Their tomb was discovered in February 1905 by the Egyptologist James E. Quibell, excavating under the sponsorship of American millionaire Theodore M. Davis.

The tomb was robbed in antiquity but preserved a great deal of its original contents including chests, beds, chairs, a chariot, and numerous storage jars.

A small effort was made to restore order to the tomb after the robberies, with Thuya's body covered by a shroud, boxes refilled, and the breached blocking partially re-stacked.

[1] The tomb of Yuya and Thuya, numbered KV46, was discovered on 5 February 1905 in excavations undertaken by James Quibell, on behalf of Theodore Davis.

[4] Characterising the location as "most unpromising",[6] Davis states in his publication that "good exploration justified its excavation, and that it would be a satisfaction to know the entire valley, even if it yielded nothing.

[7] Lacking a ladder, a small boy, the son of the reis (foreman),[8] was lifted in to retrieve the item; he returned with a gilded stone scarab and the yoke of a chariot in addition to the cane.

[10][5] After descending down the steep corridor, a blocked and plastered doorway stamped with seals was encountered; this too had been breached at the top in antiquity.

[9]Looking to identify the owner of the tomb, they inspected a large wooden coffin on which Maspero read the name 'Yuya'; Davis recounts that, in his own excitement, he nearly touched the candles to the black resin surface.

The space was revealed to be filled with a jumble of objects including sarcophagi, gilded and silvered coffin sets, canopic chests, a chariot, beds, chairs and other items of furniture, and various vessels.

[11] The risk of robbery was felt to be very real despite the presence of guards, so the contents were planned, recorded, photographed, and packed for transport to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo as quickly as possible.

On 3 March the entire contents of the tomb had reached the river; they were loaded onto a train the next day and arrived under armed guard to the museum.

[12]The chair in question was the throne of Princess Sitamun; surprisingly its strung seat held up the unexpected guest, as the two men were too embarrassed to tell her to get up.

[1] The many objects crammed into the chamber led Weigall to liken the tomb to "entering a town house which had been closed for the summer".

The back rest features Queen Tiye, seated, with a large cat under her chair, accompanied by Sitamun, and another daughter on a papyrus boat.

His gilt cartonnage mask was broken and his mummy had been investigated by robbers, as the body lay in the remnants of its torn wrappings.

The lids of both boxes had been moved but the alabaster canopic jars and embalmed viscera, which in the case of Thuya were shaped like mummies and wearing gilt masks, were undisturbed.

[19] The thin wooden body, which curves to meet the handrail at the centre and sides, features a raised design in gilded plaster of a tree of life flanked by two browsing goats, standing upright.

It was fitted with a wooden yoke, made from a single piece of wood, which was pegged and tied into place with green leather lashing.

[19][20] Another find was Yuya's copy of the Book of the Dead, measuring 9.7 metres (32 ft) and containing forty chapters, many of which were illustrated with vignettes.

Later, a second scribe with slightly different handwriting added the names, adapting to the available space which resulted in longer, shorter, or entirely absent titles.

The first chapter is accompanied by a vignette of the funeral procession, with the mummy arriving at the tomb on a sledge pulled by men and cattle.

Other chapters include those which allow the deceased to take the forms of various animals, to defeat their enemies, prescriptions for ideal funerary amulets, and the weighing of the heart.

[11] The Australian anatomist Grafton Elliot Smith was the first to examine the bodies for Quibell's 1908 publication of the tomb in which he characterizes them both as "perfect" examples of the embalmer's art.

[25] When the body of Yuya was removed from his innermost coffin, a partially strung necklace composed of large gold and lapis lazuli beads was found behind his neck, where it had presumably fallen after being snapped by robbers.

[25] The body of Yuya is that of an old man, 1.651 metres (5.42 ft) tall, with white wavy hair now discoloured by the embalming process; his eyebrows and eyelashes are dark brown.

[27] However, the large eyes and small nose and mouth seen on his funerary mask suggests it was made during the last decade of the reign of Amenhotep III, meaning he may have outlived Thuya.

Her embalming incision is stitched with thread, to which a carnelian barrel bead is attached at the lower end; her body cavity is stuffed with resin-soaked linen.