KV-63 Update

17 March 2009

Sorry for the delay, for I had intended to have this update out much earlier.

My lecture on March 14th at the Mummification Museum went well as I managed to present sixty-eight images in 45 minutes!

As mentioned in my 7 February update we discovered a very unique wooden bed inside Jar #13. In addition to finding the bed in the jar we also found three wooden boards (wrapped in linen) with 4 “prongs” or “legs” which may have served as supports for the bed. We now have enough such “legs” for four bed supports, but only 3 wrapped boards (ca. 50 cm in length) have been uncovered.

During a brief visit to KV-10/KV-63 on March 1st by Dr. Zahi Hawass, he called attention to one of our SCA conservators, Amany Nashed, for her good work on the restoration of the bed. Dr. Hawass also suggested we try placing the bed on the supports--- which we did the following day and they appear to be a good fit. The KV-63 website already has a few images of the bed and supports posted (*plus some new ones added today) but more images will be made available soon.

During the last two months the conservators have been hard at work removing resin off the KV-63 coffins in the hope of finding names and/or titles. In the beginning stages of removing the resin off Coffin E’s lid, it appeared we had the name of a woman, Btau or Butau, a fairly common woman’s name already in the Middle Kingdom and into the New Kingdom. But after further removal of the resin off the box (or base), it became clear that her name is Henut-wadjbu, a common female name from the New Kingdom. Her full description is: “The Osiris, Henut-wadjbu, true of voice.”

As we are currently copying the texts, we must address the order of the decoration, for traces on the front vertical column do not indicate that Henut-wadjbu’s name was ever present there but it does appear on the cross bands and end panel.