Position 74 - The Valley Of The Kings' Tombs At Thebes, Where The Great Conquerors Of Egypt Were Buried

Is not this a fit burial place for the great kings of Egypt? What splendid desolation, what a noble valley of death encompassed, by these silent mountains, without a hint of life in all its circuit, save these chattering natives who prattle on like the children that they are, untouched by the wild impressiveness of the place. We are now standing with Karnak and the river behind us (Map 8); its lower course, which we have just seen, is now on our right, and out yonder behind that battlemented mountain are the trackless wastes of the Sahara.

The valley at our feet is a depression behind the western cliffs, which we have seen so often from the plain of Thebes behind us. When the kings found that the pyramids no longer sufficed to protect the body of the royal occupant, they began to follow the example of their nobles and hew out tombs in the rock of the cliffs. The place they chose was this valley, and you can see the doors that form the entrances to their tombs. The custom began, when the kings of the Empire took up their residence at Thebes, and the city entered upon its imperial career.

The earliest king whose tomb has been found here is Thutmosis I. You remember his obelisks at Karnak. The same architect who erected those obelisks, Ineni, also made the king's tomb in this valley. He tells us with great pride how it was done: “I superintended the excavation of the cliff-tomb of his majesty, alone, no one seeing, no one hearing.” This, of course, refers to the great secrecy with which it was done with the purpose of keeping the location from becoming known, and thus making robbery impossible.

From the time of Thutmosis I, early in the 18th Dynasty, after 1550 B. C., to the priest kings of the 21st Dynasty, or about 1000 B. C., this valley continued to be the royal cemetery of Egypt. During these 550 years, not less than forty-two tombs were excavated here, at least that is the number now known. But new ones are being discovered every season or two, and there are probably many more yet to be found, as the detritus from the cliffs above slides down and completely covers the openings.

The last tomb discovered was found by an American, Mr. Theodore M. Davis. It was that of the family of Amenophis III. Mr. Davis also penetrated to the tomb of the great Queen Makere, as well as to that of Thutmosis IV. Among all these tombs, only one has preserved the body of the king in its sarcophagus. In the winter of 1898, M. Loret discovered the tomb of Amenophis II, the son of the conqueror Thutmosis III, with the mummy lying in its wooden coffin, which again was enclosed in a large stone sarcophagus, such as is regularly used in these royal tombs. Although the tomb had been robbed, the funeral garlands still lay upon the breast of the mummy. By order of the government the body was left lying in the tomb, undisturbed in its sarcophagus. The modern descendants of the tomb robbers of ancient Thebes, then forced their way into the tomb and rifled the body of their ancient ruler, but for nothing.

Do you see that open door facing us from our present point of view? That is tomb No. 9 on the map (No. 9), and belonged to Ramses VI.^[1]

Just to the left of that door you notice a pathway leading obliquely up to the face of the opposite cliff. There, in a small bay, which you can see from here if you look at the top of the cliff above the termination of the path, is the tomb of Amenophis II; there his body still lies, garlanded in its ancient funeral wreaths, just as they were put there on the day of burial, over 3,300 years ago. The government has put in electric lights, and the hosts of Cook who visitThebes every winter, may enjoy the strange and incongruous sight of a Pharaoh lying in state in his tomb, under the glare of a modern electric light.

Those three on the left of the path, this side of No. 9, belong (beginning with the furthermost) to Ramses I, the first king of the 19th Dynasty; to his son, Sethos I; and to Ramses XI, of the end of the 20th Dynasty, the predecessor of Ramses XII, the last of the long line of Ramessids. There are thus some 350 years between the farthest and the nearest of those three tombs.

We will now take one of these native watchmen with us and enter the tomb of Sethos I, the middle one of the three just mentioned. We shall find the watchman necessary, for these tombs are now all closed with grated iron doors to keep out marauders, and he must unlock the tomb for us before we can enter. The tomb is No. 17 on the small sectional map in the upper left-hand corner of Map 9.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Remember that you will find the valley on a larger scale, with the numbers and location of the tombs more clearly given, in the upper left-hand corner of Map 9.