Royal Tomb of Akhenaten

The Royal Tomb of Akhenaten is a multichambered tomb in the Royal Wadi east of Amarna, Egypt, where members of the Amarna Period royal family were originally buried. Akhenaten was an Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh who reigned for seventeen years (1355-1338 BC) from his capital city of Akhetaten, known today as Amarna. The Royal Tomb was rediscovered in the 1880s; however, the exact year and who discovered it is up for debate. Excavations and research into the tomb began in 1891 and continue to this day. The location of the Royal Tomb, the tomb itself, the artifacts contained within the tomb, and the destruction of parts of the Royal Tomb after Akhenaten's death provide researchers with valuable insights into Akhenaten's reign, including the political environment, and the Amarna Period.

Akhenaten's burial chamber can easily be detected in his royal tomb at Amarna since it is the only tomb which was fully finished; the rest of the tomb consists of unfinished rock cut tomb chambers and rooms which were likely meant to inter other members of the royal family such as his queen Nefertiti. However, work on the tomb stopped when the Egyptian royal family later moved to Thebes and abandoned Amarna under Akhenaten's son Tutankhamun about 3 years after Akhenaten's death.