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Egypt · 2025

Day 9 - Valley of The Kings and Valley of the Queens

A close-up of an ancient carved stone wall brimming with painted hieroglyphs and bird figures.
Workers excavate a sandy desert trench with hoes and picks. A low stone wall lines a dusty path through a towering sandstone gorge. The dark doorway of an ancient tomb sits at the foot of a rocky cliff. Pale cliffs rise above a rocky desert valley under a clear sky. Cracked plaster reveals faded grey, gold, and red painted detail. Falcon- and jackal-headed gods stand beneath hieroglyphic columns in vivid paint. A painted profile wears an ornate blue and gold headdress. A falcon-headed deity stands beside a red sun disk with a sacred cobra. A monarch with raised hands stands beside a falcon-headed god in faded blue and gold paint. A spread-winged vulture goddess with a scarab and sun disk fills a golden arched ceiling. A falcon-headed god stands in a golden boat rowed across a carved wall. A line of falcon-headed beings lifts its arms in adoration beneath bands of hieroglyphs. Four kneeling worshippers raise their hands inside a turquoise panel carved with hieroglyphs. A repeating line of rearing cobras coils across a gilded relief beneath hieroglyphs. The jackal-headed god Anubis stands painted in gold and blue beside a smaller figure. Red sun discs and eight-pointed stars float above a great recumbent animal in a painted arch. Rows of painted deities and a winding serpent amid hieroglyphs on a tomb wall. Standing painted figures with red solar discs and gold stars on a tomb wall. A painted boat scene with rowers and a large serpent on a gold tomb wall. A great serpent coils beneath seated deities and a kneeling figure on a tomb wall. A curved painted ceiling shows a giant serpent, red discs, and a boat below. A painted boat with rowers sits beneath standing gods and a large plant motif. Cracked plaster shows painted falcon- and jackal-headed figures in procession. A weathered stone sarcophagus sits beside a walkway leading to distant visitors. Sunken carving of a long procession of figures in an ancient Egyptian temple wall relief. Ancient carving of a serpent, baboon figures, and deities among hieroglyph columns. Ancient Egyptian relief of enthroned deities and standing divine figures amid hieroglyphs. A line of carved figures with headdresses stands in profile across an ancient wall. Ancient carving of figures holding staffs and harvest implements beside hieroglyphs. Ancient Egyptian wall carving of many figures in profile wearing short kilts. Detail of a painted Egyptian relief showing a figure in profile with a tall headdress. Weather-beaten carving of two crowned figures in profile beside an ankh symbol. A sunken relief of a pharaoh in profile surrounded by rows of hieroglyphs. A relief of a kneeling person facing left, framed by vertical hieroglyphic columns. A relief of an extended body lying horizontally beside a small bird symbol. A wall covered in neat vertical columns of hieroglyphs, including wavy water lines. A relief of a horned antelope standing in profile with a sun disk above it. Stone steps with wooden handrails lead through a painted tomb corridor toward bright light. A relief of two standing deities in profile, each holding a staff, above a wavy water sign. A stone ramp with wooden railing narrows toward a dark doorway in a rock-cut tomb. Painted goddesses flank a great serpent beneath a starry sky. A boat glides across the wall beneath a scarab and sun disk. A line of sun-disked deities bows in guarded procession. Sunlit registers stack boats, goddesses and praying figures. A jackal-headed god and a pharaoh stand side by side. Workers strain against the coils of a huge snake. Robed figures raise their arms in repeated offerings. A falcon-headed god stands beside a vulture goddess. Anubis and a falcon-headed god stand in a painted temple relief. Ram-headed gods line the registers of a golden temple relief. A line of gods marches past a reclining lion in carved relief. A serpent winds through a painted boat scene of standing figures. A falcon-headed god wears the White Crown and holds a staff. A many-headed serpent coils around a seated figure on a temple wall. A coiled snake and a blue cobra sit beneath columns of hieroglyphs. A winged solar emblem and scarab beetle dominate a painted temple ceiling. A huge painted falcon spreads turquoise wings above a boat filled with rowing gods. A falcon with outstretched wings sits beneath rows of carved hieroglyphs. A bright sunlit register shows a boat with kneeling rowers and standing gods. Decorated columns show a kilted figure raising his arms beside columns of texts. A huge coiled snake winds across the wall above kneeling figures in adoration. A jackal-headed deity holds a staff before figures bending on a gold ground. Rows of deeply carved hieroglyphs frame a procession of standing divine figures. A blue-wigged goddess raises her hand before a tall-plumed god in a painted niche. An ancient Egyptian relief of a seated figure flanked by hieroglyphs. A weathered Egyptian mural of an ibis-headed figure beneath a sun disk. A painted Egyptian relief of a coiled cobra in gold and blue. An Egyptian mural of four animal-headed figures wearing striped collars. A painted Egyptian goddess in profile raises a gold-toned arm. An Egyptian mural of a falcon-headed god holding a snake staff. A long tomb corridor with wooden railings and painted pillars. An Egyptian mural of a winged goddess holding an ankh. A winged ancient Egyptian deity with ankh in hand beside eroded hieroglyphs Sunken relief hieroglyphs with bird and seated-figure symbols on stone Sculpted hieroglyphs including a bird, figure and wavy water lines Three ancient Egyptian profile figures with black wigs and gold collars A painted profile figure holding a long ankh in a cracked wall scene A worn painted horse worked in blue-grey with red harness lines Anubis-like deity with black-eared jackal head holding a knife Gold-toned hieroglyph columns featuring a royal cartouche Falcon-headed and jackal-headed deities flank a tomb wall beneath hieroglyphs. A steep corridor flanked by railings leads down toward a painted doorway. A rocky desert valley with travelers following a dusty path. Visitors cross a dusty valley beneath a towering flat-topped cliff. Tourists cluster near a small palm tree and a pale stone building. Visitors line up in the shade of a flat-roofed canopy on the desert floor. A weathered mountain top rises alone against a vivid sky with a faint moon. A visitor shows the KV 8 tomb diagram to a companion. A weathered Egyptian wall painting shows a falcon-headed god framed by a huge ochre sun disk. A metal lattice gate and a sign reading K.V.8 Merenptah block the entrance to an ancient tomb. On a golden Egyptian wall two painted figures, one crowned and one hawk-headed, meet before an ankh. Vertical rows of sunken Egyptian hieroglyphs, some enclosing round cartouches, cover the stone wall. A worn Egyptian wall mural shows a strolling line of slender figures painted in faint earthy tones. Grooved Egyptian hieroglyphs and a carved cobra curve across the grainy stone surface. An Egyptian ceiling fragment shows a repeat pattern of red and black sole prints beside a hieroglyph line. A painted Egyptian band shows a cartouche holding seated figures above rows of carved script. A faded yellow Egyptian tomb wall showing a sun disk ringed by painted human figures and hieroglyphs. Inside a dark pyramid passage, visitors walk up a wooden ramp toward a blindingly bright opening. Two painted profile figures face a central shrine adorned with deities and royal cartouches on a pale plaster wall. Looking down through a limestone passage at tourists walking on wooden platforms inside a pyramid. A limestone wall carved with a row of standing figures wearing kilts and a grid of hieroglyphs above them. Red-brown painted figures with worn heads grip a long horizontal staff, their kilts and hieroglyphs still colored. Two faded painted figures stand amid deep-cut hieroglyphs and ceremonial items carved on a white limestone wall. A wall of oval name rings and hieroglyph columns carved in sunken relief across reddish stone. Deep-carved rows of Egyptian hieroglyphs fill a weathered sandstone temple wall. Sun-bleached hieroglyphs and oval royal cartouches are carved in shallow relief on a stone wall. A faded painted winged sun disk spreads its wings across a stone ceiling under a rock ledge. A narrow stone passage packed with tourists leads down into an ancient Egyptian tomb. Colorful painted hieroglyphs, including several birds, cover a sunlit strip of temple stone. Painted hieroglyphs, a scarab beetle, and a royal cartouche decorate an ancient Egyptian column. Tourists gather on the shaded terraces of a visitor center at the foot of pale desert cliffs. Tourists walk a long descending corridor whose walls are carved with hieroglyphs to the ceiling. Carved stone columns of red, blue, and green Egyptian hieroglyphs on a weathered temple wall. A perspective view of colorful carved hieroglyph columns leading toward an Egyptian temple doorway. A weathered winged sun disk painted across a beam above Egyptian column tops. Painted relief showing rows of seated deities and kneeling figures beside columns of hieroglyphs. An Egyptian temple interior where a gold hieroglyph band meets a dark star-dotted ceiling. A weathered painted relief of a spread-winged vulture and a seated figure beside hieroglyph columns. A painted falcon spreads its wings over a pharaoh in profile wearing a tall crown, with ankhs and cartouches. Two crowned pharaohs face each other under a vulture with open wings, ankhs and cartouches between them. Visitors stream through a dim corridor lined with hieroglyphs. Two painted gods face each other across a field of hieroglyphs. A king's profile sits beside a winged falcon and a jackal. A crowned figure, sun disc aloft, grips an ankh in profile. A snake bearing a human face slithers past a woman in red. Three wavy snakes trail across a band of carved text. Birds, scarabs and eyes line the columns of carved text. A bird with a dark headdress rests among carved signs. A close-up of ancient Egyptian sandstone relief showing a figure in profile with a dark headdress. A painted ancient Egyptian relief of a deity wearing a red sun disk set between cow horns. Three ancient Egyptian deities in profile, each wearing distinctive headdresses, carved and painted in relief. A robed ancient Egyptian figure presenting a calf beside crowned, multi-headed serpents carved in painted relief. Visitors walk through a carved ancient Egyptian corridor whose walls and ceiling are covered in painted hieroglyphs. A painted ancient Egyptian relief of a deity with a cobra head, wearing a striped headdress and ornate collar. A painted relief of a king making an offering to two deities wearing tall crowns, framed by hieroglyphs and cartouches. A painted relief of the ibis-headed Egyptian god, crowned with a sun disk and horns and holding a staff. A profile figure with a striped headdress and broad collar adorns an aged painted stone relief. A carved sun disk hovers over cartouches and two robed figures on a weathered temple wall. The ibis-headed god Thoth stands before a pharaoh on a brightly painted temple wall. A pharaoh in a golden headdress lifts both arms in worship under two name cartouches. A lotus-shaped offering table laden with food sits beside the painted legs of a figure in a kilt. Three robed figures lift their arms in worship, each crowned with a tall headdress. A large carved scarab beetle sits among columns of hieroglyphs on a rough stone surface. Two painted figures in profile face each other on an ancient Egyptian relief wall. Three standing figures in low relief, painted in red ochre, beneath columns of hieroglyphs. The ibis-headed god Thoth stands on a column crowned with a sun disk and holds an ankh. A figure in profile with a dark wig and raised arms stands beside a carved ankh. Two kings in profile, one wearing a tall crown, face each other beneath carved cartouches. A black jackal lies beside a kneeling figure crowned with a sun disk. A stone corridor lined with wooden railings leads down toward a bright doorway. Bright daylight pours through a lattice doorway onto a path before a rock face. Columns of colourful hieroglyphs, including birds, an ankh and a scarab, cover the stone. Tourists hike up a bright, pale desert path toward an entrance in the rocky mountain. A dense crowd of visitors waits for shade beneath a beige-tinted stone canopy. Rugged tan cliffs and a winding path beneath a clear blue desert sky. A single mud-brick hut sits on a barren tan slope crossed by faint tracks. A smooth pale path winds through a tan desert valley dotted with white boulders. A painted ancient Egyptian noble with a blue headdress raises his hands in worship. A weathered painting of an Egyptian figure with a blue headdress beside a column of hieroglyphs. A painted relief shows two Egyptian figures beside a semicircular feathered fan and fading hieroglyphs. A red-bodied, lion-headed god with a blue collar reaches an arm across cracked cream plaster. A crowned king offers small vessels to an ibis-headed god as hieroglyphs fill the painted wall. A king in a blue headdress stands before a falcon-headed god painted on a temple wall. A king wearing the tall white crown adores a goddess crowned with a sun disk. A goddess with a sun disk watches a king offer a burning vessel from across the wall. A pharaoh in a striped headdress raises both open hands in adoration before hieroglyphs. Two blue-faced gods seated on thrones wear tall atef crowns beneath columns of hieroglyphs. Faded winged sun disc spreading blue and ochre feathers across a tomb lintel. Painted profile of a woman grasping a tall scepter beside hieroglyphs. Profile figure raising a hand in offering beneath a small cobra on her brow. Two upright cobras on either side of a round red disc on a blue band. Vertical columns of blue-painted hieroglyphs with birds and wave signs. Crocodile-headed deity in blue headdress beside a profile woman, hieroglyphs above. Close-up of an ibis-headed figure with a long beak and blue striped wig. Woman in profile with striped blue headdress raising her hand in a gesture. A painted pharaoh lifts both hands in a gesture of worship. Two royal name cartouches hold carved glyphs. Vertical columns of hieroglyphs cover a weathered stone wall. A crowned pharaoh stands with Anubis and a goddess. A goddess honors a crowned pharaoh in painted relief. A row of lotus petals lines a temple wall. A blue-crowned pharaoh stands with his royal consort. A band of blue lotus petals runs across the stone. A small mummified creature rests inside a glass display case amid painted hieroglyphs. A pharaoh and a goddess face each other with raised hands on a painted tomb wall. A pharaoh and an attendant goddess stand together beside columns of blue hieroglyphs. A large bird with striped red and gold wings spreads its feathers across the stone. A small canopy shelter stands at the base of towering desert cliffs. A cluster of ochre houses clings to a hillside below a barren mountain. A silver sedan sits parked on the roadside in front of a leafy garden. A dark road curves through sandy hills toward a green settlement on the horizon. Winding path through an ancient desert settlement Slatted timber roof with a ceiling fan A bright square of light falls in a shadowed doorway Carved graffiti and a faded relief on a temple column A visitor walks amid relief-covered temple walls The calm face of a goddess in a striped blue wig A lotus carving crowns a massive column A pharaoh stands before a sun-disk goddess Ancient carved reliefs glow in light from a small temple window. A weathered ceiling of stars and winged figures crowns the temple wall. Rows of painted gods and hieroglyphs cover the ancient wall. Gods sit on thrones while a harpist plays in this painted scene. A row of carved deities sits beside a doorway to a sunlit hall. Light pours through a narrow opening ringed by carved stars and vultures. Figures make offerings to seated deities across painted temple walls. Worshippers approach enthroned gods along this long carved wall. Looking up at a decorated ancient temple ceiling with colored hieroglyphs and a winged sun disk. A painted wall relief showing a line of Egyptian gods and goddesses crowned with sun disks. A painted Egyptian temple wall with standing figures, hieroglyphs and royal cartouches. A carved Egyptian relief showing figures presenting offerings beside a seated person and hieroglyphs. A painted Egyptian temple wall with standing figures and hieroglyphs highlighted in blue. A detailed close-up relief of an Egyptian figure holding a long tool beneath lines of hieroglyphs. A painted temple wall with seated gods and a standing pharaoh making an offering between hieroglyphs. A carved Egyptian wall relief of a seated lion on a pedestal beside a crowned god and hieroglyphs. Egyptian temple wall carving showing a goddess and divine figures surrounded by hieroglyphic inscriptions Ancient stone temple entrance framed by plain walls under a clear blue sky Excavated stone wall foundations spread over a desert valley beneath rocky hills Visitors walk among terraced stone ruins with a small shaded rest area A hiker with a backpack reads a paneled map among ancient temple ruins Contemporary visitor entry building with glass doors and turnstiles on a paved plaza Rows of towering sandstone pillars with carved figures rise before desert slopes Green heritage panel titled Ramesseum shows a site plan and reconstruction renderings A wooden notice board marked RAMESSEUM stands in sandy ground beside an old gnarled tree. Rows of weathered sandstone statues and pillars face mountains under a bright blue sky. A stepped ancient stone wall rises from sandy ground, pierced by a doorway in the middle. A battered stone wall bears faint carvings and Egyptian hieroglyphs above rubble. Sunlit stone is engraved with royal cartouches and ancient Egyptian symbols. A low-angle view up carved pillars that form a gateway open to the blue sky. Coloured hieroglyphs and reliefs line the underside of a stone slab framed in blue sky. Tall carved columns in deep shadow and sunlight frame a slice of blue sky. Massive Osirid statues with crossed arms flank a ruined temple colonnade. Scaffolding and standing pharaoh statues mix with toppled stone blocks at an ancient temple. A fractured stone head and crown from a colossal Egyptian statue. Sandstone wall covered in carved battle scenes glows in the sun. Huge papyrus-columns tower over a shaded temple hall. A bilingual information board explains the Ramesseum's history and layout. A granite fragment with deep hieroglyphs and a royal cartouche. Rural village houses and palm trees under a hazy sky. A colossal fallen pharaoh statue lies on its back amid ancient temple ruins. A sunlit stone lintel bearing hieroglyphs rests atop a massive temple column. Old graffiti naming a traveler is carved onto a weathered temple column. Carved deities and pharaohs frame a doorway between great columns. A sunlit sandstone column is engraved with an offering scene and hieroglyphs. A wall of hieroglyphs shows a crowned figure under a sharp diagonal shadow. A dark band of shadow falls across a wall carved with hieroglyphs and a figure. A seated figure receives offerings from a standing figure on a carved wall. Sunlit sandstone wall etched with rows of ancient figures and hieroglyphs. Visitor information board for the Ramesseum temple reads in French and Arabic. Stone ceiling beams above a shadowed colonnade, their undersides faintly carved. Bright blue sky glimpsed through a gap between sandstone beams. Tall carved columns and shafts rise into a bright blue sky. Sunlit wall relief shows a king enthroned among gods and hieroglyphs. Flared column capitals still show green pigment beneath the beams. Sunlit carved columns tower against a deep blue sky as a bird flies past. Carved Egyptian figures of a pharaoh and a goddess surrounded by hieroglyphs. Worn Egyptian wall carvings of figures and a cartouche in warm sandstone. Sunlit Egyptian temple wall showing a crowned pharaoh among carved hieroglyphs. Weathered stone column bearing the chiseled names of long-ago visitors. Twin grand sandstone temple columns with flared capitals against a clear blue sky. View between columns revealing a decorated architrave with traces of green and blue paint. Close view of faded teal and ochre hieroglyphs, including a bird, on a painted column. Sunlit Egyptian relief of a sun-disk deity and pharaoh among cartouches and hieroglyphs. Ancient Egyptian temple columns with carved reliefs beside a hieroglyph-covered wall Tall Egyptian temple columns and a pylon carved with hieroglyphs and figures An ancient Egyptian temple wall carved with rows of figures and hieroglyphs Colored cartouches and hieroglyphs carved on the underside of a temple lintel A temple portico with columns and colossal standing figures beneath a bright sky A shaft of sunlight crosses an ancient Egyptian wall of carved hieroglyphs and figures A close view of hieroglyphs and cartouches carved into warm sandstone A massive fallen sandstone block bearing carved hieroglyphs and a sacred eye symbol Ancient sandstone temple gateway with broken colossal statues in a desert. Exhibit sign explaining the virtual reconstruction of Ramses II's colossi. Ancient sandstone temple with pylon gateway and broken colossi under blue sky. Sign describing the royal palace with a floor plan and reliefs. Rocky hillside riddled with dark tomb entrances above excavated stone ruins. Desert hillside with several tomb openings above a sunlit stone plain. Three baboon statues with raised paws in front of a brick wall. Sunlit stone columns backlit by a blazing sun over desert mountains. A weathered wooden shelter shades a sunlit stone viewpoint. A weathered ram-headed sphinx rests before ruined temples and desert cliffs. Patchwork green fields and palms meet the hazy desert horizon.
Journal Notes

General

The Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens are the two royal burial grounds of the Theban Necropolis, cut into the limestone massif on the west bank of the Nile opposite Thebes, the modern Luxor. For nearly five hundred years, from the early Eighteenth Dynasty to the end of the Twentieth (c. 1539-1075 BC), the pharaohs of the New Kingdom were buried in the secluded wadis behind the bay of Deir el-Bahari, beneath the natural pyramid of el-Qurn. The kings’ valley, Ta-sekhet-ma’at, the Great Field, held the royal house and nobles; the queens’ valley, Ta-Set-Neferu, the Place of Beauty, held the royal women and their children.

The Valley of the Kings has two branches: the East Valley, where most royal tombs lie, and the smaller West Valley, the Valley of the Monkeys. The site contains sixty-five tombs and chambers, from the pit of KV54 to the vast complex of KV5, prepared for the sons of Ramesses II with more than 120 chambers; only about twenty tombs actually held kings. Ringed by el-Qurn and the sheer Theban cliffs, the necropolis was easy to guard, and the Medjay protected it; the tombs were cut by the workmen of Deir el-Medina.

The Valley of the Queens lies south-west of the kings’ valley at the foot of the same cliff wall, close to the workmen’s village and to the sacred grotto of Hathor at its entrance. Its main wadi holds ninety-one numbered tombs and the subsidiary valleys nineteen more. The earliest burials belong to princesses and nobles of the Thutmosid period; from the Nineteenth Dynasty the valley served almost exclusively royal women. Its most celebrated tomb, QV66, was prepared for Nefertari, the great royal wife of Ramesses II.

Together with the temples of Karnak and Luxor and the wider west-bank necropolis, the two valleys were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1979 as Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis (ref. 87). They belong to the standard circuit of the modern west bank, reached by the desert road past the Colossi of Memnon. Only about eighteen of the sixty-five tombs can be opened, rarely at the same time, rotating for conservation; four to five thousand visitors pass through the main valley on most days, and the tomb of Tutankhamun requires a separate ticket. The visit is organised accordingly: numbered gates regulate the flow, flat-roofed shelters give shade at the waiting points, and modern ramps and stairways with wooden handrails carry the visitors through the rock-cut corridors.

History

The history of the royal valley begins with the reunification of Egypt after the expulsion of the Hyksos and the foundation of the New Kingdom by Ahmose I. The first kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty were still buried at Dra Abu el-Naga, but Amenhotep I and Thutmose I turned to the desolate wadi behind Deir el-Bahari, whose pyramid-shaped summit, el-Qurn, recalled the pyramids of the Old Kingdom. The architect Ineni records that he supervised the excavation of the king’s cliff tomb alone, no one seeing and no one hearing; the tomb itself, probably KV38 or an early version of KV20, has never been identified with certainty. The hidden valley answered a practical need: the Memphite pyramids had proved irresistible to robbers.

Through the Eighteenth Dynasty the royal tombs developed towards standardised forms. Thutmose III was buried in KV34, a bent-axis tomb high in the cliffs, decorated with the earliest complete copy of the Amduat; Hatshepsut’s KV20 twists more than 200 metres into the mountain; Amenhotep III built WV22 in the West Valley. After the return to orthodoxy under Tutankhamun, Ay and Horemheb, KV57, with its jogged axis and scenes from the Book of Gates, marks the transition to the fully decorated tombs of the Ramesside age.

On 4 November 1922 Howard Carter, working for Lord Carnarvon, uncovered the first step of the entrance staircase of KV62, the tomb of Tutankhamun, buried beneath the debris of the tomb of Ramesses VI and the huts of its workmen. On 26 November Carter broke through the sealed doorway and saw, in his own words, wonderful things. Robbers had entered twice shortly after the burial, but the restorers had resealed the tomb, and its 5,398 objects survived almost complete: the only largely intact royal burial ever found in the valley. The clearance lasted until 1932; the treasure is now in the Grand Egyptian Museum at Giza, the mummy remains in a climate-controlled case, and a facsimile burial chamber, completed in 2014, absorbs much of the tourist pressure.

The Nineteenth Dynasty brought the valley to its fullest development. Seti I built KV17, discovered by Giovanni Belzoni in 1817 and long regarded as the finest tomb in Egypt: at 137.19 metres the longest known in the valley until the exploration of KV5, with seventeen chambers of painted relief, a vaulted burial chamber and an astronomical ceiling; his sarcophagus now rests in Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. Ramesses II constructed the vast KV7, ruinous today, and enlarged KV5 for his sons. The tomb of Merenptah, KV8, extends 160 metres and was built for four nested sarcophagi, the outer so large that door jambs had to be demolished and rebuilt around it; open since antiquity, it is the tomb whose gate and plan board stand at the entrance.

The Twentieth Dynasty continued the work. Setnakhte usurped the tomb of Twosret, KV14; his son Ramesses III extended KV11, begun by his father and abandoned when it broke into the earlier tomb of Amenmesse, KV10, the tomb known as Bruce’s Tomb and the Harper’s Tomb, whose corridors preserve the Litany of Re, the Book of Gates, the Amduat and the Book of the Earth. Ramesses V and Ramesses VI shared KV9, whose double image of the goddess Nut spans the ceiling of the pillared hall; in Graeco-Roman times this tomb, identified with the legendary Memnon, was a place of pilgrimage, and nearly a thousand Greek, Latin and Coptic graffiti cover its upper walls.

Most tombs were robbed in antiquity despite guards and concealed entrances. Papyri of the late Twentieth Dynasty record the trials of the thieves: Papyrus Mayer B describes the looting of the tomb of Ramesses VI, and Papyrus BM 10053 records how eight workmen of Deir el-Medina, caught robbing a royal tomb, were executed by impalement. In the Twenty-first Dynasty the priests of Amun gathered the mummies into great caches (forty royal mummies in the shaft of Deir el-Bahari, DB320, sixteen more in the tomb of Amenhotep II), stripping the burial equipment as they went; only tombs whose entrances had been lost, among them KV62, escaped. Exploration, from Napoleon’s savants to Wilkinson’s numbering of the tombs in 1827 and the work of Mariette and Loret, culminated in Carter’s discovery of 1922, and research continues under the Theban Mapping Project. In the Valley of the Queens, the tomb of Nefertari, found in 1904, was closed in 1950 because its paintings were flaking, restored between 1986 and 1992, and reopened under strict limits of time and number on a separate ticket; it was closed again for urgent renovation in 2024.

Geology

Both valleys are cut into the limestone massif of the Theban hills, the desert plateau that forms the western rim of the Nile valley at Luxor. The rock is a succession of limestones and softer interbedded marls, more than 300 metres thick in places, deposited between 35 and 56 million years ago, in the Eocene, when the sea of the Tethys sometimes extended as far south as Aswan. During the Pleistocene the wadis were carved out of the plateau under a wetter climate; today the valleys remain the channels of rare and violent flash floods, which can dump tonnes of debris into the open tombs in a single storm.

The quality of the rock in the kings’ valley is notoriously inconsistent, ranging from fine, sound limestone to coarse stone that is structurally unreliable, with layers of shale that swell in the presence of water. The builders adapted their plans: some tombs follow natural clefts, others were cut behind slopes of scree or at the edge of rock spurs left by ancient flood channels. Where the ground failed, the design was changed: KV7 returns to an old-fashioned bent axis, probably because of the rock after the Esna shale, and the workmen of Setnakhte abandoned KV11 when they broke into the tomb of Amenmesse. Survey by the Amarna Royal Tombs Project between 1998 and 2002 showed that the cliffs descend beneath the scree in a series of natural shelves down to the bedrock.

Hydrology is the great geological enemy of the necropolis. At least seven active flood stream beds lead into the central area of the kings’ valley, which appears to have been inundated at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty: KV55, KV62 and KV63 are cut into the wadi bedrock at a level showing that the valley floor then lay about five metres lower than today. Later dynasties deliberately levelled the valley floor, and the buried tombs were forgotten until the early twentieth century; it was precisely such flood debris, together with the spoil of KV9 and the huts of its workmen, that protected the entrance of KV62 for more than three thousand years. The danger has returned: in 1991 a rainstorm flooded the tomb of Tutankhamun through a fault in the ceiling of the burial chamber.

The Valley of the Queens is geologically the more fragile of the two sites. Its rocks are limestones, marls, clays, chalks and shales, and the clays have undergone repeated expansion and shrinkage under recurrent flash floods, causing unstable tomb construction, rockslides and damage to the wall paintings. The landscape was formed by faulting and slumping during the Pliocene and Pleistocene, which tilted the original strata and exposed deposits of anhydrite, gypsum and halite. Salt from the halite, dissolved and recrystallised by seeping groundwater, is a principal agent of decay of the painted surfaces.

To these natural pressures the modern visitor adds humidity and carbon dioxide from breath, lint from clothing, the heat of light fixtures and the droppings of bat colonies in the open tombs. The conservators’ response is geological as much as artistic: in the tomb of Nefertari, the Getty Conservation Institute installed an air-circulation system, limited visits to fifteen minutes and required a separate ticket; other tombs of the queens’ valley are protected by plexiglass shields, wooden floors and walled paths. In the kings’ valley the mummy of Tutankhamun was moved in 2007 into a climate-controlled case, and a facsimile burial chamber absorbs visitors who would otherwise add their breath to the air of the original. The Theban massif has held the tombs for thirty-four centuries; the task is to keep it sound against water, salt and the crowd.

Things to See

The East Valley opens as a narrow basin between the sheer limestone cliffs of the Theban massif, its floor strewn with boulders and its tomb entrances cut at the foot of the rock or high in the slopes. A modern entrance zone of plan boards, numbered gates and flat-roofed shelters stands at the head of the wadi, and above the whole basin rises el-Qurn, the solitary natural pyramid that gave the necropolis its sacred character. From the gates a stone-lined path leads along the valley floor towards the doorways of the open tombs.

The tomb of Merenptah, KV8, announces itself at the threshold: a metal gate carries the sign K.V.8 Merenptah, and a plan board beside it shows the layout of the corridors. The tomb runs straight into the hillside for 160 metres, its walls covered with sunk relief and painted scenes: the falcon-headed god beneath a great ochre sun disk, the king standing before the deities, columns of hieroglyphs with their cartouches, friezes of rearing cobras and faded processions in worn plaster. The long descent ends in the chambers prepared for four nested sarcophagi, the outer so large that the door jambs had to be demolished and rebuilt around it.

The other tombs open to visitors display the painted programme of the Ramesside age: arched ceilings filled by the winged vulture goddess, the scarab and the sun disk; falcon-headed gods riding in their solar barques above rows of kneeling worshippers; friezes of rearing cobras on gilded walls; Anubis painted in gold and blue beside the king; and dark blue vaults spangled with stars, sun discs and the great serpent of the night sky. The painted and carved scenes draw on the illustrated books of the underworld, among them the Litany of Re, the Book of Gates, the Amduat and the Book of the Earth, which the Ramesside tombs combine along their corridors in long sequences of deities, serpents and solar barques. Stone stairways with wooden handrails and modern ramps and platforms lead down through the rock and back to daylight through doorways that frame the desert cliffs.

The Ramesseum stands on the desert margin below the cliffs, the sandstone memorial temple that Ramesses II of the Nineteenth Dynasty built for his mortuary cult. Its pylon carries the carved battle scenes of the king, and beyond the ruined courts the great hypostyle hall rises on papyrus columns, some of whose flared capitals still show green pigment beneath the architraves. Osirid pillars with crossed arms line the second court, and the walls are covered with sunk relief crowded with processions and offering scenes. In the first court the fallen colossus of Ramesses II lies shattered on the ground, the statue that inspired Shelley’s Ozymandias; columns bear the chiselled names of nineteenth-century travellers, restoration scaffolding climbs the standing masonry, and modern information boards explain the plan of the temple, the royal palace and the virtual reconstruction of the colossal statues.

On the slopes that close the necropolis towards the cultivation, the entrances of rock-cut tombs open in the hillsides above excavated ruins, and weathered guardian figures, baboons with raised paws and a ram-headed sphinx, lie among the fallen stone at the desert edge. Below them the desert shelf narrows towards the flood plain, where palms and patchwork fields meet the hazy horizon. The two valleys, the memorial temples and the hillside tombs together form the strip of desert that separates the houses of the living from the houses of the dead.

References

  1. Reeves, N. & Wilkinson, R. H. (1996). The Complete Valley of the Kings: Tombs and Treasures of Egypt’s Greatest Pharaohs. London: Thames & Hudson.
  2. Hornung, E. (1990). The Valley of the Kings: Horizon of Eternity. New York: Timken Publishers.
  3. McDonald, J. K. (1996). House of Eternity: The Tomb of Nefertari. Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute.
  4. Said, R. (1990). The Geology of Egypt. Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema.
  5. UNESCO World Heritage Centre (1979). Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis. World Heritage List, ref. 87. whc.unesco.org/en/list/87/
  6. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Valley of the Kings. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_the_Kings
  7. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Valley of the Queens. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_the_Queens
  8. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Tomb of Tutankhamun. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Tutankhamun
  9. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Tomb of Seti I. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Seti_I
  10. Wikipedia contributors (2026). KV8. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KV8
  11. Wikipedia contributors (2026). KV9. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KV9
  12. Wikipedia contributors (2026). KV11. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KV11
  13. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Tomb of Nefertari. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Nefertari
  14. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Ramesseum. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramesseum
  15. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Deir el-Medina. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_el-Medina
  16. Wikipedia contributors (2026). Theban Necropolis. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theban_Necropolis