Merenptah's tomb (KV8)
Merenptah's tomb (KV8)
Tomb of Ramesses II's thirteenth son and Queen Isetnofret (XIII w. p.n.e.), located in the part of the valley adjacent to his father's grave.
It is one of the most beautiful tombs known in antiquity (w 2008 r. not available due to work in the KV-10). At the beginning of the 20th century. he was buried, but Howard Carter unearthed it (1903). Merenptah was through 12 years co-ruler and chief commander, and Pharaoh was well over fifty. He had arthritis, and in his old age he suffered, just like the father, for toothache.
In the fifth year of his rule, he repulsed the invasions of the Libyans and the Sea Peoples.
Perhaps he also led a victorious campaign in Asia, as mentioned in the so-called. The stela of Israel.
Merenptah's tomb
The tomb became a model in the late nineteenth and twentieth dynasty. It has a straight axis, concave reliefs and a smaller number of additional rooms than before. The walls are decorated with fragments of books of the underworld, the ceiling in the burial chamber is decorated with astronomical symbols. The further corridors, the decorations were made less and less carefully, perhaps because of the imminent death of the king.
The road runs quite steeply down, and the corridor does 80 m in length.
On the walls you can see Merenptah greeted by Re-Horachte and Chepri, incarnation of Osiris, and the soul of the king led by Nechebkau towards Anubis, and on the opposite side – the texts of the Litany of Re, the barge of Re flowing through the Underworld. Next there is a shaft guarded by Thoth and Anubis, behind which is another corridor with scenes from the Book of Amduat. The road leads to the vestibule with Osiris and Nephthys and Merenptah as Iunmutef. A false burial chamber was to confuse the thieves. It is decorated with hymns to Osiris and scenes from the Book of Gates.
On the opposite wall are tangled Chaos snakes and the tug of a rope of human souls. On the lintel there are double depictions of the king as Osiris, god of the Underworld. In the further corridors there is an abandoned cover of Merenptah's sarcophagus. The real burial chamber on the ceiling has images of the gods traveling in the night sky and the transformation of the Chepri scarab into Re, who are surrounded by souls in the form of a bird. Above Chnum, a boat with the mummy of the pharaoh leads.
Pharaoh's mummy was locked in four sarcophagi: three are made of pink granite, and the inner of alabaster.