Discovered 1899 | Excavated by Victor Loret (1899) | |
Location East Valley of the Kings | ||
Tomb KV40 is located in the Valley of the Kings, in Egypt. The original occupant of this tomb is unknown. Only the upper part of the shaft is accessible; the rest is filled with rubble, and nothing is known about the tomb's layout. Although the tomb was excavated by Victor Loret in 1899, no report was published.
Excavations in 2014 revealed the remains of at least 50 minor royalty in several chambers. While the tomb was looted several times in antiquity and at the end of the nineteenth century, it still contains many fragments of funerary equipment, such as wooden and cartonnage coffins or textiles.
Excavations of 2014
On 28 April 2014, the Egyptian Minister of State for Antiquities announced the discovery by an Egyptian–Swiss archaeological team of at least 50 mummies in the center chamber and in three side chambers of KV40. Based on inscriptions on storage jars, Egyptologists identified more than thirty people.
The royal titles indicated that the buried were members of the families of Thutmosis IV and Amenhotep III, both of whom also are interred in the Valley of the Kings. The analysis of the hieratic inscriptions point to at least eight hitherto unknown royal princesses, four princes, and several foreign women, mostly adults. Mummified children have also been found.