howardcarterandtutankhamun.com

Copyright © 2021 Michael J. Marfleet

' N E C R O - P A L A C E ' by MICHAEL J MARFLEET

In the Valley of the Kings any comparison of the differences between the architecture of

an average New Kingdom king tomb with that of the diminutive KV62 is stark. Any comparison between the priceless inventory of treasures discovered in KV62

and the pathetic fragments scavenged from other king tombs in the Valley of the Kings is equally stark.

If a tomb as small as KV62 can have such treasures, surely far larger king tombs must have had even richer inventories?

Perhaps not.

Model of Valley of the Kings Valley of the Kings Visitor Center

'Necro-Palace' October 22nd, 2021

Prior to entombment of the boy king Tuthmosis IV, Tutankhamun's great-grand-father, was the last pharaoh to be buried in the Valley of the Kings, (VoK). He was laid to rest in King's Valley tomb number KV43. Of the two kings who ruled during the fifty-plus years between their reigns, Amenhotep III was initially buried in the Valley of the Aten (KV22), some two kilometers away by valley track (Essay II), and Amenhotep IV in the Royal Wadi at Akhetaten (TA26), some four hundred kilometers distant, (Technical Essay 8, February 11th, 2022). Follow-ing the burial of Tutankhamun it would be a further thirty-two years before the next VoK king burial - that of Horemheb, (KV57). Although Ay succeeded the boy king and preceded Horemheb, he was buried in the Valley of the Aten, (KV23).

Horemheb, at accession being rather long in years, would probably have commissioned the cutting of his tomb very soon after his coronation. Like the kings before him who had had lengthy reigns he would have wished to ensure his tomb became the largest and the grandest ever. For its time, it was. Over 100m in length, it is lavishly decorated, and its architecture includes three corrid-ors, nine doorways, five stairways, a well, hall, antechamber, a columned sepul-chral hall, burial chamber and treasury, plus eight additional storerooms, (Fig. 1).

After Bib. 68

The well-hall-antechamber-sepulchral hall-burial chamber sequence in KV57 is replicated in other completed New Kingdom king tombs in the VoK, the treasury making its first appearance in KV62. Absent in KV57 but occasionally evident from the time of Amenhotep III (KV22) are one or more additional burial cham-bers for favorite wives.

(For accurate plans of most VoK tombs see Bib. 68).

KV 62

We know why Tutankhamun's tomb is so small. He died unexpectedly in his late teens. At the time the tomb he had commissioned for himself in the Valley of the Aten, KV25, was barely begun. Time was short and the demand for expediency dictated a solution simpler than the completion of even a foreshort-ened version of KV25. The solution to the problem was the tomb of a noble in the VoK. It was identified as suitable for modification, usurped and altered, ulti-mately to become KV62, (Figs. 1 & 2).

While it was imperative for pharaoh to enter into the realm of Osiris un-harmed, also it was unconscionable that he should not be accompanied by all that he would need to sustain him in the afterlife. There had to be sufficient space in the tomb to accommodate all his grave goods. To achieve this the noble's tomb had to be enlarged. The original tomb likely comprised just the stairway, the entrance corridor and a single chamber. (A niche chamber, like that in KV55 [Technical Essay 4, December 17th], may have been planned - there is evidence of a partially cut opening in the west wall of the antechamber). The final product added the burial chamber, the treasury and the annex, more than doubling the original overall volume, (Fig. 2).

The vertical artifact recognized by Reeves in the Factum Arte high resol-ution relief survey of KV62's burial chamber north wall* (Essay VII), could suggest the original single chamber extended to this north wall, (Fig. 2). All that remained to provide for a burial chamber of sufficient size was to deepen the northernmost four meters of the existing chamber by one meter and extend westward by three meters.

The ancient Egyptians were nothing if not consummate mathematicians and surveyors. They would have calculated exactly the minimum volume needed to accommodate the lengthy inventory of grave goods and therefore how

large and how many rooms would be required and their configuration. Hence the addition of the treasury to the east of the burial chamber - essential for the canopic shrine and associated items - and extension of the antechamber to the south by perhaps as much as three meters, plus the addition of the annex to the west, (Fig. 3).

KV 57 Unlike KV62, KV57 was thoroughly robbed and ransacked, perhaps mul-

tiple times. However, enough fragments remained of the items that once made up its contents to establish similarity with some of the principal objects in KV62. (Similar fragmentary items were encountered in KV43 amongst the debris left by the plunderers of that tomb). The examples from KV57 include (Bib. 30): the basin and lid of the sarcophagus (the lid was smashed); pieces of the canopic chest including the canopic stoppers in the form of the king's head; most of a guardian statue - one of a pair like those found protecting the entrance to the burial chamber in KV62; the head of a lion and another of a hippopotamus from animal beds like those found lined up against the west wall in the antechamber of KV62; Anubis (less its gold-plated shrine), virtually identical to the figure of a jackal upon its shrine found in the doorway to the treasury in KV62; and fig-urines - an effigy of the king standing upon a panther (only the panther remain-ed in KV57), and of a seated god, like those found in the treasury of KV62. (All the wooden items found in KV57 had been stripped of their sheet gold).

The similarity of these items not only suggests the grave goods inventory was fairly standard, but also implies that the inventory of grave goods discover-ed almost complete in KV62 likely was more or less the same as that which originally occupied the more capacious rooms in KV57.

At the time Horemheb died KV57 was not quite finished - the carved reg-isters on the burial chamber walls are incomplete, as is the most distant of the

storerooms - but all the important rooms had been completed thereby allowing placement of the grave goods according to custom. (In the confined accom-modation of KV62 the priests did their best to arrange the grave goods as pre-scribed by tradition, but of necessity final placement became somewhat haphaz-ard - leading to a scene not that unlike one's own self-storage unit of today).

In the case of KV57 the doorway in the north wall of the 'well' was walled up, plastered and painted over to hide the 'quarters' of the deceased pharaoh - and mislead any potential plunderers, (unsuccessfully). The rooms north of this point were presumably intended for the private use of pharaoh and his spiritual retinue, (Fig. 4).

While the purpose defined for most rooms in KV57 is somewhat specul-ative, each room must have had some specific function. The pattern is repeated in most other completed tombs in the VoK. It therefore seems likely that the inventory of grave goods discovered in KV62 is very similar to that which at one time would have been accommodated in far larger XVIIIth Dynasty VoK tombs like KV57, prior to their violation.**

KV 23

Like KV62, KV23 is another example of a hurriedly finished tomb. At the

time of Ay's demise KV23 had been completed to what was to become the 'hall', (the design of KV23 to this point is remarkably similar to the first half of KV57, [Fig. 5]). The 'well room' had been completed but excavation of the well itself would have been postponed until the deeper tomb architecture had been finish-ed. In the interests of expediency it was decided the 'hall' should be enlarged to become the 'burial chamber' with another room cut off the far wall - the 'treas-ury'. The 'well room' became the 'antechamber'.

But would these three rooms be sufficient to accommodate an inventory of

grave goods similar to that discovered in KV62? Yes, and with room to spare. By a small percentage (more or less ten percent) the total floor area and volume of the three rooms in KV23 exceeds that of the four rooms in KV62:

~90sqm & ~300cum in KV23 / ~80sqm & ~275cum in KV62

Conclusion It appears the objects fundamental to the beliefs of the royal hierarchy -

those intended to be in the likeness of the king such as the ka and its shrine (cf: the 'little golden shrine' discovered opened and empty in KV62), those that de-manded the best workmanship and were manufactured with the most precious materials (the burial equipage), plus the more mundane (items of a subsistence nature) - were by and large 'standard' equipment both in style, quality and quan-tity and mandated for any funeral of a king regardless of the size and complexity of the tomb. Other than items of religious significance directly associated with the burial chamber, it is likely objects of an everyday personal nature would have been arranged in the chambers much as they had been in the rooms of pharaoh's palaces. (Examples from KV62 include: gifts from pharaoh's elite entourage, the mannequin, the 'lotus bust', the throne, bed, articles of clothing and jewelry, accompanying pre-deceased family, and the armory of the boy king).

For untimely deaths like those of Ay and Tutankhamun, foreshortened king tombs like KV23, and lesser, usurped and enlarged tombs like KV62, the seventy day period (Technical Essay 6, January 14th, 2022), provided time enough to excavate an antechamber, burial chamber and treasury with volume sufficient to accommodate the standard inventory. The requisite amount of space appears to have been of the order of three hundred cubic meters.

The deceased pharaoh took personal belongings from his earthly palatial residences. He also took spiritual effigies of his servants, copious supplies of precious oils, food and drink, sumptuous objects of religious significance and ritual spells. This complex inventory enabled him to navigate the labyrinthine perils of the twelve gates*** of night. The ark for this perilous journey was his fully furnished 'necro-palace'. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

* Scans accessible at: www.factumfoundation.org/pag/210/High-Resolution-Image-Viewer &

www.highres.factum-arte.org/Tutankhamun &

see: 'DID TUTANKHAMUN CONCEAL NEFERTITI?

What is the Secret of KV62?' Dylan Bickerstaffe, 2015, accessible at: www.academia.edu

** Perhaps later VoK sepulchers, too. The ancient plan of the burial chamber in KV2, the tomb of Ramses IV (c1151-45bc, Dynasty XX), shows quite clearly the sarcophagus was surrounded by four shrines, the two outermost being separated by a canopy - exactly the arrangement discover-ed in the burial chamber of KV62. *** The 'Amduat' or 'Book of Gates', versions and extracts from which decorate the walls of many VoK tombs, included the spells that would guide the deceased safely through the perilous twelve hours of darkness into the dawn light of regeneration.