Valley Of The Kings

The Valley of the Kings is the most famous concentration of royal tombs; its main purpose was to secure the royal tombs for the pharaohs of the new kingdom since the pyramids disappointed them to protect their royal treasures from thieves and desecration. The pyramids was the traditional burials for the royals and priests sited near the city of Memphis but it was more exposed to robbery and occupation, especially during the Hyksos invasion, so they had to figure out another way to create save necropolises and opted deep rock cut galleries and tombs underneath the ground that were much more hidden and secret. it seemed that the ancient Egyptian preferred safety of the valley than popularity of the regular prominent pyramids by designing the valley of the kings which contain the long known tomb for the children of king Ramses II and more than 25 kings belong to the 18th and 21st dynasties.

Our travel to Egypt company provides a visit to the valley of the kings in the packages that

includes Luxor city or Aswan to Luxor Nile cruise ,make sure to check the website packages and Luxor attractions articles.

The interior design of the valley of the kings

The valley stands on the west bank far from modern Luxor, its halls, columns, long corridors ,the stairs and the royal sarcophagi still in well condition .he designers of the royal tombs did their best to keep them secured from violation, but unfortunately, the robbers proved to be more resourceful than the royal authorities. Most of the treasures were stolen by antiquity thieves, though, the famous tomb of the young boy king Tut Ankh Amen were found almost untouched with its complete collection. Some other non royal tombs survived the desecration and erosion which probably belong to high nobles and priests. walls, ceilings and columns are decorated with paintings and engravings that still retain their own colors that challenged the damage of time and amazingly survived man pollution and urbanization. the entrances of the valley have slopped stairways leading to the burial chamber of the hidden tombs which their walls were painted and decorated with traditional themes and figures to imitate papyrus in black and red ,even the ceilings are decorated and painted ,you'll be looking everywhere to catch more details as you can.

20th dynasty renovations

By the 20th dynasties, the construction of the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings was changed a little while the entrances were wider and the ceilings were higher, they sacrificed the stairs in the sake of leveling up obvious entrances, the process demanded careful planning , hard work and long time preparations. Ancient Egyptian were so accurate about details, actually they were very strict about it, they gathered artists to fashion coffins ,sarcophagus, jars, statues and many funeral objects to be buried beside the king.

The tomb of Tut Ankh Amen

Before the discovery of Tut Ankh Amen royal tomb, the archaeologist and Egyptologist thought that the valley was exhausted and everything was excavated, they lost hope of finding intact unrobed royal tomb since the other tombs were discovered were robbed and violated. In the early 20th century, a lime stone step was found in the valley led to the discovery of Tut Ankh Amen tomb by carter with all of his treasures and the mummy of the boy king himself. the full collection included golden mask of the king and three coffins inside each other to protect the king's mummified body, the coffins were decorated with religious and magical hieroglyphic writings, there're also jars and canopic chest contains the king's inner organs. During antiquity period the tomb was entered twice which means that the tomb could be not completed and some antiques were taken, even though there're some spells were written by the priests to frighten thieves but seemed it didn’t work well.

The tomb of Horemheb

Horemheb is an Egyptian king of the late 18th dynasty, his burial took place in one of the valley of the kings tombs. You'll find amazing colorful paintings on the walls of the tomb shows Horemheb beside the god of cemeteries and embalming. Other walls have paintings of god Osiris ,Anubis and Horus addressing the dead king .However, there were unfinished decorations but the tomb in general still retain its beautiful catchy colors and hieroglyphic details.

The tomb of Ramses I

The tomb of Ramses the first is similar to the others but a little smaller, the walls of the tomb depict the dead king Ramses with the ancient Egyptian gods of Heliopolis and Horus blessing the king and telling him to rest forever in the afterlife.

The tomb of Seti I

This burial chamber of Kings Seti is decorated from the bases of the wall on the ceilings with mythological representatives such as snakes, lions and crocodile that refers to evil and war in the Egyptian myths, also decorated with astronomical figures that shows how Egyptians observed astronomical phenomena.

Valley of the kings is also have many tombs of kings like Seti II, Ramses IV, Ramses IX