page_title: KV21
section_title: Discovery and contents
hierarchical_section_title: KV21 / Discovery and contents
caption_attribution_description: English: Isometric, plan and elevation images of KV21 taken from a 3d model
context_page_description: Tomb KV21 is located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It contains the mummies of two women, thought to be Eighteenth Dynasty queens. In 2010, a team headed by Zahi Hawass used DNA evidence to tentatively identify one mummy, KV21A, as the biological mother of the two fetuses preserved in the tomb of King Tutankhamun.
context_section_description: The tomb was discovered by Giovanni Belzoni in 1817. He found a brick wall at the end of the first section of passageway; it had been broken through in antiquity. In the larger room Belzoni found two naked female mummies with long hair; he notes how easily the hair of one of the mummies pulled out when he tugged at it. The smaller chamber contained pottery and alabaster sherds. A complete large ceramic jar was found at the top of the stairs.
  James Burton, who mapped it in 1825, called it a "clean new tomb - the water not having got into it."
  The tomb was re-investigated in 1989 by Donald Ryan. He found the entrance buried under flood debris; water had penetrated the tomb as evidenced by the 'tide-line' on the wall of the burial chamber which indicated it had been filled with several inches of water. The once well-preserved mummies were found in scattered pieces, the white-washed jars in the side chamber had been smashed with large rocks, and a large graffito on one of the tombs walls proclaimed "ME 1826." The presence of bat guano indicated that the tomb had been open for some time after Belzoni and Burton had visited.
caption: Isometric, plan and elevation images of KV21 taken from a 3d model
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