Menhet, Menwi and Merti,[1] also spelled Manhata, Manuwai and Maruta,[2] were three minor foreign-born wives of Pharaoh Thutmose III of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

The mummies and other organic materials, such as wood, had disintegrated due to water seeping into the tomb over the millennia, but metal and stone objects survived.

Their jewelry and other burial goods were sold on the local and international antiquities market, with most items being purchased by the Metropolitan Museum of Art between 1918 and 1988.

[7] Menhet, Menwi, and Merti were buried in Wady Gabbanat el-Qurud, an area used as the burial ground for royal women and children in the early Eighteenth Dynasty.

[10] Archaeologist Herbert E. Winlock suggests that, given the tomb's inaccessible location, the three women were buried together in a single funeral, perhaps indicating they died close together, possibly during an epidemic.

[11] However, his suggestion that they were executed as the result of a harem conspiracy is considered unlikely, as they were buried with lavish royal gifts bearing the king's name.

[12] This "remote and unfrequented" area of the Theban necropolis was used as a burial ground for queens and royal children during the early Eighteenth Dynasty.

The location is such that the "mouth of the cleft is totally inaccessible to anyone standing below and equally so to anyone above, unless he has come provided with a rope to lower himself over the precipitous rock.

The archaeologist Ernest Mackay, who was surveying private tombs in the Theban area, heard rumors that an impressive find of jewelry had been made in Wady Gabbanat el-Qurud and immediately alerted the Inspector of Antiquities, Tewfik Boutros; Mackay visited the tomb and also wrote several letters to inform the Egyptologist Alan Gardiner in England.

[16] In 1916-17 Howard Carter investigated the valley head and cleft for signs of further tomb cuttings during his work in the wider area.

The tomb's roughly cut descending corridor had partially re-filled with debris over the intervening years, leaving 1 metre (3.3 ft) of crawl space.

It contained fragmentary pieces of stone vessels and beads matching those already associated with the wives' tomb; it is suggested this represents a separate burial or simply a place that robbers had sorted through their finds.

Mohammed Hammad recalled that the objects were arranged in an orderly fashion on top of a layer of limestone chips, only buried by fallen pieces of ceiling.

"[11] Only the gold and stone objects had survived as the wood and mummies had disintegrated due to moisture "from water seeping through the cliffs above.

[25] Across their chests and torsos were a broad collar with falcon-headed terminals, a vulture breastplate, and a bandage amulet, all of incised gold foil.

[28] Their organs were placed in a set of four limestone canopic jars with human-headed stoppers, the text on which was incised and infilled with blue pigment.

Based on the presence of fragments of paint and gold leaf, the embalmed organs were likely made into the shape of mummies and fitted with cartonnage masks.

[30] Over forty stone ointment and cosmetic jars and bowls of various shapes and sizes are known, some inscribed with the names of Thutmose III and Hatshepsut and others having gilded rims.

The larger mirror has inlaid eyes, while the smaller has incised details and is inscribed with the name of Thutmose III.

[35] Each wife had at least one broad collar, of which three separate examples survive,[36] and a pair of hinged gold bracelets inlaid with carnelian and glass and inscribed with the names of Thutmose III.

"[44] Most of their surviving funerary remains were tracked down and purchased on the antiquities market at the time and many now reside at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Approaches were made to the owners of the pieces with the monetary backing of several museum trustees including Henry Walters, George Fisher Baker, Edward Harkness, and V. Everit Macy.