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Amarna Royal Tomb

A video slideshow of my photographs of the Royal Tomb at Amarna. The Royal Tomb at Amarna is located in a narrow side valley 6km from the mouth of the Royal Wadi, and was discovered by local people in 1880. It was originally built for Akhenaten, Nefertiti, and their second daughter Mekenaten, and probably also for Akhenaten's mother, Queen Tiye. The basic design and proportions of the tomb are similar to those of the 18th dynasty tombs in the Valley of the Kings, other than the fact that it was designed to accommodate several burials. A flight of twenty steps, with a central inclined plane leads to the door of the tomb, and a long straight descending corridor. Halfway down this corridor a suite of unfinished rooms were probably intended for Nefertiti. The main corridor continues to descend, and to the right again a second suite of rooms branches off. The corridor then descends via steps into an ante-room, and then to the pillared burial chamber where Akhenaten's granite sarcophagus (which is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo) sat in a slight dip in the floor. It was decorated by carvings of Nefertiti acting as a protective goddess, and by the ever-present sun-disks of the Aten. The second suite of three chambers (referred to as Alpha, Beta and Gamma) were used for the burial of Meketaten, Akhenaten's second daughter. Two of the chambers (Alpha and Gamma) are decorated and depict very similar scenes: in the Alpha chamber Akhenaten and Nefertiti bend over the body of a woman, weeping and gripping each other's arms for support. Nearby a nurse stands with a baby in her arms, accompanied by a fan-bearer, which indicates the baby's royal status. The names in the scene have been hacked out. In the Gamma chamber a very similar scene is shown; here the hieroglyphs identify the dead woman as Meketaten. In the same chamber another scene shows Meketaten standing under a canopy, which is usually associated with childbirth, but can also interpreted as representing the rebirth of the princess. In front of her, amongst courtiers, stand Akhenaten, Nefertiti and their three remaining daughters, Meritaten, Ankhesenpaaten and Neferneferuaten Tasherit. The presence of a royal baby suggests that the princess may have died in childbirth. The tomb has been extensively damaged by repeated flooding and most of the wall decorations have been lost. Enough remains, though, to make it well worth visiting. The sequence of photographs follows the main corridor down to the king's burial chamber, goes back up to the suite of rooms depicting the burial of Meketanen, and finishes in the unfinished chambers of Nefertiti.