Valley of the Kings - Important tombs, Exploration of the Valley of the Kings, Tourism, Recent Events/Discoveries

A remote limestone wadi on the W bank of the R Nile at Luxor, 650 km/400 mi S of Cairo: its Arabic name is Wadi Biban el Moluk (‘The Valley of the Gates of the Kings’). Cut into its walls are the tombs of the Egyptian kings of the New Kingdom (XVIII–XX Dynasties, 1550–1070 BC), their families, and retainers. Those of Rameses VI, Horemheb, Amenhotep II, Tuthmosis III, Seti I, and Tutankhamun are of particular note.

The Valley of the Kings, or Wadi el-Muluk (وادي الملوك) in Arabic, is a valley in Egypt where tombs were built for the Pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom, the Eighteenth through Twentieth Dynasties of Ancient Egypt. It is separated into the East and West Valleys, with most of the important tombs in the East Valley. The West Valley has only one tomb open to the public: the tomb of Ay, Tutankhamun's successor.

The Valley was used for primary burials from approximately 1539 BC to 1075 BC, and contains some 64 tombs, starting with Thutmose I and ending with Ramesses X or XI.

The Valley of the Kings also had tombs for the favorite nobles and the wives and children of both the nobles and pharaohs.

The investigation of the Amarna Royal Tombs Project (1998 – 2002) investigated the valley floor with ground-penetrating radar, and found that below the modern surface the Valley’s cliffs descend beneath the scree in a series of abrupt, natural "shelves", arranged one below the other, descending several metres down to the bedrock in the valley floor.

Important tombs

See also: List of burials in the Valley of the Kings for full list of burials

The tombs are numbered in the order of 'discovery' from Ramesses VII (KV1) to the recently discovered KV63, although some of the tombs have been open since antiquity, and KV5 has only recently been rediscovered. Only the principal tombs are noted here (these are the publicly accessible or best known tombs).

East Valley

Most of the open tombs in the Valley of the Kings are located in the East Valley, and this is where most tourists can be found.

KV2 – Tomb of Ramesses IV KV4 – Tomb of Ramesses XI KV5 – Tomb of Sons of Ramesses II

The recently rediscovered tomb of some of the sons of Ramesses II. With 120 known rooms and excavation work still underway, it is probably the largest tomb in the valley.

KV6 – Tomb of Ramesses IX KV7 – Tomb of Ramesses II

The ruined tomb of Ramesses the Great is not open to the public, as it is currently undergoing excavation and conservation by a Franco-Egyptian team led by Christian Leblanc.

KV8 – Tomb of Merenptah

The tomb of Merenptah is one of the tombs that can be viewed by the public, although in 2005 it was not open.

KV9 – Tomb of Ramesses V and Ramesses VI

Also known as the Tomb of Memnon or La Tombe de la Métempsychose, this is the tomb of Ramesses V and Ramesses VI.

KV11 – Tomb of Ramesses III

The tomb of Ramesses III (or Bruce's Tomb, The Harper's Tomb) is one of the largest tombs in the valley, and is open to the public, it is located close to the central 'rest–area', and is usually one of the tombs visited by tourists.

KV14 – Tomb of Twosret, later reused by Setnakhte KV15 – Tomb of Seti II KV16 – Tomb of Ramesses I KV17 – Tomb of Seti I

The tomb of Seti I and is also known as Belzoni's tomb, the tomb of Apis, or the tomb of Psammis, son of Necho.

KV34 – Tomb of Thutmose III KV35 – Tomb of Amenhotep II

This tomb was originally the tomb of Amenhotep II.

KV39 – Tomb of Amenhotep I KV43 – Tomb of Thutmose IV KV46 – Tomb of Yuya and Tjuyu

The tomb of the nobles Yuya and Tjuyu, who were possibly the parents of Queen Tiy. Until the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, this was the best preserved tomb to be found in the Valley.

KV47 – Tomb of Siptah KV55 – Possible Amarna Period Mummy cache

The tomb maybe another mummy cache, and has the possible burials of several Amarna Period royals – Tiy and Smenkhkare/Akhenaten.

KV57 – Tomb of Horemheb KV62 – Tomb of Tutankhamun

Perhaps the most famous discovery of modern Western archaeology was made here by Howard Carter on November 4, 1922, with clearance and conservation work continuing until 1932. King Tutankhamun's tomb was the first royal tomb to be discovered that was still largely intact (although tomb robbers had entered it), and was, until the excavation of KV63 in 2006, considered the last major discovery in the valley.

KV63 – Unknown tomb discovered on 10 March 2005. KV64 – Radar anomaly believed to be a tomb or chamber announced on 28 July 2006

West Valley

The numbering the West Valley follows in sequence to that of the East Valley, and there are only four known tombs and several pits in this branch of the valley.

WV22 – Tomb of Amenhotep III

This is the tomb of one the greatest rulers of the Egyptian New Kingdom, Amenhotep III.

WV23 – Tomb of Ay

The reconstructed tomb of Ay is the only tomb that is open to the public in the West Valley.

WV25 – Possible Theban tomb of Akhenaten

This tomb may have been started as the Theban burial of Akhenaten, but it was never finished.

Deir el-Bahri

Royal mummy cache

While this tomb is not strictly in the Valley of the Kings, it contained an astounding mummy cache. The Valley began to be heavily plundered, so during the 21st Dynasty the priests of Amen opened most of the tombs and moved the mummies into three tombs in order to better protect them, even removing most of their treasure in order to further protect the bodies from robbers. During the later Third Intermediate Period and later periods, intrusive burials were introduced into many of the open tombs.

Grave robbers

Almost all of the tombs have been ransacked, including Tutankhamun's, though in its case, it seems that the robbers were interrupted, so very little was removed. In 1090 BC, or the year of the Hyena, there was a collapse in Egypt's economy leading to the emergence of tomb robbers. The tombs were opened, all the valuables removed, and the mummies collected into two large caches. the other, in the tomb of Amenhotep II, contained a further sixteen.

Exploration of the Valley of the Kings

The Valley of the Kings has been a major area of modern Egyptological exploration for the last two centuries.

Antiquity

The Greek writers Strabo and Diodorus Siculus were able to report that the total number of Theban royal tombs was 47, of which at the time only 17 were believed to be undestroyed.

Clearly others also visited the valley in these times, as many of the tombs have graffiti written by these ancient tourists.

French Expedition

In 1799, Napoleon's expedition drew maps and plans of the known tombs, and for the first time noted the Western Valley (where Prosper Jollois and Édouard de Villiers du Terrage located the tomb of Amenhotep III, WV22). Early in the century, the area was visited by Belzoni, working for Henry Salt, who discovered several tombs, including those of Ay in the West Valley (WV23) in 1816 and Seti I (KV17) the next year. At the end of his visits, Belzoni declared that all of the tombs had been found and nothing of note remained to be found.

In 1827 John Gardiner Wilkinson was assigned to paint the entry of every tomb, giving them each a designation that is still in use today – they were numbered from KV1 to KV21 (although the maps show 28 entrances, some of which were unexplored). The expedition spent two months studying the open tombs, visiting about 16 of them.

In 1845 – 1846 the valley was explored by Karl Richard Lepsius's expedition, they explored and documented 25 in the main valley and four in the west.

Loret added a further 16 tombs to the list of tombs, and explored several tombs that had already been discovered.

When Gaston Maspero was reappointed to head the Egyptian Antiquities Service, the nature of the exploration of the valley changed again, Maspero appointed Howard Carter as the Chief Inspector of Upper Egypt, and the young man discovered several new tombs and explored several others, clearing KV42 and KV20.

Howard Carter then acquired the right to explore the valley and after a systematic search discovered the actual tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62) in November 1922.

At the end of the century, the Theban Mapping Project re-discovered and explored tomb KV5, which has since been discovered to be probably the largest in the valley, and was either a cenotaph or real burial for the sons of Ramesses II. Elsewhere in the eastern and western branches of the valley several other expeditions cleared and studied other tombs. Recently (up until 2002) the Amarna Royal Tombs Project has been exploring the area around KV55 and KV62, the Amarna Period tombs in the main valley. In 2001 the Theban Mapping Project designed new signs for the tombs, providing information and plans of the open tombs.

On February 8, 2006, an American team led by the University of Memphis uncovered a pharaonic-era tomb (KV63), the first uncovered there since King Tutankhamun's in 1922. The largest tomb, known as KV5, was built for the sons of Ramesses II. Graffiti on the walls of some of the tombs indicate that this was an attraction during time of the ancient Greeks and in Roman times.

Tourism

Most of the tombs are not open to the public (16 of the tombs can be open, but they are rarely open at the same time), and officials occasionally close those that are open for restoration work. The West Valley has only one open tomb, that of Ay, and a separate ticket is needed to visit this tomb as well. The tour guides are no longer allowed to lecture inside the tombs and visitors are expected to proceed quietly and in single file through the tombs. The West Valley is much less visited, as there is only one tomb that is open to the public.

Recent Events/Discoveries

Since the mid-1990s, considerable attention has been given to KV5, the extensive tomb of the sons of Ramesses II, located in the East Valley. The tomb is not open to the public.

In early February 2006, the Supreme Council of Antiquities announced the discovery of a new tomb by an American team from the University of Memphis. This is the 63rd known tomb in the Valley of the Kings and the first discovered there since Howard Carter's team found Tutankhamun's resting place in November 1922. Wilkinson, The Complete Valley of the Kings (1996, Thames and Hudson) – Details of all the major tombs, their discovery, art and architecture. Weeks, Araldo De Luca (photographs), Valley of the Kings (Friedman/Fairfax, 2001) – Spectacular photography of the best tombs.