Tomb KV34 ( ar, مقبرة تحتمس الثالث, Maqbarat Tahtamis al-Thaalithi) in the
Valley of the Kings
The Valley of the Kings ( ar, وادي الملوك ; Late Coptic: ), also known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings ( ar, وادي أبوا الملوك ), is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th ...
(near the modern-day
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
ian city of
Luxor
Luxor ( ar, الأقصر, al-ʾuqṣur, lit=the palaces) is a modern city in Upper (southern) Egypt which includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of ''Thebes''.
Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-a ...
) was the tomb of
18th Dynasty Pharaoh
Pharaoh (, ; Egyptian: ''pr ꜥꜣ''; cop, , Pǝrro; Biblical Hebrew: ''Parʿō'') is the vernacular term often used by modern authors for the kings of ancient Egypt who ruled as monarchs from the First Dynasty (c. 3150 BC) until the an ...
Thutmose III
Thutmose III (variously also spelt Tuthmosis or Thothmes), sometimes called Thutmose the Great, was the sixth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. Officially, Thutmose III ruled Egypt for almost 54 years and his reign is usually dated from 28 ...
.
One of the first tombs to be dug in the Valley, it was cut high in the cliff face of the furthermost ''
wadi
Wadi ( ar, وَادِي, wādī), alternatively ''wād'' ( ar, وَاد), North African Arabic Oued, is the Arabic term traditionally referring to a valley. In some instances, it may refer to a wet (ephemeral) riverbed that contains water onl ...
''. A steep corridor leads down, in a
dog
The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. Do ...
-leg shape, from the entrance past a deep well to a
trapezoid
A quadrilateral with at least one pair of parallel sides is called a trapezoid () in American and Canadian English. In British and other forms of English, it is called a trapezium ().
A trapezoid is necessarily a Convex polygon, convex quadri ...
al antechamber. Beyond the antechamber lies the
cartouche
In Egyptian hieroglyphs, a cartouche is an oval with a line at one end tangent to it, indicating that the text enclosed is a royal name. The first examples of the cartouche are associated with pharaohs at the end of the Third Dynasty, but the fea ...
-shaped burial chamber, off which stand four smaller side chambers. The stone
sarcophagus
A sarcophagus (plural sarcophagi or sarcophaguses) is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word ''sarcophagus'' comes from the Greek ...
in which Thutmose's body was placed is still in place in the burial chamber, albeit damaged by tomb robbers.
Many of the wall decorations are in an unusual style not found elsewhere in the Valley of the Kings. On a yellow-tinged background (intended to resemble aged
papyrus
Papyrus ( ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, '' Cyperus papyrus'', a wetland sedge. ''Papyrus'' (plural: ''papyri'') can also refer to a ...
), the earliest known version of the ''
Amduat
The Amduat ( egy, jmj dwꜣt, literally "That Which Is In the Afterworld", also translated as "Text of the Hidden Chamber Which is in the Underworld" and "Book of What is in the Underworld"; ar, كتاب الآخرة, Kitab al-Akhira) is an imp ...
'' is traced, depicting the
ancient Egyptian deities
Ancient Egyptian deities are the God (male deity), gods and goddesses worshipped in ancient Egypt. The beliefs and rituals surrounding these gods formed the core of ancient Egyptian religion, which emerged sometime in prehistoric Egypt, prehist ...
as simple (almost naive) stick figures, in papyrus writing style. The ''
Litany of Ra
The Litany of Re (or more fully "''Book of Praying to Re in the West, Praying to the United One in the West''") is an important ancient Egyptian funerary text of the New Kingdom.Hornung (1999) p.136 Like many funerary texts, it was written on the ...
'' also appears in the burial chamber, with a similar execution. (Also, on the way up the staircase to the tomb, you can see on the cliff wall graffiti done by the workmen building the tomb.)
The tomb was plundered in antiquity and its location lost. It was rediscovered and first excavated in 1898 under
Victor Loret
Victor Clement Georges Philippe Loret (1 September 1859 – 3 February 1946) was a French Egyptologist.
Biography
His father, Clément Loret, was a professional organist and composer, of Belgian origin, who had been living in Paris since ...
.
Gallery
Image:Egypt.KV34.01.jpg
Image:Tuth-grab1.jpg
Image:Egypt.KV34.02.jpg
Image:Egypt.KV34.03.jpg
Image:Egypt.KV34.04.jpg
Image:Egypt.KV34.05.jpg
Image:Egypt.KV34.06.jpg
Image:Egypt.KV34.07.jpg
External links
Theban Mapping Project: KV34- Includes description, images, and plans of the tomb.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kv34
1898 archaeological discoveries
Buildings and structures completed in the 15th century BC
Valley of the Kings
Thutmose III