Tomb of Nefertari: The Finest Tomb in the Valley of the Queens

The tomb of Nefertari, numbered QV66, is the burial place of Queen Nefertari, the favourite wife of Ramesses II, in the Valley of the Queens at Thebes. Prepared around 1270-1255 BC, it contains the best-preserved and most admired paintings of any Egyptian tomb. Discovered in 1904 and restored between 1986 and 1992, it offers an unrivalled view of how Egyptians imagined a queen’s journey to eternal life.

Who was Nefertari?

Nefertari, whose full name was Nefertari Meritmut (“beautiful companion, beloved of Mut”), married Ramesses II before he became king in about 1279 BC. Her family background is unknown. A knob bearing the name of the earlier king Ay was found in her tomb, leading some to suggest a link to that family, but there is no firm evidence.

As Great Royal Wife she held the highest rank among Ramesses’ many wives. She bore him several children, including his first-born son Amunherkhepeshef and the princess Meritamun. She appears beside the king on temple walls at Luxor, Karnak and elsewhere, and she took part in religious festivals and state ceremonies.

Nefertari also played a role in diplomacy. After the Egyptian-Hittite peace treaty of about 1259 BC, she wrote to the Hittite queen Puduhepa with greetings and gifts, and a copy of her letter survives in the Hittite archives.

Her greatest monument in life was the Small Temple at Abu Simbel, dedicated to her and the goddess Hathor. She appears in the inauguration scenes there around year 24 of the reign, about 1255 BC. After this she disappears from the record, and she probably died around this time. Other queens, including Isetnofret and Nefertari’s own daughter Meritamun, later held the title of Great Royal Wife.

The Valley of the Queens

The Valley of the Queens lies in the desert hills south of the Valley of the Kings, on the west bank of the Nile opposite Thebes. Its ancient name, Ta-set-neferu, is often translated as “the place of beauty” or “place of the royal children”. From the Nineteenth Dynasty onwards it was used for the tombs of royal wives, princes and princesses. Dozens of tombs are known there, but Nefertari’s is by far the most elaborate.

Layout of the tomb

Tomb QV66 is cut into the limestone hillside and covers about 520 square metres of decorated wall surface. A staircase leads down to an antechamber and side room on the upper level. A second staircase descends to the burial chamber, whose roof was supported by four pillars, with three small side rooms.

The poor quality of the local limestone posed a problem. The builders covered the rough walls with a thick layer of plaster, which the artists modelled into slightly raised relief and then painted. This technique gives the figures their depth, but it also made the paintings vulnerable once the plaster began to separate from the rock.

The paintings

The decoration follows the queen’s journey through the underworld to rebirth. In one famous scene Nefertari plays senet, a board game linked with the passage to the afterlife. Elsewhere she is led by the goddess Isis, makes offerings to Osiris, Hathor, Ra-Horakhty and other gods, and stands before the gatekeepers of the underworld.

The texts include chapters of the Book of the Dead, among them chapter 17 and the chapters on the gates and portals of the realm of Osiris that the dead had to pass. The ceilings are painted dark blue with yellow stars, representing the night sky.

One of the most discussed images shows a mummified figure with the head of a ram, standing between the goddesses Isis and Nephthys. The accompanying text explains that it is Ra resting in Osiris and Osiris resting in Ra. The scene expresses a central idea of New Kingdom religion: each night the sun god united with the god of the dead, and from that union came the renewal of life at dawn, a renewal the queen hoped to share.

Other scenes show the queen worshipping the scarab-headed god Khepri, a form of the rising sun, and offering cloth and food to the gods. The texts beside her repeat her titles, including Great Royal Wife, Lady of the Two Lands and Mistress of Upper and Lower Egypt.

The colours, made from mineral pigments such as Egyptian blue, red and yellow ochres, green and white, are remarkably fresh. The artists drew the queen as slender and graceful, in a fine white linen dress and a vulture headdress, the symbol of a queen.

Discovery in 1904

The Italian Egyptologist Ernesto Schiaparelli, director of the Egyptian Museum in Turin, found the tomb in 1904. Robbers had entered it in antiquity and taken almost everything of value.

The excavators recovered fragments of a pink granite sarcophagus lid, shabti figures, sandals, pieces of furniture and part of a pair of mummified legs. These objects are now in the Museo Egizio in Turin. Schiaparelli’s team also photographed the tomb soon after its discovery, and these early images are valuable records of the paintings before later damage. A study by an international team, published in 2016, combined radiocarbon dating, anatomy and the context of the finds and concluded that the legs very probably belonged to Nefertari herself.

Damage and conservation

Within decades of its discovery the tomb was in danger. Salt crystals forming in the rock and plaster pushed the painted surface outwards, causing flaking and loss. Humidity from visitors’ breath made the problem worse, and from the mid-twentieth century the tomb was closed to the public for long periods.

In 1986 the Egyptian Antiquities Organization and the Getty Conservation Institute began a joint conservation project. A team of Egyptian and international specialists stabilised the plaster, removed old repairs and cleaned the surfaces, working on almost every square centimetre. They did not repaint missing areas. The work was completed in 1992.

The project also involved years of study before any treatment began. Specialists recorded the condition of every wall in photographs and drawings, analysed the pigments and salts, and tested materials in the laboratory, setting a standard later followed at other sites. The tomb reopened in 1995 under strict limits on visitor numbers. Since then access has varied, with periods of closure and a special high-priced ticket designed to reduce numbers while funding protection of the site.

Timeline

• c. 1279 BC: Ramesses II becomes king, already married to Nefertari.
• c. 1259 BC: Nefertari writes to the Hittite queen Puduhepa after the peace treaty.
• c. 1255 BC: Nefertari appears at the inauguration of the Abu Simbel temples; she probably dies soon after.
• 1904: Ernesto Schiaparelli discovers tomb QV66.
• Mid-20th century: The tomb is closed to visitors for long periods because of damage.
• 1986-1992: The Getty Conservation Institute and Egyptian authorities conserve the paintings.
• 1995: The tomb reopens to small numbers of visitors.
• 2016: A scientific study identifies the legs found in the tomb as probably Nefertari’s.

Why it matters

The tomb of Nefertari preserves New Kingdom painting at its finest, showing what other royal tombs once looked like before damage and decay. It also gives a voice to one of the few Egyptian queens whose personality and influence can be traced in the record, and its conservation became a landmark in protecting fragile wall paintings.