Description

Uniquehistoriccemetery

The Valley of the Kings is a secluded landscape among the cliffs on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor, where New Kingdom pharaohs and members of their courts were buried for almost five centuries. The location was chosen deliberately: it was isolated, easy to guard, and symbolically connected with the realm of the dead because the sun sets in the west. Above the valley rises the pyramid-shaped peak of el-Qurn, which ancient Egyptians associated with rebirth. The necropolis was used by rulers of the Eighteenth to Twentieth Dynasties and contains the tombs of Tutankhamun, Ramesses II, Seti I, Amenhotep III, and many others. It became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979. Tombs were cut directly into the limestone slopes, with long corridors, changes in direction, broad halls, and a burial chamber containing a sarcophagus at the end. Their walls are covered with vivid paintings and texts from funerary works such as the Amduat and the Book of Gates, intended to guide the pharaoh through the underworld.

In antiquity, the valley was called Ta-sekhet-ma’at, often translated as the ‘Great Place,’ an appropriate name for tombs cut deep into the rock in the hope of hiding deceased rulers from robbers. From the Eighteenth Dynasty onward, each corridor and chamber had a symbolic name reflecting the soul’s journey through the afterlife, from the ‘sanctuary of east and west’ to the ‘house of gold’ where the sarcophagus stood. The valley’s most famous discovery occurred in 1922, when Howard Carter found the nearly intact tomb of Tutankhamun. Its contents gave the modern world an unprecedented view of royal burial wealth. In 2005, archaeologist Otto Schaden discovered chamber KV63, not a tomb but a storeroom for funerary equipment. Although different craftsmen built the tombs for different rulers, their layouts are strikingly similar: a long descending corridor leading deep into the cliff and several rooms at the end. Painted scenes of royal life and the afterlife still retain much of their original brilliance.

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