The eastern bank of the Nile was associated with the rising of the sun and hence life in the minds of the ancient Egyptians; it was there that their towns and temples were largely sited. In comparison the western bank was the domain of the darkly-aspected god Set, associated with the setting of the sun and death. This is why tombs were often located to the west of the Nile, whether we are talking of the Tombs of the Nobles across from Aswan, the famous pyramid fields from Giza down to Dahshur... or the infamous Valley of the Kings.
It was not just pharoahs who were buried across from the ancient capital of Thebes (modern-day Luxor). There is a Valley of the Queens to its south, there are tombs of high-ranking nobles and functionaries - even the craftsmen and artists who worked on the funerary arrangements were allowed their own tombs by Deir el-Medina, their encampment. But it is the Valley of the KIngs that is most famous. The discovery and excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamun in 1922 - an event that made worldwide headlines in the age of mass media - is the most memorable event, but its other tombs had been sealed, robbed, and reused for millenia.
Visits to the tombs are strictly regulated. Often some are closed for restoration, or just to give them a rest - every single visitor adds to humidity levels which can damage the dazzling artwork the ancients left behind to extol their glories.
A LE70 ticket lets you access the Valley, and allows entrance to three of the open tombs of your choice. At each your ticket will be punched - if you are lucky enough not to get it punched you effectively gain the opportunity to visit another. A guide or a guidebook is useful to enable you to decide which you want to see, as they have different qualities - some are deeper, some are more brilliantly decorated, some have more convoluted lay-outs. A board tells you which tombs are open on any given day. On my trip I saw the tombs of Ramses IV (brilliant decorations, including a feted ceiling mural), Ramses IX (showing how wall art had deteriorated from its high point), and Tuthmosis III (a tomb so laden with traps that it seems straight out of Indiana Jones). Certainly Ramses IV and Tuthmosis III's tombs are ones I would recommend without a shadow of a doubt. I will go into them in more detail later.
Entrance to the fabled tomb of
Tutankhamun is covered by an additional ticket that costs LE80. You need to decide before you enter the Valley whether you will want to tour his tomb. The reports I had read stated that there is not much to his crypt other than its fame; his tomb was hurriedly constructed and not architecturally great, and all his grave goods were on display in Cairo where I had seen them. All that there was to view was his plain stone outer sarcophagus. I and the rest of my party decided not to stump up the extra LE80.
Once inside the valley we wished we had decided otherwise. Film crews found good spots, reporters did their pieces to camera, and we spotted Dr Zahi Hawass, head of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities bustling by in a hat (our guide was very dismissive of Hawass, accused of monopolising all progress in Egyptology and making himself a fortune off the back of it). It turned out that that morning, Sunday 4th November, the badly damaged mummy of King Tut himself was being returned to his tomb, where he could be viewed by vistors. It made frontpage news across the world in a way that his exhumation had 85 years earlier. And we could have been there on this historic day! Oh well!
The vistors centre at the start is well worth looking at. It has a superb glass diorama showing the topography (above and below ground) to the complex. A tourist train takes you up to the tombs themselves, though I chose to walk. The Valley is well paved, winding down bare sandstone gulleys. Occassionally security men could be seen atop the canyon walls, modern day guardians of the dead. The landscape is otherwish desolate and bone-dry - truly a place of the dead.
RAMSES IV - My first stop was actually one of the first tombs you come to, just off to the right of the main path. This tomb has superb artwork, the colours still glowing after all these years. If this had been an Indiana Jones filmset the audience would never have bought it - everyone knows tombs are dark and grim and forbidding. But the walls here and cheerful in their daisy oranges and whites, incised with heiroglyphs and technicoloured geese. These decorations were not pristine - patches were missing, and parts were overlaid with Coptic Christian symbols (figures of saints etc), as this was one of the earliest discovered tombs. In the tomb proper you find a gant granite kaaba of a sarcophagus, inscribed with magical spells. Above, the ceiling is decorated with one of Egypt's most famed images, the twin depiction of the goddess Nut (night)swallowing the sun after it had floated down the river of the day that issued from her nether regions. I would class this as one of the Valley's 'must-see' tombs.
RAMSES IX - The artwork here was indicative of the decline of artistry over the years. The frescoes here were two-dimensional rather than highlighted carvings. A steep corridor leads down to the pharoah's burial pit. On my visit the place stunk of turps as restorers were at work in here.
TUTHMOSIS III - The tomb of Tuthmosis III, the great innovator who (according to our guide) established the media, the secret police, and a whole host of other 'firsts', really WAS like something out of an Indiana Jones film. Down the end of the Valley there is a narrow ravine. A modern staircase now climbs to a high cleft in the rockface. Here an entrance leads down into a passageway. Traps are evident - you come across a deep pit which you cross via a bridge. This brings you to a hot vestibule. From here stairs lead down to the tomb proper, an unusual rounded chamber decorated with tiers of stick figures. His actual sarcophagus remains in situ, its lid slightly elevated. With a torch you can peer under the lid to see a depiction of a goddess who would have 'held' the deceased safely. Again, the spectacular setting and evidence of protective traps make this, in my opinion, a 'must-see' tomb.
From journal Sunrise, Sunset: 24 Hours in Luxor