Qualla: Tomb of Kha and Merit https://qualla.com/tomb-of-kha-and-merit en-us © 2026 Bendyline Thu, 23 Jul 2026 20:34:06 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/x/4/tomb-of-kha-and-merit-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Tomb of Kha and Merit https://qualla.com/tomb-of-kha-and-merit Tomb of Kha and Merit: Introduction https://qualla.com/tomb-of-kha-and-merit/ Photo credit Francesco Ballerini, CC0. When the archaeologists finally cut through the wooden door in February 1906, the lock was so well made that Ernesto Schiaparelli called to his servant for the key. The servant, quite seriously, replied that he did not know where it was. The joke lands because the tomb really did feel that fresh. Behind the door lay the burial chamber of Kha and his wife Merit, an Egyptian foreman and his lady, sealed away beneath the cliffs of the workmen's village of Deir el-Medina for some three thousand four hundred years. The room was packed with their beds and stools, their folded clothes, their food and tools and cosmetics, all of it carefully arranged by mourners who had loved them. Almost every other tomb in Egypt was robbed in antiquity. This one, by sheer luck, was not. It is the most complete glimpse we have of how ordinary, well-off Egyptians actually lived.

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/x/4/tomb-of-kha-and-merit-wp/ssx4-tomb-of-kha-and-merit-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Tomb of Kha and Merit: The Man Who Built Tombs for Kings https://qualla.com/tomb-of-kha-and-merit/ Photo credit CC0. Kha was not royalty. His father, a man named Iuy, held no titles at all, which tells us Kha rose on his own ability. He became the foreman who directed the workmen carving and decorating the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, "the Great Place," serving three pharaohs in succ...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/x/4/tomb-of-kha-and-merit-wp/ssx4-tomb-of-kha-and-merit-the-man-who-built-tombs-for-kings.mp3 0:06 2 full Tomb of Kha and Merit: Merit https://qualla.com/tomb-of-kha-and-merit/ Photo credit CC0. We know less about Merit, as is so often the case with the women of antiquity, but the tomb tells us what mattered. She bore the title "lady of the house," and she and Kha had three children: two sons, Amenemopet and Nakhteftaneb, and a daughter who carried her mother's name. Mer...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/x/4/tomb-of-kha-and-merit-wp/ssx4-tomb-of-kha-and-merit-merit.mp3 0:06 3 full Tomb of Kha and Merit: A Household Packed for Eternity https://qualla.com/tomb-of-kha-and-merit/ Photo credit Hotepibre, CC BY-SA 4.0. The tomb held more than four hundred and forty objects, and the wonder is how everyday most of them are. Here is Merit's wig, still styled into tight crimped waves, that Schiaparelli said still shone with the perfumed oils worked into it. Here is Kha's folding wooden measuring ro...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/x/4/tomb-of-kha-and-merit-wp/ssx4-tomb-of-kha-and-merit-a-household-packed-for-eternity.mp3 0:06 4 full Tomb of Kha and Merit: Bread, Wine, and the Smell of Three Thousand Years https://qualla.com/tomb-of-kha-and-merit/ Photo credit CC0. They were not sent hungry into the afterlife. The tomb was stocked with food piled on tables, in bowls, and sealed in jars: loaves of bread in a greater variety than has been found in any other tomb, some shaped like triangles, some like trussed animals. There were salted meats a...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/x/4/tomb-of-kha-and-merit-wp/ssx4-tomb-of-kha-and-merit-bread-wine-and-the-smell-of-three-thousand-years.mp3 0:06 5 full Tomb of Kha and Merit: Turin, and the Couple Who Were Never Unwrapped https://qualla.com/tomb-of-kha-and-merit/ Photo credit FrDr, CC BY-SA 4.0. Almost the entire contents went to Italy. Gaston Maspero, who ran Egypt's antiquities service and had been Schiaparelli's mentor, allowed the find to leave, and since 1906 it has filled an entire gallery of the Museo Egizio in Turin, redesigned several times as the most complete ...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/s/x/4/tomb-of-kha-and-merit-wp/ssx4-tomb-of-kha-and-merit-turin-and-the-couple-who-were-never-unwrapped.mp3 0:06 6 full