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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. The valley is located at . It stands on the west bank of the Nile, across from Thebes (modern Luxor), under the peak of the pyramid-shaped mountain Al-Qurn. 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. There are a number of other important burials there, including that of Amenhotep III, but these are still being excavated and are not publicly accessible. The official name for the site was The Great and Majestic Necropolis of the Millions of Years of the Pharaoh, Life, Strength, Health in The West of Thebes, or more usually, Ta-sekhet-ma'at (the Great Field). 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 favourite nobles and the wives and children of both the nobles and pharaohs. Around the time of Ramesses I (ca. 1300 BC) the Valley of the Queens was begun, although some wives were still buried with their husbands. Geology The quality of the rock in the Valley is very inconsistent. Tombs were built by cutting through various layers of limestone, each with its own quality. This poses problems for modern day conservators, as it must have to the original architects. Building plans were probably changed on account of this. The most serious problem are the shale layers. This fine material expands when it comes into contact with water. This has damaged many tombs, particularly during floods. 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. The abbreviation "KV" stands for "Kings' Valley". A number of the tombs are unoccupied, the owners of others remain unknown, and some are merely pits used for storage. Only the principal tombs are noted here (these are the publicly accessible or best known tombs). East Valley
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. It has recently been re–investigated, but is not open to the public. 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. It is located in the cliffs overlooking Hatshepsut's famous temple at Deir el-Bahri, was found to contain many of Egypt's most famous pharaohs. They were found in a great state of disorder, many placed in other people's coffins, and several are still unidentified. Decline of the Royal Necropolis By the end of the New Kingdom, Egypt had entered a long period of political and economic decline. The priests at Thebes grew in power and effectively administered Upper Egypt, while kings ruling from Tanis controlled Lower Egypt. 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. Later most of these were moved to a single cache near Deir el-Bari (see below). 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. The valley was surrounded by steep cliffs and heavily guarded. In 1090 BC, or the year of the Hyena, there was a collapse in Egypt's economy leading to the emergence of tomb robbers. Because of this, it was also the last year that the valley was used for burial. The valley also seems to have suffered an official plundering during the virtual civil war which started in the reign of Ramesses XI. The tombs were opened, all the valuables removed, and the mummies collected into two large caches. One, the so-called Deir el-Bahri cache, contained no less than forty royal mummies and their coffins; 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. Before this the area was a site for tourism in antiquity (especially during Roman times). This areas illustrates the changes in the study of ancient Egypt, starting as antiquity hunting, and ending as scientific excavation of the whole Theban Necropolis. Despite the exploration and investigation noted below, only eleven of the tombs have actually been completely recorded. 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. Pausanias and others wrote of the pipe-like corridors of the Valley – i.e. the tombs. Clearly others also visited the valley in these times, as many of the tombs have graffiti written by these ancient tourists. Jules Baillet located over 2000 Greek and Latin graffiti, along with a smaller number in Phoenician, Cypriot, Lycian, Coptic, and other languages. Eighteenth Century Before the nineteenth century, travel from Europe to Thebes (and indeed anywhere in Egypt) was difficult, time-consuming and expensive, and only the hardiest of European travelers visited – before the travels of Father Claude Sicard in 1726, it was unclear just where Thebes really was. It was known to be on the Nile, but it was often confused with Memphis and several other sites. One of the first travelers to record what he saw at Thebes was Frederic Louis Norden, a Danish adventurer and artist. He was followed by Richard Pococke, who published the first modern map of the valley itself, in 1743. 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). The Description de l'Égypte contains two volumes (out a total of 19) on the area around Thebes. Nineteenth Century European exploration continued in the area around Thebes during the Nineteenth Century, boosted by Champollion's translation of hieroglyphs early in the century. 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). These paintings and maps were later published in The Topography of Thebes and General Survey of Egypt, in 1830. At the same time James Burton explored the valley. His works included making KV17 safer from flooding, but he is more well known for entering KV5. In 1829, Champollion himself visited the valley, along with Ippolito Rosellini. The expedition spent two months studying the open tombs, visiting about 16 of them. They copied the inscriptions and identfied the original tomb owners. In tomb KV17, they removed some wall decorations, which are now on display in the Louvre in Paris. 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. The later half of the century saw a more concerted effort to preserve rather than simply gathering antiquities. Auguste Mariette's Egyptian Antiquities Service started to explore the valley, first with Eugéne Lefébre in 1883, then Jules Baillet and Georges Bénédite in early 1888 and finally Victor Loret in 1898 to 1899. During this time Georges Daressy explored KV9 and KV6. 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. Twentieth century Around the turn of the Twentieth Century, the American Theodore M. Davis had the excavation permit in the valley, and his team (led mostly by Edward R. Ayrton) discovered several royal and non-royal tombs (KV43, KV46 & KV57 being the most important). In 1907 they discovered the possible Amarna Period cache in KV55. After finding what they thought was the burial of Tutankhamun (KV61), it was announced that the valley was completely explored and no further burials were to be found. 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. Twenty-first century Various expeditions have continued to explore the valley, adding greatly to the knowledge of the area. In 2001 the Theban Mapping Project designed new signs for the tombs, providing information and plans of the open tombs. A new visitors' centre is currently being planned. 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 18th Dynasty tomb included seven wood sarcophagis, one being a small sarcophagis which is to be belive to of held a small stachu, two of the sarcophagis had coloured funerary masks. Also found in the tobe where 28 large white washed storage jars, sealed with pharaonic seals, how ever two where damaged when the team was entering the tomb. On 31st July 2006, Nicholas Reeves announced that analysis of ground penetrating radar for the autumn of 2000 showed a sub-surface anomaly in the area of KV62 and KV63 . Miscellanea 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 number of visitors to KV62 has led to a separate charge for entry into the tomb. 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. This is to minimise time in the tombs, and prevent the crowds from damaging the surfaces of the decoration. Photography is no longer allowed in the tombs. In 1997, 58 tourists and 4 Egyptians were massacred at Deir el-Bahri by Islamist militants from Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, leading to a drop in tourism. As of 2005, on most days of the week an average of four to five thousand tourists visit the main valley. On the days on which the Nile Cruises arrive the number can rise to nearly ten thousand . These levels are expected to rise to 25,000 by 2015. The West Valley is much less visited, as there is only one tomb that is open to the public. In January 2006 it was announced that a new visitors centre is to be constructed . Its planned opening date is March 2007. Selected reading | |||||||||
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