Tomb WV23, also known as KV23, is located in the Western Valley of the Kings near modern-day Luxor, and was the final resting place of Pharaoh Ay of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The tomb was discovered by Giovanni Battista Belzoni in the winter of 1816. Its structure is similar to that of the tomb of Akhenaten, with a straight descending corridor, leading to a "well chamber" that has no shaft. This leads to the burial chamber, which currently contains the reconstructed sarcophagus, which has been smashed in antiquity. The tomb had also been anciently desecrated, with many instances of Ay's image or name erased from the wall paintings. Its decoration is similar in content and colour to that of Tutankhamun (KV62), with a few differences. On the eastern wall there is a depiction of a fishing and fowling scene, which is not shown elsewhere in other royal tombs, normally appearing in burials of nobility. Discovery WV23 was discovered by Giovanni Battista Belzoni, quite by chance, in 1816. After visiting the tomb of Amenhotep III, WV22, he moved further into the valley "to examine the various places where water descends from the desert into the valleys after rain" and upon finding an isolated pile of stones, probed the depth with his cane. Finding that there was a deep void under the rocks, he hired workmen and returned the following day. The tomb proved to be just below the surface, and within two hours the entrance had been cleared. Belzoni considered the tomb a modest find: I cannot boast of having made a great discovery in this tomb, though it contains several curious and singular painted figures on the walls; and from its extent, and part of a sarcophagus remaining in the centre of a large chamber, have reason to suppose, that it was the burial-place of some person of distinction. Later visitors The tomb was visited by John Gardiner Wilkinson, who noted in his 1835 publication that the tomb "contains a broken sarcophagus and some bad fresco painting of peculiarly short and graceless proportions." Karl Richard Lepsius visited the tomb in 1845 and noted too the destroyed sarcophagus and commented that Ay's name was "everywhere studiously erased, with the exception of a few traces on the walls, as well as upon the sarcophagus." He also copied some of the wall paintings and made notes on the sarcophagus box. The sarcophagus, which had