Horemheb His Queens

Horemheb's first wife - the lady Amenia. Her name appears in horemheb's memphite tomb (she is mentioned on a column found in the courtyard). Shaft IV (arrowed in plan), descends below ground and was originally intended as Horemheb's tomb before he came pharaoh as well as his first wife Amenia. Very little evidence remains of the Lady Aemnia - an inscription over the lintel in the tomb dates her burial to sometime in the 4 years of Ay's reign. Her tomb had been robbed in antiquity, any precious objects had been looted and the mummy ransacked. Due to the humid conditions of the tomb, the coffin (and other wooden items) have decayed over the ages. (Left: an early statue of Horemheb and Amenia).

Mutnodjmet, Horemheb's second wife
Also buried in Shaft IV, bones thought to have been hers were collected around the rim of the shaft leading underground. Tomb robbers had dragged the mummy from her tomb up to the pillared courtyard it is thought to search for valuables. The bones were of a woman in her mid-forties (she had lost all her teeth while still alive), deep scars on her pelvis shows that she had possibly died in childbirth - other bones found were of a newborn child or a foetus.

Who was Mutnodjmet?

She was thought to have been the sister of Queen Nefertiti, a person having royal links who Horemheb would need to marry in order to validate his right to the throne (however in his book 'The hidden tombs of Memphis' Geoffrey Martin point out that Horemheb's wife was the sister of Nefertiti, or indeed if she was then it still was not necessary for him to marry her as she did not have 'royal blood'). She first appears in some of the early tomb reliefs at Amarna (she appears most in the tomb of her probable father - Ay), she is shown wearing a side-lock of hair and is thought to have been slightly older than her niece Meritaten (she sometimes also shown accompanied by two dwarfs). She is only seen in the earlier years of Akhenaten's reign, the next time she re-appears is on a coronation statue of Horemheb.