Menhet, Menwi and Merti were three minor foreign-born wives of pharaoh Thutmose III

Thutmose III

Thutmose III was the sixth Pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. During the first twenty-two years of Thutmose's reign he was co-regent with his stepmother, Hatshepsut, who was named the pharaoh...

 who were buried in a lavishly furnished rock-cut tomb in Wady Gabbanat el-Qurud. Two of their names are West-Semitic in origin though none are Hurrian. Each were given the title of King's Wife, and were likely only minor members of the royal harem. It is not known if the women were even related since the faces on the lids of their canopic jars are all different.

The tomb of Thutmose III's foreign wives

Their tomb was originally discovered in August 1916 in the desert mountain cliffs in the southwest valley near Luxor and promptly looted by Qurnawi villagers. When the Egyptian antiquities authorities tracked down the burial in September of that year, all that was left at the original site were the objects discarded by the tomb robbers. It is thought that originally there were three intact burials at the site. Only the gold and stone objects had survived as the wood and the mummies and wooden materials had disintegrated due to moisture "from water seeping through the cliffs above." However, 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.

Some of the treasures found within their tomb include gold diadems

Diadem (personal wear)

A diadem is a type of crown, specifically an ornamental headband worn by Eastern monarchs and others as a badge of royalty. The word derives from the Greek "διάδημα" , "band" or "fillet", from "διαδέω" , "I bind round", or "I fasten"....

, gilded gold, toe and feet sandals, gold, carnelian and glass bracelets together with other vessels. Each of their bracelets are inscribed with the cartouche of Thutmose III. Other objects found in the tomb include Hathor

Hathor

Hathor , is an Ancient Egyptian goddess who personified the principles of love, beauty, music, motherhood and joy. She was one of the most important and popular deities throughout the history of Ancient Egypt...

 decorated gold, silver and glass mirrors. While the collection is impressive, none of their headdresses employed the vulture motif used by more senior queens.

Like the cliff tomb of Hatshepsut that Howard Carter

Howard Carter (archaeologist)

Howard Carter was an English archaeologist and Egyptologist, noted as a primary discoverer of the tomb of Tutankhamun.-Beginning of career:...

found in Wady A, the tomb of Thutmose's foreign wives was also cut into a crevice. Its entrance, though, "was cut into a platform about 10 metres from the wady floor, quite like Thutmosis III's tomb in the Valley of the Kings." Menhet, Menwi and Merti's tomb consisted "of a single undecorated chamber--ca. 5 X 7.5 metres, by 1.5 to more than 2 metres high."

Literature

• Aidan Dodson & Dyan Hilton, The Complete Royal Families of Ancient Egypt, Thames & Hudson, 2004, ISBN 0-500-05128-3, pp. 138-139
• Christine Lilyquist, The Tomb of Tuthmosis III's Foreign Wives, New York 2004 ISBN 030010121X