The Royal Tomb of Akhenaten is a multichambered tomb in the Royal Wadi east of Amarna, Egypt, where members of the Amarna Period royal family were originally buried. Akhenaten was an Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh who reigned for seventeen years (1355–1338 BC) from his capital city of Akhetaten, known today as Amarna. The Royal Tomb was rediscovered in the 1880s; however, the exact year and who discovered it is up for debate. Excavations and research into the tomb began in 1891 and continue to this day. The location of the Royal Tomb, the tomb itself, the artifacts contained within the tomb, and the destruction of parts of the Royal Tomb after Akhenaten's death provide researchers with valuable insights into Akhenaten's reign, including the political environment, and the Amarna Period.
Akhenaten's burial chamber can easily be detected in his royal tomb at Amarna since it is the only tomb which was fully finished; the rest of the tomb consists of unfinished rock cut tomb chambers and rooms which were likely meant to inter other members of the royal family such as his queen Nefertiti. However, work on the tomb stopped when the Egyptian royal family later moved to Thebes and abandoned Amarna under Akhenaten's son Tutankhamun about 3 years after Akhenaten's death.
History Burials and defacement Akhenaten ruled as pharaoh during the Eighteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom. He succeeded his father Amenhotep III as Amenhotep IV. His Great Royal Wife was Nefertiti, with whom he had six known daughters: Meritaten, Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten, Neferneferuaten Tasherit, Neferneferure, and Setepenre. The solar god Aten, representing the sun's disc, which had gained prominence under Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III, was elevated to the main deity in Amenhotep IV's reign. Early in his reign, he built several temples to the Aten at Karnak, and erected a stele on which he declared Aten the sole god, beginning a new religion known as Atenism where the king and his family served as the intermediaries between the god and the populace. The temples to other gods were closed, and some deities, especially Amun, had their names and images erased. In the fifth year of his reign, he changed his name to Akhenaten (meaning "Beneficial for Aten") and founded a new capital city, Akhetaten (meaning "The Horizon of the Sun's Disc"), a site known today as Amarna.
Akhenaten abandoned the traditional royal burial ground of the Valley of the Kings (where he may have started a tomb, WV25 or WV23) and began a new royal cemetery in the Royal Wadi at Akhetaten. He stated his intentions to be buried there on the Boundary Stelae, proclamations issued in Years 5 and 6 of his reign and carved into the cliffs to the east and west of the city. The text states: Let a tomb be made for me in the eastern mountain of Akhetaten. Let my burial be made in it, in the millions of jubilees that my father, the Aten, has decreed for me. Let the burial of the Great King's Wife Nefertiti be made in it, in the millions of years that my father, the Aten, has decreed for her. Let the burial of the King's Daughter Meryetaten, be made in it, in these millions of years.
Like WV22, the tomb of Amenhotep III, Akhenaten's tomb included additional suites of rooms likely intended for the burial of his chief wife and eldest daughter. There is no evidence that Neferiti or Meritaten were ever interred in the Royal Tomb as laid out on the Boundary Stelae. The tomb was never finished, instead being adapted to receive the burials of several other members of the royal family. When Akhenaten died in Year 17 of his reign, he shared the main burial chamber with his mother Tiye, who likely died around the middle of his reign. His second daughter Meketaten is thought to have died no later than Year 14 of her father's reign, and was interred in gamma, one of a small side suite of three rooms; room alpha of the same suite seems to have contained multiple burials.
When the royal court abandoned Amarna in the reign of Akhenaten's successor Tutankhamun, the burials from the Royal Tomb were transferred to the Valley of the Kings. The bodies of Tiye and an anonymous man (identified through DNA testing as Tutankhamun's father and thought to be Akhenaten) were reburied in tomb KV55; Tiye was later moved to the mummy cache in KV35.
The reigns of Tutankhamun and his successors Ay and Horemheb saw the end of Atenism and the restoration of the traditional polytheistic religion. Many of Akhenaten's monuments and temples were dismantled, and his name and image were erased. Akhenaten, along with his successors, was omitted from the official king lists. A text from the Nineteenth Dynasty refers to him as "the enemy of Akhetaten". In the Royal Tomb, the decoration and contents of the burial chamber especially were destroyed, including Akhenaten's sarcophagus, which did not contain his body.
Rediscovery Officially, the Royal Tomb was rediscovered on 28 December 1891 by the Italian Egyptologist Alessandro Barsanti, but it is thought to have been located by local villagers in the early 1880s. In 1892, Egyptologist Flinders Petrie wrote that the tomb had been discovered "four or five years" before Barsanti's 1891 discovery by locals, who kept it a secret while removing any items they thought could be sold on, which would put the discovery by locals between 1886 and 1887. However, jewellery reportedly from the Royal Tomb, was sold to the Royal Scottish Museum in 1883, which supports the idea that local villagers discovered the tomb in the early 1880s (possibly after 1881). It is likely the locals kept the tomb's location a secret both to sell what they could onto the antiquities market and due to their mistrust of Egyptologists following the forced revealing of the location of the Royal Cache near Deir el-Bahari in 1881.
Expeditions The first two expeditions were conducted by Alessandro Barsanti between 1891 and 1892. Barsanti and his team inspected the chambers within the Royal Tomb, took measurements, made drawings, collected artifacts, and began the process of clearing some of the chambers of debris. In 1893-1894, Urbain Bouriant conducted an epigraphic expedition with the intent of recording the "inscriptions and reliefs in the Royal Tomb". In 1931 J.D.S. Pendlebury of the Egypt Exploration Society began the task of re-examining and re-excavating the area outside of the tomb, the dumps from Barsanti's excavations, and the interior of the tomb, including the shaft. In addition to the official expeditions, there may have been at least five unofficial expeditions prior to 1934. The final expedition conducted by Pendlebury in 1935 was done in hopes of discovering a second tomb, copying all the reliefs and inscriptions, and creating a photographic record. Geoffrey T. Martin recorded the remaining inscriptions and reliefs of the Royal Tomb between 1980 and 1982 with the support of the Egyptian Antiquities Organization. A survey of the tomb was conducted in 1980 by Mark Lehner. In 1977, the Supreme Council of Antiquities began the Amarna Project, led by Barry Kemp. Work on this project continues to this day.
In 1983, the Organisation of Egyptian Antiquites opened the tomb to tourists. Access within the tomb was improved through the installation of a wooden walkway in the main corridor; a road was constructed through the Royal Wadi to allow vehicle access.
Architecture
The Royal Tomb was cut in a small side valley off the main Royal Wadi, approximately from the valley's mouth and a further directly east of Amarna's central city. It lies on the same axis as the Small Aten Temple. The tomb was cut into the floor of the valley, facing approximately east (actually southeast). It descends back into the hillside for . Unlike previous royal Theban tombs, it has a straight axis. It is thought this was intended to allow the sun's rays to shine all the way down into the burial chamber, something which does not work in practice due to the height of the valley's sides. The layout of the main portion of the tomb is not substantially different to prior tombs. It was only cut as far as the first pillared hall which was adapted, through the removal of two pillars, into the burial chamber. The small, unfinished room in its north corner may be the start of the conventional bent axis.
The Royal Tomb of Akhenaten consists of several chambers (some finished and some unfinished), a Pillared Hall (where Akhenaten's body was most likely located), several staircases, and corridors that are all plastered and decorated to varying degrees.
Entrance Staircase A and Corridor B: Contains 20 steps and a central slide leading to a corridor that extends to the "innermost parts of the tomb," and leads to several unfinished chambers. The corridor is "21.80m long, 3.20m wide, and 3.47m" high. Both show evidence of being plastered, but not decorated.
Stairway C: This stairway is wide and consists of a central ramp with 18 steps on the left side and 16 on the right. As with the entrance and first corridor, it is plastered and undecorated. The doorway to Shaft Room D was once blocked and sealed but was smashed through by ancient robbers. A doorway at the top of the stairs opens to the right, and leads to Room alpha; a corresponding, unfinished doorway was cut on the left wall.
Shaft Room D: The square shaft measures deep on the east side, and on the west side it is deep. In the north corner, blocking stones were recovered. The walls of the room were decorated. The doorway to Pillared Hall E is centred in the west wall instead of being offset to the left.
Pillared Hall E: It is the largest room in the tomb, measuring . Raised platforms can be found on the west and east sides of the hall. There are two pillars on the left side of the room. The remains of Akhenaten's sarcophagus were found in this room, meaning this is most likely where he was originally buried, but his body was not found in the sarcophagus. The tomb was initially plastered and decorated, but most of it was destroyed after Akhenaten's death due to political fallout.
Room F: This is a small, unfinished room in the north corner on the right side of the Pillared Hall. The doorway is incompletely cut but is plastered. It may have been the start of a right-turning corridor, or intended as a storeroom for burial equipment.
Room alpha: One of the unfinished chambers. One of the things that is noticeable about this room is that it contains four niches that are carved into the walls. The purpose of the niches was to "receive protective or ritualistic magical bricks and associated amulets." Most of the plaster and decorations remain in various degrees of completion. Based on the reliefs and inscriptions found within the chamber, Martin suggested that this room was meant for Akhenaten's minor wife Kiya.
Room beta: This room is very roughly cut and entirely unfinished; the floors and ceilings are on two different levels, and the two doorways to Room alpha are two different sizes, with different threshold heights.
Room gamma: One of the unfinished chambers with unfinished floors. The room was plastered and decorated. Decorations indicate that this chamber was meant for Akhenaten's daughter Meketaten. One of the reliefs indicates that Meketaten died during childbirth.
Rooms I-VI: This large suite of rooms are entered from Corridor B. All are unfinished and undecorated. The first two rooms are square and cut at a right angle to the axis of the royal tomb; the third room is corridor curved to the left. Room 4 is a steeply descending ramp leading to another square chamber. Room 6 is the largest but is incompletely cut and irregularly shaped. When projected onto a straight axis, these chambers have the same layout as the main royal tomb. The suite is thought to have been intended for Nefertiti.
Decoration