The Valley of the Kings

The Valley of the Kings "Gates of the King")[1] is a valley in Egypt where for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, tombs were constructed for the kings and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom (the Eighteenth through Twentieth Dynasties of Ancient Egypt).[2][3]

The valley stands on the west bank of the Nile, across from Thebes (modern Luxor), within the heart of the Theban Necropolis.[4]

The wadi consists of two valleys, East Valley (where the majority of the royal tombs situated) and West Valley.

Geology

The area has been a focus of concentrated archaeological and egyptological exploration since the end of the eighteenth century, and its tombs and burials continue to stimulate research and interest. In modern times the valley has become famous for the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun (with its rumours of the Curse of the Pharaohs[5]), and is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. In 1979, it became a World Heritage Site, along with the rest of the Theban Necropolis.[6]

The types of soil where the Valley of Kings is located are an alternating sandwich of dense limestone and other sedimentary rock (which form the cliffs in the valley and the nearby Deir el-Bahri) and soft layers of marl. The sedimentary rock was originally deposited between 35 - 56 million years ago during a time when the precursor to the Mediterranean Sea covered an area that extended much further inland than today.

During the Pleistocene the valley was carved out the plateau by steady rains.[7] There is currently little year-round rain in this part of Egypt, but there are occasional flash floods which hit the valley, dumping tons of debris into the open tombs.[8]

The quality of the rock in the Valley is inconsistent, ranging from finely-grained to coarse stone, the latter with the potential to be structurally unsound. The occasional layer of shale also caused construction and conservation difficulties, as this rock expands in the presence of water, forcing apart the stone surrounding it.

It is thought that some tombs were altered in shape and size depending on the types of the layers of rock the builders encountered.[7] Builders took advantage of available geological features when constructing the tombs. Some tombs were quarried out of existing limestone clefts, others behind slopes of scree, or were at the edge of rock spurs created bvy ancient flood channels.[7]

The problems of tomb construction can be seen with tombs of Ramesses III and his father Setnakhte. Setnakhte started to excavate KV11, but broke into the tomb of Amenmesse, so construction was abandoned and he instead usurped the tomb of Twosret, KV14. When looking for a tomb, Ramesses III extended the part-excavated tomb started by his father.[9] The tomb of Ramesses II returned to an early style, probably due to the quality of the rock being excavated.

Between 1998-2002 the Amarna Royal Tombs Project investigated the valley floor using 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

History

The Theban Hills are dominated by the peak of al-Qurn, known to the Ancient Egyptians as ta dehent, or 'The Peak'.[11] It has a pyramid shaped appearance, and it is considered to have been the reason why the kings of Egypt started to be buried beneath it, echoing the pyramids of the Old Kingdom, more than a thousand years prior to the first royal burials carved out in the Valley of the Kings.[12][13]

Its isolated position also resulted in reduced access, and special tomb police (the Medjay) were able to guard the necropolis. While the iconic pyramid complexes of the Giza plateau have come to symbolize ancient Egypt, the majority of tombs were in fact cut into rock. Most pyramids and mastabas contain sections which are cut into ground level, and there are full rock-cut tombs in Egypt that date back to the Old Kingdom.

After the defeat of the Hyksos and the reunification of Egypt under Ahmose I, the Theban rulers began to construct elaborate tombs that would reflect their new found power.[14] The tombs of Ahmose and his son Amenhotep I were probably (their exact location remains unknown) in the Seventeenth Dynasty necropolis of Dra' Abu el-Naga'.[15] The first royal tomb in the valley were those of Amenhotep I (although this identification is also disputed),[16] and Thutmose I, whose advisor Ineni notes in his tomb that he advised his king to place his tomb in the desolate valley (the identity of this actual tomb is unclear, but it is probably KV20 or KV38).[11]

I saw to the excavation of the rock-tomb of his majesty, alone, no one seeing, no one hearing.[17] The Valley was used for primary burials from approximately 1539 BC to 1075 BC, and contains at least 63 tombs, beginning with Thutmose I (or possibly earlier, during the reign of Amenhotep I), and ending with Ramesses X or XI.

Despite the name, the Valley of the Kings also contains the tombs of favorite nobles as well as the wives and children of both nobles and pharaohs.

Around the time of Ramesses I (ca. 1301 BC) construction commenced in the separate Valley of the Queens, although some wives continued to be buried with their husbands in the Valley of the Kings.

Royal Necropolis

The official name for the site in ancient times 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).[18]

At the start of the Eighteenth Dynasty, only the kings were buried within the valley in large tombs, when a non-royal was buried, it was in a small rock cut chamber, close to the tomb of their master.[19] Amenhotep III's tomb was constructed in the Western Valley, and while his son Akhenaten moved his tomb's construction to Amarna, it is thought that the unfinished WV25 may have originally been intended for him.[20]

With the return to religious orthodoxy at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, Tutankhamun, Ay and then Horemheb returned to the royal necropolis.The Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties saw an increase in the number of burials (both here and in the Valley of the Queens), with Ramesses II and later Ramesses III constructing a massive tomb that was used for the burial of his sons (KV55 and KV3 respectively).

There are some kings that are not buried within the valley or whose tomb has not been located, Thutmose II may have been buried in Dra' Abu el-Naga' (although his mummy was in the Deir el-Bahri tomb cache), Smenkhkare's burial has never been located, and Ramesses VIII seems to have been buried elsewhere.

The tombs were constructed and decorated by the workers of the village of Deir el-Medina, located in a small wadi between this valley and the Valley of the Queens, facing Thebes. The workers journeyed to the tombs via routes over the Theban hills. The daily lives of these workers are quite well known, recorded in tombs and official documents.[21]

Mortuary Temples

Further information: Theban Necropolis In the Pyramid Age the tomb of the king was associated with a mortuary temple located close to the pyramid. As the tomb of the king was hidden, this mortuary temple was located away from the burial, closer to the cultivation facing towards Thebes.

Exploration of the valley

View of the central East Valley, showing area around KV62 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 (1st century BC) and Diodorus Siculus (1st century AD) 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.[22] Pausanias and other ancient writers remarked on the pipe-like corridors of the Valley, clearly meaning 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 2100 Greek and Latin graffiti, along with a smaller number in Phoenician, Cypriot, Lycian, Coptic, and other languages.[23] The majority of the ancient graffiti are found in KV9, containing just under a thousand of them. The earliest positively dated graffito dates to 278 B.C.[22]

Source: Wikipedia