Reconstruction of the tomb
of Akhenaten according to
Reeves & Wilkinson:
The complete Valley of the Kings
and Aldred :
Akhenaten, King of Egypt.
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English translation
by Jim Ashton |
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The royal tomb was discovered
in the 1890’s. Its relatively late discovery was
due to its location, very far removed (about 6 Km.) from
the site of Akhetaten, at the end of the “Royal Wadi”,
the entrance to which is situated in an indentation in
the cliff between the groups of northerly and southerly
private tombs.
The entrance to the royal tomb is at the ground level of
a side valley and faces to the east where the Aten rises
each day. This event, the rising of the sun and the awakening
of the life of the temple and its worshipers is one of
the (unusual) themes shown on the reliefs carved on the
walls of the interior rooms. The arrangement of the tomb,
like its decoration, diverge wildly from the types in use
in the tombs of preceding kings of the dynasty. The tomb
takes the form of a long, wide corridor, the descent into
which is via two steep staircases separated by a long sloping
passage inside the flank of the hill, with a length of
28 metres, finally opening into an antechamber giving access
to the funeral chamber. The antechamber is located at the
foot of the second staircase and opens, via a door, onto
the “protective well” whose upper room is decorated.
From this room, we arrive directly at the door of the funeral
chamber.
To the side, two “suites” have been
cut in the cliff which is quite unusual.
At present, the tomb is in a lamentable state due to the
pillage it suffered after the king’s death and also
at the end of the 19th century.
| THE ENTRANCE
AND THE CORRIDOR |
The wide (3.2 m) entrance opens to the east and we descend
directly into the corridor via a ramp-staircase, the first
of the New Kingdom.
The first corridor is immense and combines the two first
passages of a “standard” royal tomb. It ends
with a second ramp-staircase, a characteristic which we do
not see again until the reign of Ramses II This leads directly
to the well.
The theological change inferred by this corridor has (rightly)
been stressed. In contrast with earlier tombs, this one has
a median axis leading directly to the sarcophagus chamber
with no angle. This fact has been interpreted as being the
wish to allow the deceased to come out directly into the
daylight, which is plausible. On the other hand, it has been
suggested that this orientation permits the rays of the rising
sun to reach the sarcophagus which is hardly tenable because,
for one thing, the tomb was closed, so the sun could not
penetrate in any case (strangely, I have never seen this
simple explanation expressed anywhere). In addition, the
sarcophagus was not at the middle of the room but offset
to one side, so the sun’s rays couldn’t have
reached it anyway.
The well is wider and shallower than usual (about 3 m.) The
walls of the room which form the upper part of the well were
once plastered, then decorated with reliefs and inscriptions
but all that remains today simply shows that the entrance
was flanked by two carefully carved reliefs showing floral
bouquets.
Among the other scenes in the well chamber were representations
of the king and queen making offerings to the Aten with the
eldest princess at the end of the walls. We thus see that
the well chamber, apart from protecting against devastating
floods and rare but violent storms, also had a symbolic function.
Leaving this room, we arrive directly at the door to the
funeral chamber.
This had been sealed with a wall of limestone bricks which
later served as a fill to fill up the well and bring out
the funerary equipment for transport elsewhere. This proves
that inhumations occurred in the tomb, that of Akhenaten
himself, his daughter Maketaten and his mother, Tiy.
The funeral chamber is an impressive square hall with sides
of about 10 mtres and a height of 3.5 metres. Is excavation
included arranging for a platform on the left of about 33cm
in height on which stand the remains of two square pillars.
The masons had just begun to cut a passage to another room
at the corner furthest from the right-hand wall to serve
as another “suite” for a new burial.
The reliefs and inscriptions carved on the plastered walls
of this room were almost entirely erased a short time after
the death of the king. Traces of inscriptions near the ceiling,
in an extremely fragile state, give the names and titles
of the Aten, Akhenaten and Nefertiti. With difficulty we
recognise in, the scenes which were once there, the usual
ceremonies of offerings to the Aten, at which the royal family
officiated, of enormous quantities of food, drink and flowers
piled up on the altars of the Aten. Pieces of furniture and
funerary equipment destined for the use of the deceased also
appeared in these scenes. On the other hand, in conformity
with the ideology of the Aten, which rejected the “ Books
of the Hereafter”, the funeral chamber contains hardly
any texts. Among the rare ones recognisable, we notice the
great frequency of the cartouche of the queen Nefertiti,
which underscores her very important liturgical role.
 In
addition to the main rooms in the tomb, two different series
of rooms were excavated. One of them opens off the descending
corridor, half way down in the right wall while the other
begins at the end of the corridor at the point where it opens
into the antechamber. The group situated at the higher level
is absolutely unique. From the first corridor, a suite has
been excavated (but not finished) which comprises three corridors
one after the other giving access to a suite of three rooms.
This suite is unfinished and of a worn appearance but closely
resembles a royal tomb in layout, including the presence
of a descending access corridor. The potential occupant (s)
are Queen Tiy, mother of Akhenaten, one of his daughters
or a Great Royal Queen.
Facing the entrance to this suite, on the left wall of
the main corridor, a start has been made on the carving
of a door which should have opened, apparently, on another
suite of rooms but its excavation was never followed up.
A similar arrangement is found at the lower end of the
main corridor: on the left, a door has been sketched
in (recognisable from some initial cut grooves) whereas,
opposite, a passage has been excavated leading to a suite
of three rooms, each leading into the next.
The
suite of three rooms leading off the bottom of the descending
corridor on the right has been named “the suite of
Maketaten” because these three rooms, traditionally
designated alpha, beta & gamma (here, A, B & C) seem
to be related to the death of this princess. This has recently
been contested but without proof. All the reliefs are badly
damaged. When the French epigraphists began to copy the reliefs
in rooms alpha and gamma in 1894, the scenes were practically
complete. Now they are little more than ghostly sketches.
 Room
A is square. It has sides of about 5.5 metres and a height
of 3 metres. All the walls have been finished and decorated
with painted reliefs. Two long scenes show the royal family
with five of their daughters making offering in the courtyard
of a temple while the Aten rises on the wall and sets on
the opposite wall. Passageways interrupt the other walls
but they carry reliefs showing chariot drivers who have
accompanied the worshipers and are waiting for them outside,
before the temple doors, together with their military escort.
Other scenes show the king and queen in a room weeping
at the death of a woman- queen or princess- laid out on
a funeral couch. The Aten is shining into the room but
in an identical scene, just above, the shining solar disc
is missing which may indicate a night watch.
Outside the room the mourners lament and throw dust on
their heads. A Vizier figures among the people in tears.
He is recognisable by his long, puffy robe. A wet nurse
is leaving the funeral chamber. She is carrying a small
child whose high rank is indicated by the presence of a
fan-bearer. This scene has been interpreted as showing
the grief of the royal family on the premature death of
a princess. A special quality of the reliefs resides in
the fact that certain portrayals have been re-carved in
order to temper the unflattering artistic style of the
first years of the reign.
Room
B is anepigraphic: it may have been a storeroom.
Room
C is the smallest of the three. It is 3.5 metres square
and its height is 1.8 metres. It has every appearance of
having been designed as a funeral chamber.
One of its walls carries, in its decoration, reliefs showing
the funerary furniture, but the main characteristic resides
in the presence, in the reliefs on another wall of another
deathbed scene similar to that in room A. The dead princess
is Maketaten (her name is given). She rest on a funeral
couch in a bedroom but her image and her name have been
erased. She is mourned by her weeping parents while, outside
the funeral chamber, stands a wet nurse breast-feeding
a small child, which she holds in her arms (and who might
be identified as Tutankhamun, though without proof), followed
by two fan-bearers. A large group of courtesans, ladies-in-waiting
and officials join in the lamentations, their attitudes
denoting great grief.
On the opposite wall, a scene associated with the previous
one shows the king and queen followed by the four surviving
princesses and a group of mourners throwing dust on their
heads.
| FUNERARY EQUIPMENT,
MUMMIES AND THEIR FATE |
A series of fragments of pink granite belong to the king’s
sarcophagus while another group, this time in grey granite,
came from the lid. There were also pieces of another sarcophagus
of red granite with a grey granite lid, which belonged
to a woman. May we presume princess Maketaten, whose death
and funeral are displayed in room C.
Anyway, the two sarcophagi
were smashed into small pieces and spread around over a
large area. The losses were so great during this operation
that it was impossible to restore the two monuments completely.
Nevertheless, we can get a good idea of the appearance
of the king’s sarcophagus (see below). Its reconstruction
shows that it had representations of the queen Nefertiti,
sculpted in high relief and extending protective arms at
each corner of the monument in the likeness of the guardian
goddesses of the four corners.
It is not so easy to identify the occupant of the other
sarcophagus but the names of Akhenaten, Amenhotep III,
Nefertiti, Tiy and Merytaten appear beside that of Maketaten
on fragments of the trough and the lid.
Funeral servants (shabtis) have also been found. Their
presence remains a mystery as they are an Osirian practice
and Osiris was totally banned in the Armarnian religion.
The tomb was not the last resting place of Akhenaten.
His successor, Tutankhamun had his mummy and part of
the funerary material transported to Thebes, certainly
for protection. It seems the, nowadays, the occupant
of tomb KV55 in the Valley of the kings is Akhenaten,
or, at least, this is how it is described by the Egyptian
Museum in Cairo. (But that has caused more controversy….
Smenkhare and Tiy have also been suggested).
If you are interested in kv55 and the saga of the gold leaves
from the base of one of the sarcophagi, found in Munich,
here are 4 sites :
TMP, William
Max Miller,
Ian Bolton, the
Cairo Museum.
©Thierry Benderitter 2003
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HERE IS THE SLIDESHOW.
All photographs ©2000-2003 Thierry Benderitter
Feel free to use them. A link would be appreciated
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