KV21
Tomb KV21 is an ancient Egyptian tomb located in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It was discovered in 1817 by Giovanni Belzoni and later re-excavated by Donald P. Ryan in 1989. 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. Layout The tomb consists of a sloping descending passageway, a staircase, and another descending passage. The passage ends in a room with a single central column and a small chamber adjoining it. The walls are well cut and ready to receive plaster if plastering was intended. The tomb is most similar in layout scale to KV32, the tomb of Tiaa, mother of Thutmose IV. Marc Gabolde considers that the more precise cutting and regular layout of this tomb date it to slightly later than KV32. Discovery and contents 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