Tomb KV21 is located in the Valley of the Kings

Valley of the Kings

The Valley of the Kings , less often called the Valley of the Gates of the Kings , is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, tombs were constructed for the Pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom .The valley stands on the west bank of...

 in Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

. It contains the mummies

Mummy

A mummy is a body, human or animal, whose skin and organs have been preserved by either intentional or incidental exposure to chemicals, extreme coldness , very low humidity, or lack of air when bodies are submerged in bogs, so that the recovered body will not decay further if kept in cool and dry...

 of two women, thought to be Eighteenth Dynasty

Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt

The eighteenth dynasty of ancient Egypt is perhaps the best known of all the dynasties of ancient Egypt...

 queens

Monarch

A monarch is the person who heads a monarchy. This is a form of government in which a state or polity is ruled or controlled by an individual who typically inherits the throne by birth and occasionally rules for life or until abdication...

. In 2010, a team including geneticist Carsten Pusch used DNA evidence to identify one mummy as the biological mother of the two fetuses preserved in the tomb of King Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun

Tutankhamun , Egyptian , ; approx. 1341 BC – 1323 BC) was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty , during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom...

.

The tomb was discovered by Giovanni Belzoni

Giovanni Battista Belzoni

Giovanni Battista Belzoni , sometimes known as The Great Belzoni, was a prolific Venetian explorer of Egyptian antiquities.-Early life:...

 in 1817. Belzoni described how easily the hair came out of one of the mummies when he tugged at it.

The tomb has a small low chamber next to the burial chamber where large white washed jars (probably containg embalming waste) were located.

James Burton

James Burton (Egyptologist)

James Burton , formerly James Haliburton, was an early British Egyptologist, who worked at a number of sites throughout Egypt, but notably in the Valley of the Kings.-Life:...

, who mapped it in 1825, called it a "clean new tomb."

However, when the tomb was re-investigated in 1989 by Donald Ryan, the mummies had been torn to pieces, the jars stored next to the burial chamber were smashed, and a large graffito on one of the tombs walls proclaimed "ME 1826."

Announcing the DNA results in 2010, Carsten Pusch stated, "The data obtained from KV21A points to this mummy as the mother of the fetuses. Unfortunately we are not yet able to identify her as Ankhesenamun

Ankhesenamun

Ankhesenamun was a queen of the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. Born as Ankhesenpaaten, she was the third of six known daughters of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten and his Great Royal Wife Nefertiti, and became the Great Royal Wife of her cousin Tutankhamun. The change in her name reflects the changes...

, Nefertiti

Nefertiti

Nefertiti was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Akhenaten. Nefertiti and her husband were known for a religious revolution, in which they started to worship one god only...

's daughter."

External links

• Theban Mapping Project: KV21 - Includes description, images, and plans of the tomb.