Kings, Valley of The

long, narrow defile just west of the Nile River in Upper Egypt. It was part of the ancient city of Thebes and was the burial site of almost all the kings (pharaohs) of the 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties (1539–1075 &BC;), from Thutmose I to Ramses X. Located in the hills behind Dayr al-Ba&hsubdot;rī, the 62 known tombs exhibit variety both in plan and in decoration. In 1979 UNESCO designated the valley part of the World Heritage site of ancient Thebes, which also includes Luxor, the Valley of the Queens, and Karnak.

The kings of the New Kingdom, fearing for the safety of their rich burials, adopted a new plan of concealing their tombs in a lonely valley in the western hills behind Dayr al-Ba&hsubdot;rī. There, in tombs sunk deep into the heart of the mountain, pharaohs were interred, as were two queens, a few officials of high rank, and the numerous sons of Ramses II. The plan of the tombs varies considerably but consists essentially of a descending corridor interrupted by deep shafts to baffle robbers and by pillared chambers or vestibules. At the farther end of the corridor is a burial chamber with a stone sarcophagus in which the royal mummy was laid and store chambers around which furniture and equipment were stacked for the king's use in the next world.

The walls were in many cases covered with sculptured and painted scenes depicting the dead king in the presence of deities, especially the gods of the underworld, and with illustrated magical texts similar to those found in funerary papyri, designed to help him on his journey through the nether regions. There were a number of these texts; they represent differing but not necessarily conflicting views of the afterlife, in which the king had to undergo trials and surmount perils. In the “Book of That Which Is in the Underworld,” for instance, he travels in the boat of the sun god through 12 caverns that represent the 12 hours of the night. In the “Book of Gates,” giant serpents guard the portals through which the sun has to pass as strange jinn and demons help or hinder the boat on its way. Astronomical figures often decorated the ceilings of the burial chambers, and the sky-goddess Nut herself is sometimes painted across the firmament of stars.

Virtually all the tombs in the valley were robbed in antiquity, a number of them during the lifetime of the successors or of near descendants of the owners. In the time of Strabo (1st century &BC;&BCE;, Greek travelers were able to visit 40 of the tombs. Only the little tomb of Tutankhamen (reigned 1333–23 &BC;&BCE;, located on the floor of the valley and protected by a pile of rock chippings thrown down from a later Ramesside tomb, escaped pillage. The wonderful treasures that were exhumed from Tutankhamen's tomb and that now reside in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo vividly indicate how rich the burial of a great pharaoh of the empire's heyday must have been. The longest tomb (number 20) belongs to Queen Hatshepsut (reigned c. 1472–58), whose burial chamber is nearly 700 feet (215 metres) from the entrance and descends 320 feet (100 metres) into the rock.

The largest and most complex tomb in the Valley of the Kings was apparently built to contain the burial chambers of most of the 52 sons of Ramses II (reigned 1279–13), the greatest king of the 19th dynasty. This tomb, which had been previously discovered but dismissed as insignificant, was again located in the late 1980s and partially excavated in the 1990s. The uppermost of the tomb's two levels contains a central pillared hall and various corridors leading away to dozens of chambers.

Margaret Stefana Drower

Ed.

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