victor Loret in 1898
. The original coffins had gone, and the king now lay in a rough and unadorned
replacement of later date . The fact that the mummy of the child propped up
against the wall of side room (Jd) had not been removed from KV43 with that of
the king may suggest that those responsible for clearing the tomb were being
deliberately selective in which bodies they restored and reburied . The fate of
the second and third subsidiary burials is uncertain, though for Amenemhet .
Now in the Egyptian Museum at Cairo ( CG 61073 ) .
Finds from the Tomb of Tuthmosis IV
Ambrose Lansing said : " Though plunderers had
stripped the contents of this tomb of all its valuable gold, they had left much
that to us is even more valuable " .
Beside
the royal funerary equipment, Carter recovered fragments of three subsidiary
burials, presumably offspring of Tuthmosis IV who had predeceased their father
: the king's son, Amenemhet ( whose rewrapped and recoffined mummy may be that
discovered by the Metropolitan Museum Expedition buried close to the Deir
el-Bahari cache a few years later ), the king's daughter, Tentamun, and an
individual whose name is not preserved . The corpse discovered by Carter
propped up against the wall in side room (Jd) perhaps belongs to one of them .
Functional items from the tomb such as wicks and a weight may be
associated with the dismantling of the burial at the end of the New Kingdom .
The burial chamber and the king's sarcophagus
After
passing the pillared chamber (F), and through some badly damaged steps from the
left corner of the pillared chamber, we reaches the burial chamber (J) . The
entrance was still blocked with the stones, plastered and then sealed . There
were signs of an earlier wooden door behind this blockade .
The burial chamber is undecorated, and it was constructed in two
elevations as in ( KV35 ) and in rectangular shape . A long nave hall with six
pillars on the upper level and a central four-steps staircase as a connection
between the two levels . In the lower level stood the sarcophagus of the king
at the rear end, also, there are four magical brick niches, one on each wall, and
the fourth on the back of the last left pillar .
The sarcophagus hall has four undecorated rectangular
secondary chambers (Ja/Jb/Jc/Jd) . They were originally closed with
wooden doors and were contained the finds objects .
Even
today, the monumental yellow crystalline sandstone ( quartzite ) sarcophagus of
the king is still in his place at the middle of the lower level of the burial
chamber, with surfaces painted red and figures and texts painted yellow with
details in black . The sarcophagus is richly decorated with inscriptions and
reliefs . On the head and the foot of it, there are a decoration contains a
representations of the goddesses Nephthys and Isis who raised their arms
protectively . On the two sides are Anubis and the four sons of Horus . Anubis,
Imsety and Qebehsenuef are in the side, and the other side are Anubis, Duamutef
and Hapi . It much like the sarcophagus of the king Tuthmosis III .
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