[1][2] Akhenaten was an Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh who reigned for seventeen years (1355-1338 BC) from his capital city of Akhetaten, known today as Amarna.

[9] His Great Royal Wife was Nefertiti, with whom he had six known daughters: Meritaten, Meketaten, Ankhesenpaaten, Neferneferuaten Tasherit, Neferneferure, and Setepenre.

[16] He stated his intentions to be buried there on the Boundary Stelae, proclamations issued in Years 5 and 6 of his reign and carved into the cliffs to the east and west of the city.

Let the burial of the Great King's Wife Nefertiti be made in it, in the millions of years that my father, the Aten, has decreed for her.

[27] The reigns of Tutankhamun and his successors Ay and Horemheb saw the end of Atenism and the restoration of the traditional polytheistic religion.

[28] In the Royal Tomb, the decoration and contents of the burial chamber especially were destroyed,[7] including Akhenaten's sarcophagus, which did not contain his body.

[29] Officially, the Royal Tomb was rediscovered on 28 December 1891 by the Italian Egyptologist Alessandro Barsanti,[8] but it is thought to have been located by local villagers in the early 1880s.

[31] In 1893-1894, Urbain Bouriant conducted an epigraphic expedition with the intent of recording the "inscriptions and reliefs in the Royal Tomb".

[34] The final expedition conducted by Pendlebury in 1935 was done in hopes of discovering a second tomb, copying all the reliefs and inscriptions, and creating a photographic record.

[35] Geoffrey T. Martin recorded the remaining inscriptions and reliefs of the Royal Tomb between 1980 and 1982 with the support of the Egyptian Antiquities Organization.

[49] Based on the reliefs and inscriptions found within the chamber, Martin suggested that this room was meant for Akhenaten's minor wife Kiya.

[55] The limestone rock into which the tomb was cut is largely of poor quality, being very hard and containing many flint nodules.

[56] This necessitated that the decoration, executed in relief for the first time in a New Kingdom royal tomb,[57] be carved into a layer of applied plaster instead of directly into stone.

[47] In the burial chamber, the best preserved scene is the short wall to the left of the doorway, in which the royal couple are shown making offerings to the Aten.

[66] A floral bouquet is depicted beside the doorway to the unfinished room; the rest of the right wall contained a mourning scene, of which very little remains.

The royal family were depicted presenting offerings to the Aten on the short wall to the right of the entrance of the burial chamber.

Inside a room, Akhenaten and Nefertiti bend over the inert body of a woman lying on a bed, weeping and gripping each other's arms for support.

[71] Aidan Dodson suggests that the two deceased women are the youngest daughters, Neferneferure and Setepenre, who are absent from the scenes in gamma.

[72] In the gamma chamber, a very similar mourning scene is shown on the left wall; here the hieroglyphs identify the dead young woman on the bed as Meketaten.

Again, a nurse holding a royal baby is depicted exiting the chamber; the inscription identifying the infant is badly damaged.

[73] An scene on the end wall shows Meketaten standing under a canopy, which is usually associated with childbirth, but can also be interpreted as representing the rebirth of the princess.

[75] Martin suggests the woman in alpha is Kiya, a minor wife of Akhenaten, who has died giving birth to their child.

Dorothea Arnold has argued against a literal interpretation of the scenes, as the ancient Egyptians had a "well-known reluctance to depict anything like the cause of death", instead suggesting that the child represents her rebirth.

[5] Artifacts found within the tomb include fragments from the sarcophagus, canopic chests, ushabtis, jewelry, scarabs, statues, pottery, and human remains.

[84] Its decoration featured the Aten instead of the traditional funerary gods; the protective goddesses on each corner of the box were replaced with figures of Nefertiti.

[84] On the sloping lid, whose shape imitated the pr-wr shrine of Upper Egypt,[85] Aten rays reached along its length from the head end.

[87] Based on their thinness, the fragments seem to have belonged to a small sarcophagus (or possibly another piece of her funerary equipment), consistent with the burial of a child.

[66] Akhenaten's canopic chest, which housed his embalmed viscera, was made of alabaster, and featured solar falcons with outspread wings on each corner.

[89] In 1891, French Egyptologist Georges Daressy stated that the remains of a dismembered mummy were visible near the tomb's entrance.

Tombs were frequently reused over hundreds of years so the body may not necessarily have belonged to a member of the royal family.