The Old World Atlas
Menu
KV53 — Isometric, plan and elevation images of KV53 taken from a 3d model

Hypogeum (rock-cut)

KV53

Also known asTomb KV53

Egypt

DatedEst. 3600–2500 BCE

Where it standsSources

Photo R.F.Morgan · CC BY-SA 3.0Source file on Wikimedia Commons

Scroll to read

About this site

What the sources say

Tomb KV53 is located in the Valley of the Kings, in Egypt. It was discovered in 1906 by Edward R. Ayrton excavating on behalf of Theodore M. Davis. It has been excavated but never been fully planned, and consists of a single chamber at the end of a shaft.

Read on Wikipedia3 min readCC BY-SA 4.0

Where it sits in time

The site's dated range, placed against world reference points.

The scale is logarithmic: each step to the left is about ten times older than the last.

  1. Göbekli Tepe9600 BCE
  2. First farming9500 BCE
  3. Avebury2600 BCE
  4. Great Pyramid of Giza2560 BCE
  5. Stonehenge2500 BCE
  6. Bronze Age collapse1200 BCE
  7. Rome founded753 BCE
  8. Parthenon447 BCE
  9. Hadrian's Wall122 CE
  10. Machu Picchu built1450 CE
12,000 BCE8,000 BCE4,000 BCE1 CE1,500 CE
This site

Est. 3600–2500 BCEHow this date was established: Type comparisonTypical for this type

The published range for this kind of monument in this region. It is not a date for this site.
Source for this date

The full article

KV53: the whole story

3 min read564 wordsRead on Wikipedia

In brief

Sources for this section

Tomb KV53 is located in the Valley of the Kings, in Egypt. It was discovered in 1906 by Edward R. Ayrton, who was excavating on behalf of Theodore M. Davis. It has been excavated but never fully planned, and it consists of a single chamber at the end of a shaft.

Ayrton found it after thoroughly investigating the southern section of the side valley leading to the tomb of Amenhotep II (KV35). Excavation then moved to the other side of the path, to the north of KV29, where KV53 lay underneath later workmen's huts. The tomb is a shallow shaft that descends to a large room.

Ayrton noted that the tomb had been looted in antiquity. The only find he recorded was an ostracon dedicated to Meretseger naming 'Hora, chief scribe of the Place of Truth'. Several more ostraca were found in the shaft fill, and more still, likely contemporary with them, had been used to build the walls of the workers' dwellings.

In 2009–2010 a team led by Zahi Hawass and Ahmed el-Leithy dug in this area to try to relocate tombs KV50, KV51, KV52 and KV53. They found 18th Dynasty blue painted pottery, tools, and hieratic and figured ostraca, including a sketch of a seated queen presenting an offering. Cartouches of Ramesses II also appeared on ostraca.

The owner of the tomb and its date are not stated. Tombs in the Valley of the Kings were excavated on the west bank of the Nile opposite Thebes for pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom, over a period of nearly 500 years from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Dynasty.

Description

Sources for this section

KV53 was discovered in 1906 by Edward Ayrton during excavations conducted on behalf of the American millionaire Theodore Davis. After thoroughly investigating the southern section of the side valley leading to the tomb of Amenhotep II (KV35), excavation moved to the other side of the path, to the north of KV29. KV53 was discovered underneath later workmens' huts.

The tomb consists of a shallow shaft that descends to a large room. Ayrton notes the tomb had been looted in antiquity, with the only find noted being an ostracon dedicated to Meretseger naming "Hora, chief scribe of the Place of Truth". Several more ostraca had been found in the shaft fill, and more still which were likely contemporary with them had been used to construct the walls of the workers' dwellings.