Valley of the Kings public. At the same time, powerful and influential nobles began to be buried with the royal family; the most famous of these tombs is the joint tomb of Yuya and Tjuyu, KV46. They were possibly the parents of Queen Tiy. Until the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, this was the best-preserved of the tombs that had been discovered in the Valley. The return of royal burials to Thebes after the end of the Amarna period marks a change to the layout of royal burials, with the intermediate 'jogged axis' gradually giving way to the 'straight axis' of later dynasties.
Minor tombs in the Valley of the Kings consists of a single chamber accessed by a shaft. It was discovered and excavated by Carter in 1902, it was recently cleared by Ryan. Like KV44 it had been used for (two) secondary burials during the Twenty-second dynasty. Fragments of the original burial, including canopic jars (but no human remains) indicate the original owner was Userhet, overseer of the fields of Amun during the Eighteenth dynasty. KV48 is located in the wadi leading to KV35 (tomb of Amenhotep II). It was discovered and excavated by Ayrton in 1906. It is formed by a single chamber accessed by a shaft. When