The tombs have suffered great damage from treasure hunters, floods and, in recent years, from mass tourism: carbon dioxide, friction and humidity produced by the average of 2.8g of sweat left by each visitor have affected the reliefs and the pigments of the wall paintings. The Department of Antiquities has since installed dehumidifiers and glass screens in the worst affected tombs, and introduced a rotation system for opening some tombs to the public while restoring others. Each tomb has a number that represents the order in which it was discovered. KV (short for Kings Valley) 1 belongs to Ramses VII; it has been open since Greek and Roman times, and was mentioned in the Description de l’Egypte, dating from the late 18th century. KV 62 – Tutankhamun’s famous tomb, which was discovered by Howard Carter in 1922 – was until recently the last one to be discovered, but in 2006 KV 63 was discovered, with a few empty sarcophagus, so it is not clear if this was a royal tomb or a chamber for the mummification process.

The large car park leads to a new visitors centre, where guides explain the history of the site and show a silicon model of the Valley to their groups in an air-conditioned room, and where individual visitors can get information on a set of computers. A movie about Carter’s discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun is also shown. Newly erected signs and maps make navigating the site far easier than before. Tomb plans and histories have also been upgraded to help visitors better understand what they’re seeing. This is all part of the sitemanagement plan Dr Kent Weeks and his Theban Mapping Project are developing to improve the experience of visitors and ensure protection of the tombs. It’s worth having a torch to illuminate badly l it areas.

The road into the Valley of the Kings is a gradual, dry, hot climb, so be prepared if you are riding a bicycle. A rest house is being built near the visitors centre, but mineral water, soft drinks, ice creams and snacks are available from the stalls at the tourist bazaar near the entrance. A tuf-tuf – a little electrical train – ferries visitors between the visitors centre and the tombs (it can be hot during summer).

Most of the tombs described here are usually open to visitors and are listed in the order that they are found when entering the site. If you want to avoid the inevitable crowds that tour buses bring to the tombs, head for those outside the entrance area.

The Tomb of Tutankhamun (KV 62), somehow the least impressive of all the royal tombs but famous for its treasury now mostly in Cairo Museum, has been deemed worth a ticket on its own and this can be bought at a second ticket office where the tuf-tuf arrives. The tomb of Ay (KV 23) also has its own ticket, available from the main ticket office.

TOMB BUILDING DR JOANN FLETCHER

Tombs were initially created to differentiate the burials of the elite from the majority of people whose bodies continued to be placed directly into the desert. By about 3100 BC the mound of sand heaped over these elite graves was replaced by a more permanent structure of mud brick, whose characteristic bench shape is known as a ‘mastaba’ after the Arabic word for bench.

As stone replaced mud-brick, the addition of further levels to increase height gave birth to the pyramid, whose first incarnation at Saqqara is also the world’s oldest monumental structure. Its stepped sides soon evolved into the more familiar smooth-sided structure, of which the Pyramids of Giza are the most famous examples.

It was only when the power of the monarchy broke down at the end of the Old Kingdom that the afterlife became increasingly accessible to those outside the royal family, and as officials became increasingly independent they began to opt for burial in their home towns. Yet the narrow stretches of fertile land that make up much of the Nile Valley generally left little room for grand superstructures, so an alternative type of tomb developed, cut tunnel-fashion into the cliffs that border the valley and which also proved more resilient against robbery. Most were built on the west side of the river, the traditional place of burial where the sun was seen to sink down into the underworld each evening.

These simple rock-cut tombs consisting of a single chamber gradually developed into more elaborate structures complete with an open courtyard, offering chapel and entrance façade carved out of the rock with a shaft leading down into an undecorated burial chamber. The most impressive rock-cut tombs were those built for the pharaohs of the New Kingdom (1550–1069 BC), who relocated the royal burial ground south to the remote valley now known as the Valley of the Kings. New evidence suggests that the first tomb in the valley may have been built for Amenhotep I (1525–1504 BC; KV 39). The tomb intended for his successor, Tuthmosis I (KV 20), demonstrated a radical departure from tradition: the offering chapel that was once part of the tomb’s layout was built as a separate structure some distance away in an attempt to preserve the tomb’s secret location. The tombs themselves were designed to resemble the underworld, with a long, inclined rock-hewn corridor descending into either an antechamber or a series of sometimes pillared halls, and ending in the burial chamber.

The tomb builders lived in their own village of Deir al-Medina and worked in relays. The duration of the ancient week was 10 days (eight days on, two days off) and the men tended to spend the nights of their working week at a small camp located on the pass leading from Deir al-Medina to the eastern part of the Valley of the Kings. Then they spent their two days off at home with their families.

Once the tomb walls were created, decoration could then be added; this dealt almost exclusively with the afterlife and the pharaoh’s existence in it. Many of the colourful paintings and reliefs were extracts taken from ancient theological compositions, now known as ‘books’, and were incorporated in the tomb to assist the deceased into the next life. Texts were taken from the Book of the Dead, the collective modern name for a range of works, all of which deal with the sun god’s nightly journey through the darkness of the underworld, the realm of Osiris and home of the dead.

The Egyptians believed that the underworld was traversed each night by Ra, and it was the aim of the dead to secure passage on his sacred barque to travel with him for eternity. Since knowledge was power in the Egyptian afterlife, the texts give ‘Knowledge of the power of those in the underworld and knowledge of their actions, knowing the sacred rituals of Ra, knowing the hours and the gods and the gates and paths where the great god passes’.

TOMB OF RAMSES VII (KV 1)

Up a small wadi near the main entrance is the small, unfinished tomb of Ramses VII (1136– 1129 BC). Only 44.3m long, short for a royal tomb because of Ramses’ sudden death, it consists of a corridor, a burial chamber and an unfinished third chamber. His architects hastily widened what was to have been the tomb’s second corridor, making it a burial chamber, and the pharaoh was laid to rest in a pit covered with a sarcophagus lid. Niches for Canopic jars are carved into the pit’s sides, a feature unique to this tomb. Walls on the corridor leading to the chamber are decorated with fairly well preserved excerpts from the Book of the Caverns and the Opening of the Mouth ritual, while the burial chamber is decorated with passages from the Book of the Earth. Although it has only recently reopened to the public, the Greek, demotic, Coptic and 19th-century graffiti show that it has been open since antiquity – at one stage it was even inhabited by Coptic hermits.

TOMB OF RAMSES IV (KV 2)

This is the second tomb on the right as you enter the Valley of the Kings. Its whereabouts were already known by Ptolemaic times, as is evident from the graffiti on the walls dating back to 278 BC. Ramses IV (1153–1147 BC) died before the tomb was completed and its pillared hall had to be hastily turned into a burial chamber. The paintings in the burial chamber have deteriorated, but there is a wonderful image of the goddess Nut, stretched across the blue ceiling, and it is the only tomb in the valley to contain the text of the Book of Nut, with a description of the daily path taken by the sun every day. The red granite sarcophagus, though empty, is one of the largest in the valley. The discovery of an ancient plan of the tomb on papyrus (now in the Turin Museum) shows the sarcophagus was originally enclosed by four large shrines similar to those in Tutankhamun’s tomb. Following the robbery of the tomb in antiquity, the mummy of Ramses IV was one of those reburied in the Tomb of Amenhotep II (KV 35), and is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

TOMB OF RAMSES IX (KV 6)

Opposite Ramses II is the most visited tomb in the valley, the Tomb of Ramses IX (1126– 1108 BC), with a wide entrance, a long sloping corridor, a large antechamber decorated with the animals, serpents and demons from the Book of the Dead – then a pillared hall and short hallway before the burial chamber. Here as well graffiti indicates that the tomb has been open since antiquity. In the chamber just before the staircase to the burial chamber are the cartouche symbols of Ramses IX. On either side of the gate on the rear wall are two figures of Iunmutef priests, both dressed in priestly panther-skin robes and sporting a ceremonial side lock. The walls of the burial chamber feature the Book of Amduat, the Book of Caverns and the Book of the Earth; the Book of the Heavens is represented on the ceiling. Although unfinished it was the last tomb in the valley to have so much of its decoration completed, and the paintings are relatively well preserved. A number of wooden statues of the pharaoh and the gods were salvaged and taken to the British Museum in the 19th century, although the pharaoh’s mummy had already been removed in antiquity and reburied as part of the Deir al-Bahri cache.

TOMB OF MERNEPTAH (KV 8)

Ramses II lived for so long that 12 of his sons died before he did, so it was finally his 13th son Merneptah (1213–1203 BC) who succeeded him in his 60s. The secondlargest tomb in the valley, Merneptah’s tomb has been open since antiquity and has its share of Greek and Coptic graffiti. Floods have damaged the lower part of the walls of the long tunnel-like tomb, but the upper parts have well-preserved reliefs. As you enter the first long corridor, on the left is a striking relief of Merneptah with the god Ra-Horakhty followed by the Litany of Ra. Further down, the corridors are decorated with the Book of the Dead, the Book of Gates and the Book of Amduat. Beyond a shaft is a false burial chamber with two pillars decorated with the Book of Gates. Although much of the decoration in the burial chamber has faded, it remains an impressive room, with a sunken floor and brick niches on the front and r ear walls.

The pharaoh was originally buried inside four stone sarcophagi, three of granite (the lid of the second still in situ, with an effigy of Merneptah on top) and the fourth, innermost, sarcophagus of alabaster. In a rare mistake by ancient Egyptian engineers, the outer sarcophagus did not fit through the tomb entrance and its gates had to be hacked away. Merneptah’s mummy was removed in antiquity and was found in Amenhotep II’s tomb (KV 35); it’s now displayed in the Egyptian Museum.

TOMB OF RAMSES VI (KV 9)

La integridad de la tumba de Tutankamón se debe en gran medida a la existencia de la tumba de Ramsés VI. Toneladas de fragmentos de roca arrojados al exterior durante su construcción cubrieron por completo la tumba de Tutankamón. En realidad, la tumba fue iniciada por el efímero Ramsés V (1147-1143 a. C.) y continuada por Ramsés VI (1143-1136 a. C.), y ambos faraones aparentemente fueron enterrados aquí; Los nombres y títulos de Ramsés V todavía aparecen en la primera mitad de la tumba. Tras el saqueo de la tumba, apenas 20 años después del entierro, las momias de Ramsés V y Ramsés VI fueron trasladadas a la tumba de Amenhotep II, donde fueron encontradas en 1898 y llevadas a El Cairo. Aunque el enlucido de la tumba no fue terminado, su fina decoración está bien conservada, con énfasis en escenas y textos astronómicos. Extractos del Libro de las Puertas y del Libro de las Cavernas cubren el pasillo de entrada. Estos continúan hasta la sección media de la tumba y la sala del pozo, con la adición del Libro de los Cielos. Más cerca de la cámara funeraria, las paredes están decoradas con extractos del Libro de Amduat. La cámara funeraria está bellamente decorada, con una magnífica imagen doble de Nut que enmarca los libros del día y de la noche en el techo. Este paisaje nocturno en negro y dorado muestra a la diosa del cielo devorando el sol cada tarde para darle vida cada mañana en un ciclo interminable de nueva vida diseñado para revivir las almas de los faraones muertos. Las paredes de la cámara están llenas de bellas imágenes de Ramsés VI con varias deidades, así como escenas del Libro de la Tierra, con escenas que muestran el progreso del dios sol a través de la noche, los dioses que lo ayudan y las fuerzas de la oscuridad. tratando de impedir que llegue al amanecer; Busque las figuras decapitadas y arrodilladas de los enemigos del dios del sol alrededor de la base de las paredes de la cámara y los verdugos de color negro que voltean los cuerpos decapitados para dejarlos lo más indefensos posible. En la pared derecha bellamente decorada de la cámara funeraria trate también de distinguir la figura itifálica (la que tiene una erección notable); las líneas y símbolos que lo rodean representan un reloj de agua. En las partes superiores de la cámara se pueden ver muchos grafitis griegos, de alrededor del año 150 d.C.

TUMBA DE RAMSÉS III (KV 11)

Ramsés III (1184-1153 a. C.), el último de los faraones guerreros de Egipto, construyó una de las tumbas más largas del Valle de los Reyes. La tumba iniciada pero abandonada por Sethnakht (1186-1184 a. C.) tiene 125 m de largo y gran parte de ella todavía está bellamente decorada con coloridos relieves hundidos pintados que representan los textos rituales tradicionales (Letanía de Ra, Libro de las Puertas, etc.) y Ramsés ante los dioses. Aquí son inusuales las escenas seculares, en las pequeñas habitaciones laterales del corredor de entrada, que muestran tributos extranjeros como cerámica muy detallada importada del Egeo, la armería real, barcos y, en la última de estas cámaras laterales, los arpistas ciegos que dieron la tumba uno de sus nombres alternativos: ‘Tumba de los Arpistas’.