VALLEY OF THE KINGS EGYPT TOURISM 2012

VALLEY OF THE KINGS EGYPT TOURISM 2012

VALLEY OF THE KINGS EGYPT TOURISM 2012

VALLEY OF THE KINGS    

 

The Valley of the Kings in Upper Egypt contains many of the tombs of pharaohs from the New Kingdom, including Tutankhamun and Ramesses the Great

The Valley of the Kings actually has two components - the East Valley and the West Valley. It is the East Valley which most tourists visit and in which most of the tombs of the New Kingdom Pharaohs can be found. (The West Valley has only one remote tomb open to the public, that of Ay who was Tutankhamun's successor.)

One of the dilemmas for the normal tourist is trying to decide which tombs to enter. The normal ticket permits three tombs and that will probably suffice for one visit. If you rush, you won't appreciate or remember the details of each tomb. The tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62) requires a separate ticket.

The Egyptian belief that "To speak the name of the dead is to make him live again" is certainly carried out in the building of the tombs. The king's formal names and titles are inscribed in his tomb along with his images and statues. Beginning with the 18th Dynasty and ending with the 20th, the kings abandoned the Memphis area and built their tombs in Thebes. Also abandoned were the pyramid style tombs. Most of the tombs were cut into the limestone following a similar pattern: three corridors, an antechamber and a sunken sarcophagus chamber. These catacombs were harder to rob and were more easily concealed. Construction usually lasted six years, beginning with the new reign. The text in the tombs are from the Book of the Dead, the Book of the Gates and the Book of the Underworld. See also a history and overview of the Valley of the Kings
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 LAST DISCOVERIES

Since the mid-1990s, considerable attention has been given to KV5, the extensive tomb of the sons of Ramesses II, located in the East Valley. The work of Kent Weeks and his team has uncovered about 120 rooms in the sprawling complex. The tomb is not open to the public. The full story of the discovery of KV5 is related in Week's book The Lost Tomb.

In early February 2006, the Supreme Council of Antiquities announced the discovery of a new tomb by an American team from the University of Memphis. It is located close to that of Tutankhamun's. This is the 63rd known tomb in the Valley of the Kings and the first discovered there since Howard Carter's team found Tutankhamun's resting place in November 1922. KV63, as it is known, consisted of a single chamber with seven sarcophagi and 28 large storage jars. The chamber is from the late 18th dynasty and it appears to have been a deposit of funerary preparation materials, rather than a tomb. No mummies were found in the tomb