Egypt With Omar Sharif

The Valley of the Kings is a desert valley located on the west bank of Thebes, the political and religious capital of the New Kingdom.

It was first used as a royal necropolis by Thutmosis I, although it was his predecessor, Amenhotep I, who was considered as the patron-god of the valley by the actual builders of the tombs.

The last known king to have built a tomb in the Valley was Ramesses XI, the last king of the New Kingdom, although it is doubtful that he ever used that tomb.

Despite its modern name, a minority of tombs was built for members of the royal family and their entourage.

The valley has two main branches: the East Valley, where most of the royal tombs are situated and the West Valley, that only contains the tombs of Amenhotep III and Ay, and some pits. The tombs of most of the New Kingdom kings have been discovered over the years: some were already open to public during the Greek-Roman era, others have only recently been unearthed.

All of the tombs have fallen victim to one or several visits by tomb robbers, even the famous tomb of Tutankhamun that was discovered almost intact in 1922 by Howard Carter!

In an effort to save the royal mummies from destruction, and to salvage the remaining treasures of the royal tombs, the priests of the end of the 20th and the 21st Dynasty opened the tombs, collected the mummies and buried them in two or more "caches". The first "cache" was a rock tomb high up in the mountains of Deir el-Bahari that was probably intended as the family tomb of the 21st Dynasty king-priests. The second "cache" was the tomb of 18th Dynasty king Amenhotep II. Not every royal mummy of the New Kingdom has been found, so there is room for the hypothesis that there may have been a third "cache" which has not yet been identified as such or which has not yet been discovered.

The only royal mummies to have been found in their own tombs were those of Amenhotep II, who was re-buried in his own tomb by the 21st Dynasty priests, and Tutankhamun, whose tomb lay undisturbed from the middle of the 20th Dynasty on.

Historical development

DYNASTY 18

The founders of Dynasty 18 apparently continued the burial tradition of their predecessors and cut their tombs into the cliffs in the Theban West Bank district of Dira' Abu an Naja . The exact nature of this continuation is uncertain because the tombs of the first two kings of this dynasty have not been identified, although their mummified remains and some of their burial equipment have been found in later caches.

For the first time in Egypt, the kings of Dynasty 18 physically separated the site of their tomb from that of their memorial temple. Perhaps the desecration of the prominently sited burials of the Old and Middle Kingdoms made them more cautious. Perhaps the role of these temples in the Beautiful Feas of the Valley, a festival of great importance in New Kingdom Thebes, required that the temple be built near the Nile floodplain, an unsuitable place for a tomb. The first to separate his tomb from the memorial temple appears to have been Amenhetep I. His temple lay at Dayr al Bahri (and was later obliterated by the construction of Hatshepsut's terraced temple . At least three possible sites have been proposed for his tomb: KV 39, in the southeast branch of the east Valley of the Kings; AN-B, in the hills behind Dira' Abu an Naja; and K93.11, in Dira' Abu al Naja . Texts from the late New Kingdom and the Third Intermediate Period describe the location of the tomb, but the descriptions are vague and none can be accurately compared to the existing topography. As a result, we know Amenhetep I had a tomb in western Thebes but no indication of where it is.

The reasons New Kingdom kings chose the East Valley of the Kings for their burials are unclear. The high point of the Theban Hills, al Qurn, whose ancient name was ta dehent "the peak," has an almost pyramidal shape when viewed from the entrance to the valley, and therefore some Egyptologists believe it must have inspired the selection .There are also indications that Hathor was associated with this area and that the serpent goddess Meretseger, "She who loves Silence," was connected with the mountain as a protector of the necropolis .

We know that Thutmes I was one of the first to cut his tomb in the East Valley of the Kings. In fact, he had two tombs, KV 20 and KV 38 , but we do not know which was the first to be cut or the last to be used. An autobiographical text in TT 81, the tomb of the early Dynasty 18 official, Ineni, states that he saw to the digging of a tomb for Thutmes I in a private place, "no one seeing, no one hearing." (This may mean that Ineni had sole responsibility for the work). Hatshepsut certainly intended KV 20 to be a burial place both for herself and her father, as the discovery of her sarcophagus in KV 20 together with another recarved for him attests . KV 38 also contained a sarcophagus for Thutmes I, this one made by his grandson Thutmes III, apparently for the reburial of Thutmes I . But whether Thutmes I's mummy was taken from KV 20 to a new tomb or returned to the original burial place is still not certain .

From the first half of this dynasty into the reign of Thutmes I, entrances to the royal Valley of the King's tombs lay at the base of sheer cliffs that encircle the wadi. In the case of KV 34 (Thutmes III), the entrance was located above the cliff face in a cleft that served as a natural channel for rainwater . This situation is similar to several earlier tombs outside the Valley, such as that made for Hatshepsut as queen, and others cut for royal women in remote wadis south of al Qurn. These inaccessible locations meant that tomb entrances were often well hidden. Those cut at the base of "waterfalls" would be covered by flood debris washed down by heavy rainstorms. As a result, many of these tombs, although robbed in antiquity, remained undiscovered until the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries.

The tomb of Amenhetep III (KV 22) was dug into the slopes beneath the cliffs in the West Valley of the Kings (tombs in this area are sometimes designated "WV" as an alternative to "KV") . His was possibly the first to utilize this more distant branch of the wadi system that forms the royal necropolis. Inscribed foundation deposits discovered outside the entrance suggests that his father, Thutmes IV, initiated it. The West Valley was used infrequently, but it holds several unfinished tombs of uncertain original ownership, including KV 25, perhaps intended for Amenhetep IV before his move to Amarna. KV 23, thought by some to have been started for Tutankhamen, was ultimately used for the burial of Ay. Like the tomb of Amenhetep III, these other tombs are constructed part way up the talus slope at the end of a branch of the main wadi. The last king of the dynasty, Horemheb, returned to the East Valley for his tomb (KV 57), which was cut just north of the tomb of Amenhetep II. The low-lying entrance to Horemheb's tomb, like those of Tutankhamen and KV 55, suggests that the floor of the wadi in this area was considerably lower than it is today.

DYNASTY 19

The late Dynasty 18 preference for cutting tomb entrances at the base of talus slopes just above the wadi floor was continued by the first three kings of the next dynasty: Rameses I (KV 16) , Sety I (KV 17) and Rameses II (KV 7) Merenptah's tomb (KV 8) had its entrance at the junction of two small, natural watercourses in the cliff . Subsequently, KV 10, the tomb of Amenmeses, was cut low in the same hillside as KV 16 and KV 17. Three of the remaining tombs of the dynasty, KV 13 (Bay), KV 14 (Tausert/Setnakht), and KV 15 (Sety II), were cut into the cliff face at the end of the southwest fork of the east Valley of the Kings, while KV 47 was cut for Siptah in the end of the hill that separates the late Dynasty 19 tombs from the wadi branch leading to KV 34 .

DYNASTY 20

KV 11 was begun for Setnakht, but it was taken over by his son, Rameses III. He shifted the axis to the west and added more corridors southward. Like several of the tombs of the preceding dynasty (including KV10, KV 16 and KV 17) KV 11 is also cut low into the hillside on the south side of the main valley. The tomb of Rameses IV (KV 2) as well as subsequent royal tombs of this dynasty (KV 9, KV 1, KV 6 )had monumental entrances cut into the ends of the hilly spurs that project from the cliff face into the main valley. The last two tombs, KV 18 and KV 4, for Rameses X and Ramesses XI respectively, were cut into the sides of two branch wadis running to the east of the main valley.

In summary, royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings were first cut into the cliffs at the top of the talus slopes, then later moved down these slopes to the valley floor.

It should be borne in mind that, as tombs were being dug, the valley floor would have risen as it was covered again and again with debris from the tomb cutting.

This meant that the entrances of some of the smaller tombs cut low in the wadi floor in Dynasty 18 were finally buried under increasingly deep piles of debris.