The tomb of Yuya was discovered in 1905 in the Valley of the Kings at Tomb No. 46 by Theodore Davis, with Gaston Maspero, then director of the Egyptian Museum, present at the excavation.

Yuya’s mummy was discovered nested within three coffins—each placed inside another—alongside the coffin of his wife, Thuya, as well as numerous statues, vessels, three wooden chairs, two beds, and a chariot wheel. All the tomb’s contents were later transferred to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. His mummy was found only partially wrapped, with the torso exposed, having been stripped of its bandages by ancient tomb robbers. When Yuya’s body was lifted from his innermost coffin, a broken necklace of large gold and lapis lazuli beads was found behind his neck, likely having fallen there after being snapped by looters.

Yuya, a nobleman from Akhmim, held several prestigious titles, including King’s Lieutenant, Master of the Horse, and Father-of-the-God. As a prophet of the local deity Min—Akhmim’s principal god—he also served as the god’s Superintendent of Cattle. His burial, along with that of his wife Thuya, was uncovered in 1905 in Tomb KV46 in the Valley of the Kings by British Egyptologist James Edward Quibell. Yuya had been placed within a rectangular wooden sarcophagus positioned against the north wall of the chamber, its lid fashioned in the form of the vaulted per-nu shrine of Lower Egypt.

For years, the tomb of Yuya and Thuya was regarded as the most intact burial ever found in the Valley of the Kings—until the discovery of their great-grandson Tutankhamun’s tomb sixteen years later. Although robbers had entered KV46 in antiquity, many items they deemed of little value were left behind, and both mummies remained remarkably well preserved. Their faces, in particular, show minimal distortion from the mummification process, offering an exceptionally lifelike glimpse of their appearance in life.

Sir Grafton Elliot Smith described Yuya’s mummy as one of the finest examples of 18th Dynasty embalming. Yuya was an elderly man at the time of death, with thick, wavy hair that appears yellowish—likely lightened by embalming substances rather than naturally blonde. Yuya and Thuya, the parents of Queen Tiye and great-grandparents of Tutankhamun, remain among the most significant non-royal individuals ever interred in the Valley of the Kings.