17A.htm

New!
Tomb Raiders of KV 46!
How thorough were the robbers who plundered the tomb of Yuya and Tuyu? How many times was the tomb robbed, and what were the thieves after? This study of post interment activity in KV 46 provides some answers.

Updated!
Special KV 55 Section!
========
Follow the trail of the missing treasures from mysterious KV 55.

KV 55's Lost Objects: Where Are They Today?

The KV 55 Coffin Basin and Gold Foil Sheets

KV 55 Gold Foil at the Metropolitan

Mystery of the Missing Mummy Bands

KV 35 Revisited
See rare photographic plates of a great discovery from Daressy's Fouilles de la Vallee des Rois.

Unknown Man E
Was he really
buried alive?

The Tomb of Maihirpre
Learn about Victor Loret's important discovery of this nearly intact tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

Special Section!
Tomb Robbers!
Who were the real tomb raiders? What beliefs motivated their actions? A new perspective on the ancient practice of tomb robbing!

Special Section!
Spend a Night
with the Royal Mummies
Read Pierre Loti's eerie account of his nocturnal visit to the Egyptian Museum's Hall of Mummies.

Special Section!
An Audience With Amenophis II Journey once more with Pierre Loti as he explores the shadowy chambers of KV 35 in the early 1900's.

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Background Image: Wall scene from the tomb of Ramesses II (KV 7.) From Karl Richard Lepsius, Denkmäler (Berlin: 1849-1859.)

XVII'th Dynasty Gallery I
Go here for a history of the
Second Intermediate Period

Unknown Woman B (Tetisheri?) (c. 1633 B.C.)
17'th Dynasty
Provenance: DB 320
Discovery Date: 1860? (official discovery 1881)
Current Location: Cairo Museum CG61056
Unknown Woman B Tetisheri PL 9.jpg (44693 bytes)

Biographical data

Details: The identity of this mummy and the circumstances surrounding its discovery in DB 320 are unclear. There is some evidence that this mummy and another one, which had been tentatively identified by Maspero as Ramesses I, may have been mixed up between 1886 and 1909. On the latter date, G. E. Smith was preparing to unwrap the mummy alleged to be that of Ramesses I, but states that "...when I opened the coffin in June, 1909, I found the mummy of a naked woman, embalmed in the manner distinctive of the earlier part of the XVIII'th Dynasty." Either Maspero mistook the female mummy as a male when he first examined it in 1886, or the male mummy which he identified as Ramesses I was somehow replaced with the female mummy. (Many experts now believe that the mummy of Ramesses I is the mummy from the Niagara Falls Museum, which left Egypt in 1860. For more on the missing mummy of Ramesses I, see the IX'th Dynasty Gallery on the navigation bar at left.) Smith gave the female mummy the designation "Unknown Woman B" but others have tried to give her a more definite identity. Daressy and Murray both noted that bandages, which were associated in some fashion with this mummy, had been inscribed with the name of Tetisheri, and some researchers identify the mummy as that of this 17'th Dynasty queen (contra Smith's 18'th Dynasty dating of the mummy.)
The mummy itself is that of an old woman, whose thinning white hair had been interwoven with the hair of a wig in order to conceal her almost complete baldness. Smith noted that her ears had been pierced, and also commented on her protruding upper teeth, a characteristic which he noted in the mummies of Nofritari and Lady Rai. He also noted that thieves had damaged the body: the head had been broken off, and the right hand was missing.
Whether the mummy had been found in a coffin or near fragments of a coffin originally belonging to Ramesses I remains unclear. (Source Bibliography: AE, [1934], 69; ASAE 9, [1908], 137; CCR, 26 ff.; MiAE, 118, 316, 321; MR, 551-552, 582 [6]; RM, 14-15; XRA, 4A2-8; XRP, 120-121 .)

Other Burial Data:
Original Burial: Undetermined.
Reburials: Reeves places the mummy of Unknown Woman B in the k3y of Inhapi along with the other mummies which were cached in this tomb. He dates her removal to DB 320 to sometime after Year 11 of Shoshenq I. (Source: DRN, 250 .)

Photo Credit: RM (Cairo, 1912,) pl. IX
For high resolution photos of "Tetisheri" see the University of Chicago's Electronic Open Stacks copy of Smith's The Royal Mummies (Cairo, 1912,) Call #: DT57.C2 vol59, plate IX and X.

Source Abbreviation Key

Seqnenre-Taa II (c. 1574 B.C.)
Provenance: DB 320
Discovery Date: 1860? (official discovery 1881)
Current Location: Cairo Museum CG61051

Biographical data

Details: The mummy of Seqnenre-Taa II was partly unwrapped by Gaston Maspero on June 9'th, 1886. G. E. Smith completed the task on September 1'st, 1906. The mummy displayed some highly unusual (and visibly prominent) injuries which caused Maspero to theorize that Seqnenre-Taa II was killed in battle. Since this king ruled during the struggle to overthrow and expel the Hyksos, Maspero's explanation of his massive head injuries seems plausible. Dr. Fouquet, who also examined the mummy, argued that its condition could be largely explained as the result of natural decomposition which may have occurred during a period of time in which the ruler was being transported to Thebes in order to be embalmed. Smith completely disagrees with Fouquet, whose evaluation of the mummy is difficult to understand given the evident head injuries which it had sustained. The king had apparently been stabbed behind one of his ears with a knife or sword. His cheek and nose had been smashed, perhaps with a mace, and the large wounds visible above the king's right eye and on his upper forehead may have been inflicted with a battle axe.
    All of these injuries seem consistent with the kind of battlefield death one might easily imagine for the king who led his countrymen in rebellion against their Hyksos overlords. But Ikram and Dodson refer to a recent examination of the wound behind the king's ear which revealed that this injury had started to heal prior to the king's death, and therefore indicated that Seqnenre-Taa II had received it well in advance of the time when the other wounds to his head were inflicted. They mention the possibility that the king may have been injured in battle, and then assassinated while he was still recuperating. This is also plausible: even at the court in Thebes, where Seqnenre-Taa II ruled, there must have been Hyksos infiltrators and supporters who would want to eliminate any opposition to Hyksos domination.
    The rest of Seqnenre-Taa II's body was poorly preserved. No attempt had been made to straighten out the king's arms, which still remain frozen in the position he adopted in his futile attempt to shield himself from lethal blows. The embalmers who removed the internal organs packed the body with linen. They also took out the heart, an important organ which was typically left in place in Egyptian mummies. The Egyptians believed that the heart was the seat of the personality, and its preservation within the body was of great significance in the traditional funerary beliefs. Exactly why the heart of Seqnenre-Taa II was removed remains unknown. Perhaps the embalmers were hurried in their work, and simply performed the evisceration carelessly. But perhaps the king's heart was removed intentionally in a magical attempt to destroy him in the afterlife. The brain, an organ usually removed by the embalmers, was left in place.
    Smith describes the king's bones as being disarticulated, and commented on the pliable nature of the skin which still covers them in places. He also mentioned that the mummy emits a pleasant scent produced by the aromatic powdered wood which had been sprinkled over the body.
    Seqnenre-Taa II was found in his original coffin (CG61001). The royal uraeus and eye inlays had been removed, and most of the gilding had been scraped off. Reeves comments that the inscriptions and symbolic elements had been "preserved and restored." This had obviously been done by restorers, who had also probably carefully stripped the coffin of its gilding. But the fact that some of the inscriptions needed to be restored (as opposed to being preserved) may indicate that thieves had gotten to the coffin at some point in time and damaged the inscriptions in some manner. (For a photo of Seqnenre-Taa II's coffin, see Ian Bolton's Egypt: Land of Eternity site.) (See Other Burial Data below.)
(Source Bibliography: CCR, 1f; DRN, 202, 208, 214, 250; MR, 526ff; MiAE, 117-118; RM, 1ff; XRA, 1A2; XRP, 122ff.)

Other Burial Data:
Original Burial: Ikram and Dodson place the original pyramid tomb of Seqnenre-Taa II in Dra Abu'l-Naga, along with the burials of other 17'th Dynasty rulers.
Official Inspections/Restorations: The Papyrus Abbot records an official inspection of the tomb of Seqnenre-Taa II on Year 16, 3 3ht 18 of Ramesses IX. The tomb was found to be intact at that time. However, it was probably robbed at some point between this date and the transferal of Seqnenre-Taa II into DB 320. For the most part, Reeves takes it as axiomatic that the restorers would only move a mummy to another tomb if it had already been robbed. Also, as noted above, some of the inscriptions on Seqnenre-Taa II's coffin had been restored. Apparently, they had been somewhat damaged at an earlier date. Damaged inscriptions, whenever they occur and are not obviously examples of damnatio memori, may be interpreted as the work of tomb robbers whose methods of stripping a coffin were presumably not as careful as those used by the restorers. Based on the testimony of the Papyrus Abbot, we know that Seqnenre-Taa II's burial was intact at least until Year 16 of Ramesses IX. The most likely date for a disturbance of his burial would probably be during the troubled years of Ramesses XI when a documented wave of tomb plundering took place. Reeves places him in the k3y of his wife Inhapi (which he identifies as WN A) where other royal mummies were cached, and dates his transference from this tomb into DB 320 to a time after Year 11 of Shoshenq I. (Source Bibliography: DRN, 250 .)

Photo Credit: RM (Cairo, 1912,) pl. II. For high resolution photos of Seqnenre-Taa II see the University of Chicago's Electronic Open Stacks copy of Smith's The Royal Mummies (Cairo, 1912,) Call #: DT57.C2 vol59, plates I, II, and III.

Source Abbreviation Key

Ahmose-Inhapi (c. 1574 B.C.)
17'th Dynasty
Provenance: DB 320
Discovery Date: 1860? (official discovery 1881)
Current Location: Cairo Museum CG61053

Biographical data

Details: The mummy of Inhapi was discovered at a position which Reeves locates near the entrance of corridor B in DB 320 (click here to see tomb diagram.) It was unwrapped by Gaston Maspero on June 20'th, 1886. Smith, who examined it at a much later date, remarked its similarity to the mummy of Seqnenre-Taa II (see above.) For although Inhapi had been carefully embalmed, her body had not been preserved any better than that of her hastily mummified husband. Smith hypothesized that the techniques of mummification employed for Inhapi probably represented the best which the Egyptian embalmers could provide at the end of the 17'th Dynasty.
    The mummy itself was wrapped in a shroud and had a floral garland around the neck. Smith describes the mummy as that of a "big, strongly built woman." He notes that the body had been laid out in the conventional position, with the arms placed vertically at the sides. The skin was dark brown, "soft, moist and tough, like oiled leather." Smith called attention to the over-all similarity of Inhapi's mummy to mummies of the much later Coptic period, but notes that the embalming incision clearly distinguishes it from mummies of the Christian era. Curiously, and in spite of the incision, some of the pelvic organs are still in place. Smith attributes Inhapi's facial distortions to the shrinkage of subcutaneous tissues and also to the fact that some type of object had been pressed into the swollen skin. He surmises that this object may have been a pectoral ornament. Smith notes that, as in the case of Seqnenre-Taa II, aromatic powdered wood had also been sprinkled over Inhapi's body. He also comments on the manner in which Inhapi's hair had been plaited in a style which dates her mummy to the early New Kingdom.
    The mummy of Inhapi was found in the original outer coffin of the Lady Rai, a wet-nurse of Ahmose-Nofretiri (see XVIII'th Dynasty Gallery I on navigation bar at left.) This coffin (CG61004) had its gilding adzed off and eye inlays removed. Reeves notes that in spite of the coffin's stripping, probably at the hands of the restorers, the symbolic figures of Isis and Nepthys at the foot remain intact. (For a photo of Ahmose-Inhapi's coffin, see Ian Bolton's Egypt: Land of Eternity site.) (Source Bibliography: CCR, 4ff.; DRN, 200, 206, 214; MR, 530ff.; RM, 8-11.)

Other Burial Data:
Original Burial: Herbert Winlock and Elizabeth Thomas both believed that the original tomb of Inhapi (referred to in the dockets as the k3y, or "high place") was DB 320, the cache tomb in which her body was found. Reeves, however, contends that this view is incorrect since it is not based on an adequate consideration of the physical evidence found in DB 320. Based on his reconstruction of the position of the coffins at the time of their discovery in DB 320, Reeves argues that this tomb could not possibly be the k3y of Inhapi, and contends that WN A was Inhapi's original place of burial. (For more about Inhapi's original tomb, see Inhapi's Tomb on the navigation bar at left.)
Restorations: A docket on the shroud covering Inhapi's mummy indicates that she had been "osirified" at some point, but the process of determining a date for this event is inferential, involving comparisons of the handwriting found on other mummies in DB 320 with the handwriting of the Inhapi inscription. Reeves notes that the Type A docket on Inhapi's shroud was apparently written by the same hand that inscribed the "osirification" docket found on the mummy of Amosis I dated to Year 8, 3 prt 29 of Psusennes I. This date also appears on a docket found on the mummy of Siamun, which records his "osirification," and which is also written in the same hand as are the dockets on the mummies of Meryetamun, "Sitamun," and Ahmose-Sitkamose. The latter mummy's docket dates her restoration to Year 7 of Psusennes I, 4 3ht 8. Inhapi and these other mummies had apparently been restored together as a group during Years 7 and 8 of Psusennes I.
Reburials: If Reeves is correct in his assertion that DB 320 was not Inhapi's original burial place, then her mummy had to have been reburied in DB 320 along with the other mummies that had previously been cached with her in her own tomb. Reeves dates this event to a time no earlier than Year 11 of Shoshenq I.(Source: DRN, 187-192, 228 .)

Linen Docket: "The King's daughter and king's wife, Inhapi, may she live!" (Source Bibliography: DRN, 232; MR, 530 [facs.].)

Photo Credit: RM (Cairo, 1912,) pl. IV. For high resolution photos of Ahmose-Inhapi see the University of Chicago's Electronic Open Stacks copy of Smith's The Royal Mummies (Cairo, 1912,) Call #: DT57.C2 vol59, plates IV (showing Ahmose-Inhapi on right) and V.

Source Abbreviation Key

Ahmose-Henttimehu (c. 1574 B.C.): DB 320
Discovery Date: 1860? (official discovery 1881)
Current Location: Cairo Museum CG61061

Biographical data: Henttimehu was probably a daughter of Seqnenre-Taa II and Ahmose-Inhapi.

Details: G. E. Smith reports that the mummy of Henttimehu was damaged during its shipment from Luxor to Cairo. It was unwrapped by Maspero in December, 1882. The mummy had been wrapped in a large quantity of linen which had been soaked with resin, thereby making the unwrapping extremely difficult. Much of the hardened linen still remains in place.
At some point, thieves had chopped through the bandages in search of valuable objects, and had damaged the mummy in the process. The face, in particular, sustained severe damage. parts of the nose and certain areas of the cheeks are completely missing. Henttimehu was an old woman when she died, and had become practically bald. Her own scant hair had been interwoven with the strands of a wig in order to conceal this baldness. Smith notes that Henttimehu's own hair had been dyed a bright red at the sides, probably with henna. Her teeth were well-worn, and showed signs of caries and abscess.
Henttimehu's hands were placed in front of her thighs. Her nose had been filled with plugs of linen, and resin-saturated linen pads had been used to fill her body cavity after her organs had been removed by the embalmers. Her mummy had been labeled with a Type A Linen Docket (see Linen Docket translation below) and some of her bandages were inscribed with portions from the Book of the Dead. She was found in her original coffin (CG 61012) which had its gilding adzed off and its eye inlays removed. (Source Bibliography: CCR, 17; DRN, 200, 206, 212; MR, 543-544; RM, 19.)

Other Burial Data:
Original Burial: Unknown. Reeves speculates that Henttimehu may have originally been buried with her mother in the tomb referred to by certain dockets as the k3y of Inhapi. Reeves theorizes that this tomb was probably WN A.
Reburials: Reeves states that Henttimehu was transferred into DB 320 with other mummies sometime after Year 11 of Shoshenq I It was presumably at the time of her transfer that Henttimehu was rewrapped and docketed. (Source: DRN, 251 .)

Type A Linen Docket: "The king's daughter, king's sister and king's wife Henttimehu" (Source Bibliography: DRN, 232; MR, 544 [facs.].)

Photo Credit: RM (Cairo, 1912,) pl. XIV. For high resolution photo of Ahmose-Henttimehu see the University of Chicago's Electronic Open Stacks copy of Smith's The Royal Mummies (Cairo, 1912,) Call #: DT57.C2 vol59, plate XIV.

Source Abbreviation Key

Ahmose-Hentempet (c. 1574 B.C.)
17'th Dynasty
Provenance: DB 320
Discovery Date: 1860? (official discovery 1881)
Current Location: Cairo Museum CG61062

Biographical data: Ahmose-Henttempet is thought to be a daughter of Seqnenre-Taa II and Ahotep I.

Details: The mummy of Hentempet had been plundered by either ancient or modern thieves, who burrowed a large hole through the outer shroud and wrappings in the area of the chest, probably in search of a heart scarab or pectoral. G. E. Smith unwrapped the mummy of in June, 1909. He uncovered the body of an elderly woman who had suffered considerable post-mortem injury. Both her forearms had been broken off. The left forearm had been repositioned across her the body, but only fragments of the right forearm remain.
    Smith noted that the face had been distorted by heavy pressure, probably unintentionally by the embalmers during the original wrapping of the mummy. The pressure was great enough to squeeze the plugs of linen out of Hentempet's nose, producing an effect which Smith describes as "gruesome." He also comments that the face had not been adequately treated during the mummification process, and describes the facial skin as being parchment-like and pale yellow in color, "as though it had been painted with ochre." Smith's wording shows that he is not quite certain whether ocher was used or not. Later female mummies often do have their faces painted with yellow ochre, and perhaps Hentempet's mummy provides an early experiment with this technique. Her teeth were well-worn and her hair was liberally streaked with gray, indicating an advanced age at the time of death. Unusually, the bandages in which Hentempet had been wrapped had not been coated with resin as had the wrappings of most of the other mummies Smith examined from this period. He found Hentempet's embalming incision in the usual location, and notes that her vagina had been plugged with linen.
    A large and luxuriant wig was found covering Hentempet's chest, and another wig, described by Smith as being like the coiffure of Lady Rai, was placed crookedly on the left side of her head.
    Hentempet was found in a replacement coffin dated to the 18'th Dynasty (CG 61017). It had been painted black, and the name of the original owner had been replaced with that of Henttempet. (Source Bibliography: CCR, 24ff.; DRN, 200, 206, 212; RM, 20.)

Other Burial Data:
Original Burial: Unknown.
Reburials: Reeves argues that Henttempet was moved into DB 320 with the other mummies that had been cached in the k3y of Inhapi. He dates this event to sometime after Year 11 of Shoshenq I (Source: DRN, 251.)

Photo Credit: RM (Cairo, 1912,) pl. XVI. For high resolution photos of Ahmose-Hentempet see the University of Chicago's Electronic Open Stacks copy of Smith's The Royal Mummies (Cairo, 1912,) Call #: DT57.C2 vol59, plates XV, XVI, and XVII (which shows large wig flattened out.)

Source Abbreviation Key

Ahmose-Sitkamose (c. 1573-1570 B.C.)
17'th Dynasty
Provenance: DB 320
Discovery Date: 1860? (official discovery 1881)
Current Location: Cairo Museum CG61063

Biographical data: Perhaps a daughter of Kamose. (cf. De, 45ff.)

Details: The mummy of Sitkamose was unwrapped by Gaston Maspero on June 19, 1886. She had been buried with a floral garland, and an inscription appeared on her outer shroud. After removing this, Maspero encountered another layer of bandages which had also been inscribed, indicating the date on which Sitkamose had been rewrapped (see Linen Docket Translations below.)
    Beneath the bandages, Maspero discovered the mummy of a woman who had died at approximately thirty years of age. G. E. Smith described her as "a large, powerfully-built, almost masculine woman." Her mummy had been damaged by grave robbers, who had cut away most of the anterior body wall in their search for valuables. The left arm had been broken off at the shoulder, and the occipital region of the skull had been crushed and was completely missing. A black, resinous material coated the whole body, and in this dried substance remain impressions of various items of jewelry that had been removed by the thieves. Additional damage to the mummy was done by mice, who had gnawed the back of Sitkamose's left thigh and her right gluteal fold.
    Smith comments that the brain and its membranes are visible through the large opening in the back of the skull. He states that the fact these were not removed by the embalmers indicates the early date from which the mummy derives. Sitkamose's nostrils had been filled with linen plugs, and her body cavity had been packed tightly with the same material, some of it having been soaked in resin. A large cake of resinous paste was employed to cover her perineum. Her teeth are only moderately worn, and her hair had not yet turned gray at the time of her death. Sitkamose's arms had been positioned so that her hands could rest over the pubic region, and Smith comments that this is very unusual for mummies of this period. Impressions remain on her toes of the strings which were used to fasten the toenails in place during the embalming procedure.
    Sitkamose was found in the intact 21'st Dynasty coffin of a man named Pediamun (CG 61011.) Reeves states that this man should probably not be equated with the Pediamun named in the wall docket from DB 320 which commemorates the burial of Pinudjem II. (There are two men named Pediamun listed in this inscription. Reeves gives no reason for his assertion that the Pediamun, who bore the titles "God's father of Amun" and "Chief of Secrets," was probably not the man who originally owned the coffin in which Sitkamose was found. Perhaps he believes such an attribution would be far too coincidental. He does not mention the second Pediamun named in the wall docket, a man who was referred to as a chief workman.) (Source Bibliography: CCR, 12ff; DRN, 200, 206, 213, 257; MR, 540ff.; RM, 21-22; XRA, 3C2-9 .)

Other Burial Data:
Original Burial: Unknown.
Restorations: From inscriptional evidence found on her wrappings, Sitkamose was rewrapped in Year 7 4 3ht 8 of Psusennes I. (Reeves gives the date of this event as Year 7, 4 3ht 18 on page 252 of DRN. This does not correspond with the date he gives on page 236, Table 10, #28.)
Reburials: Reeves dates the transfer of Sitkamose from the k3y Inhapi into DB 320 to sometime after Year 11 of Shoshenq I. (Source: DRN, 252, 258 .)

Type A Linen Docket"The king's daughter, king's sister and great king's wife Sitkamose, may she live!" (Source Bibliography: DRN, 232; MR, 541 [facs.].)

Linen Docket: Year 7, 4 3ht 8 of Psusennes I/'king' Pinudjem I/Menkheperre: "Year 7, 4 3ht 8. On this day osirifying (dit wsir n) the king's daughter and great king's wife Ahmose-Sitkamose, may she live!" (Source Bibliography: DRN, 236; MR, 541 [facs., transcr.]; RNT, 250 [11]; TIP, 420 [39].)

Photo Credit: RM (Cairo, 1912,) pl. XVIII. For high resolution photo of Ahmose-Sitkamose see the University of Chicago's Electronic Open Stacks copy of Smith's The Royal Mummies (Cairo, 1912,) Call #: DT57.C2 vol59, plate XVIII.

Source Abbreviation Key