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Photo: R.F.Morgan, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons
Restored and opened to the public in October 2025.
Tomb WV22, also known as KV22, was the burial place of Amenhotep III, a pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty, in the western arm of the Valley of the Kings. The tomb is unique in that it has two subsidiary burial chambers for the pharaoh's wives Tiye and Sitamen. It was officially discovered in August 1799 by Prosper Jollois and Édouard de Villiers du Terrage, engineers with Napoleon's expedition to Egypt but had probably been open for some time. The tomb was first excavated in the early 1900s by Theodore M. Davis; the details of this are lost. The first documented clearance was carried out by Howard Carter in 1915. Since 1989, a Japanese team from Waseda University led by Sakuji Yoshimura and Jiro Kondo has excavated and conserved the tomb. The sarcophagus trough is missing from the tomb, but the lid was reconstructed from shattered fragments. The tomb's layout and decoration follow the tombs of the king's predecessors, Amenhotep II (KV35) and Thutmose IV (KV43); however, the decoration is much finer in quality. Several images of the pharaoh's head were cut out in 1828 and can be seen today in the Louvre. The tomb was opened to visitors on October 4, 2025, having previously been closed for restoration.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
KV8
The son of Ramesses the Great, Merneptah's tomb has suffered greatly from flash flooding of the Valley over the millennia. Those paintings and reliefs that have survived, however, are generally in good condition.
KV62
KV62 may be the most famous of the tombs in the Valley, the scene of Howard Carter's 1922 discovery of the almost intact royal burial of the young king. Compared to most of the other royal tombs, however, the tomb of Tutankhamun is barely worth visiting, being much smaller and with limited decoration. Anyone interested in seeing evidence of the damage to the mummy done during attempts to remove it from the coffin will be disappointed as only the head and shoulders are visible. The fabulous riches of the tomb are no longer in it, but have been removed to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Visitors with limited time would be best to spend their time elsewhere.
The KV9 tomb was started by Ramesses V, but usurped after his death by his successor Ramesses VI, who enlarged the tomb and had his own image and cartouches carved in over his predecessor's. The tomb is one of the most interesting in the Valley, with one of the most complete and best preserved decorative schemes surviving.
KV46
The tomb of Yuya and his wife Tjuyu, the parents of Queen Tiye, the wife of Amenhotep III, and King Ay. It was discovered in February 1905 by James E. Quibell. Until the discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922, this was the richest and best preserved tomb found in the valley, and the first to be found with major items in situ.
KV34
One of the most remote tombs in the Valley, at the far end of the Valley and up several flights of steps to gain entry. The climb is worth it though. The tomb is of the typical, early curved plan with a large oval burial chamber. The decoration is unique, being in a simple, pleasing style that resembles the cursive writing of the time.
KV43
High in the cliffs above the valley floor, it had been spared the extensive flood-water damage suffered by other tombs, and its wall decorations are consequently very well preserved. The pharaoh's outer stone sarcophagus is also still in place in the burial chamber.