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 has been open since antiquity and had been visited by several explorers earlier on, the tomb was first excavated by Harry Burton in 1912. Before him both Edward R. Ayrton and James E. Quibell excavated in the vicinity of the tomb's entrance during 1904-1906. The work of these three men in and around the tomb was conducted for Theodore M. Davis. The layout of KV3 resembles that of other Twentieth dynasty tombs intended for members of the royal family in the Valley of the Queens. It consists of a corridor with two side chambers (one of which is unfinished) leading