KV59

KV59 tomb of unknown
place	Valley of the Kings
Discovery date	unknown; Investigations by James Burton (1825), Eugène Lefébure (1889), Howard Carter (1921)
excavation	under the direction of Susanne Bickel as part of the University of Basel Kings' Valley Project (2010–2011)

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KV58

The following
KV60

KV59

Valley of the Kings
(Eastern Valley)

KV59 ( Kings' Valley no. 59 ) is the name of an ancient Egyptian tomb in the Valley of the Kings that could not be assigned to any person. It is due to its location in the 18th dynasty under Thutmose III. ( New Kingdom ) dated.

After the excavation by the University of Basel Kings' Valley Project, the grave was provided with an iron gate for safety to protect it from flooding.

Location and discovery

The tomb is located in the southern area of the Eastern Valley in the Valley of the Kings near KV26 and opposite KV31 and directly in the northern line of KV37 , which was the time of Thutmose III. is assigned.

It cannot be proven when KV59 was opened or recently rediscovered. There is no information about an earlier research history or whether and which excavation activities took place afterwards. However, there is evidence that the grave was known to James Burton and Eugène Lefébure , who had mapped it. The final investigations are attributed to Howard Carter . The grave was filled with rubble for a long time and was inaccessible. The search for the entrance was continued in 2010 as part of the University of Basel Kings' Valley Project started in 2009 by Egyptologists from the University of Basel under the direction of Susanne Bickel .

Excavation and finds

In their search for the grave entrance, the excavation team at the University of Basel came across mainly fragments of pottery that date back to the New Reich. One of the finds was assigned to a piece from the 18th dynasty , which originally came from grave KV26 . Since no other objects were found, the small grave was probably completely robbed.

KV59 consists of an entrance shaft and a chamber. The entrance to the shaft had been mostly filled with small pieces of limestone and sand. During the excavation, the individual layers of rubble showed signs of multiple flooding. Apart from fragments of pottery, no other objects were found here. Furthermore, in addition to the old rubble, newer rubble was also found, which suggests that the grave had been open for a long time and that rubble and debris got into the grave through flooding.

The chamber

The only chamber in grave KV59 measures 3 × 3 m and is between 1.80 and 2 m high. When it was found, it was half filled with mud and rubble. Apart from the remains of pottery there were no finds and there was no evidence of a burial.

literature

Nicholas Reeves , Richard H. Wilkinson : The Valley of the Kings. Mysterious realm of the dead of the pharaohs. Econ, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-8289-0739-3 .
Lyla Pinch-Brock: Collisions, Abandonments, Alterations, Tomb Commencements / Pits, And Other Features in the Valley of the Kings. In: Richard H. Wilkinson, Kent R. Weeks (Eds.): The Oxford Handbook of the Valley of the Kings. Oxford University Press, New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-19-993163-7 , pp. 128-129.