Essam Elnoby
RIGHT AND COMFORT WAY 2 HAVE HOLIDAY
EAST BANK
Luxor Astrip of green in the middle of the desert, tilled fields and in the background the red rocks of the “Libyan chain”. Here lies Luxor, one of the greatest capitals of the ancient world. Charming and evocative, with the Nile banks lined with modern hotels, the felucas that sail along the quiet waters of the river, the small, silent streets of the Bazaar that come to life in the evening with their colours, sounds and lights.This is the great, ancient city of Thebes, capital of the Egyptian empire for almost one thousand years, which Hover referred to in the IX can to of the Iliad as “Thebes with one hundred gates” and for which “only the grains of sand in the desert surpassed the abundance of wealth contained therein”. The Copts called it Tapé, hence the Greek Thebai, but for Egyptian inhabitants it was Uaset.
TEMPLE OF KARNAK
| At about three kilometres from Temple of Luxor stands the vast monumental area of Karnak, which the Greeks called Hermonthis: the archaeological site includes three divided areas separated by a rough brick boundary. The largest is the central area covering thirty hectares, which Diodorus of Sicily handed down to us as the most ancient one. |
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enclosing the dominion of Amon; to the south, still unexplored for about half its extension (almost nine hectares) and connected to the previous one by a drome of cryosphinxes, is the domin-ion of the goddess Mut, wife of Amon and symbolically portrayed in the form of a vulture; lastly, to the north, the dominion of Montu, God of War, stretches across about two and a half hectares.
In time, the dimensions of each complex changed and the Pharaohs who succeeded to the throne left their mark by extending the temple or adding halls and chapels. The structure of the three holy complexes remains the same: in the center of each enclosure stands the main temple dedicated to the god and along-side lies the sacred lake for ceremonies usually in a quadrangular shape. Of the three complexes, the one dedicated to Amon is astounding of it dimensions.
It is the largest temple with columns in the world and according to distinguished historians, it could contain Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris in its entirety; Leonard Cottrell affirmed that it was such a vast monument that “it could cover almost half of the Manhattan area “! Not only, but on account of its architectural .
Complexity, it could serve as a base to study the styles-tic evolution from the XVIII Dynasty to the end of the Ramses.
A short avenue of cryosphinxes leads to the first and largest pylon 113 meters wide and 15 meters thick, constituting the monumental entrance to the temple; it is unadorned and dates back to the Ptolemy dynasty. The sphinxes with the heads of rams, sacred to Amon, represent the god that protected the Pharaoh portrayed by animals’ paws.
The first courtyard that we encounter, known as the Ethiopian courtyard, dates back to the IX Dynasty and is closed on the north side by a portico of strong columns with closed papyrus capitals, at the feet of which stand the sphinxes commissioned by Ramses II to flank the entrance to the hypostyle hall. The couryard is dominated in the center by a tall column featuring an open papyrus column; it is the remains of the gigantic pavilion of the Ethiopian king Taharka, 21 meters high and with a wooden ceiling destined to protect the sacred boats. In front of the column to the right, one enters the Temple of Ramses III, with its courtyard surrounded on three sides by Osiris pillars, where the Pharaoh is portrayed in Jubilee dress.
Leaning against the second pylon, a huge, fallen statue in granite represents Ramses II and another 15-meter high statue portrays King Pinedjem. The 29.5 meter high portal leads to what is considered one of the greatest pieces of ancient Egyptian art: the hypostyle hall, one hundred and two meters by fifty-three meters, featuring – eternally challenging time – 134 columns 23 meters high. The open papyrus – shaped capitals head, at their tops, a circumpherence of about 15 meters, which could take 50 people standing. It is a real forest of columns, whose dimensions and plays on light and shade create incredible emotions. The central nave, commenced towards 1375 B.C under Amon-Ofis III who designed it as a simple colonnade towards the sanctuary of Amon, has a different height from the lateral columns which were started under Horemheb, continued by Seti I and Ramses II and finally completed under Ramses IV. This very difference in height allowed the introduction of the “claustra” large open-work windows in sandstone that provide an unreal sort of light. Beyond the hypostyle hall, there used to the obelisks of Thot-Mosis I, 23 meters high and 143tons in weight; unfortunately only one of them is still standing. It is surpassed in height by the obelisk of Hatshep-sut, which is 30 metres high and weighs 200 tons. In order to build it, the Queen spared no expense, seeing that according to news chronicles at the time, she poured in “as many bushels of gold as sacks of wheat”.
Having passed the fifth and seventh pylons (respec-tively of Thot-Mosis I and Thot-Mosis III), one reaches that unusual environment which is the Akh-Menu of Thot-Mosis III, the Festival Hall also called the “temple of millions of years”. It is a beautiful hypo-style hall with two rows of ten columns with their shafts painted dark red to imitate wood and a row of thirty-two square pillars decorated with scenes. A few traces of painting of the VI century that have been brought to light on certain pillars tell us that this hall was transformed into a church by Christians monks.
The sacred lake of the dominion of Amon was 120 meters by 77 meters and surrounded by buildings: storehouses, priests’ homes and even an aviary for aquatic birds. In these waters, the priests used to purify themselves every morning before starting their daily holy rituals.
It is amazing that man could have built such a large, imposing building complex; on the other hand, we know that under the XIX Dynasty, 81.322 people worked on the temple of Amon considering priests, guards, workmen and peasants. Moreover the temple benefited from income and a large number of plots, markets and yards, enhanced by all the wealth and booty that the Pharaoh brought back from his military victories.
TEMPLE OF LUXOR
This is the great, ancient city of Thebes, capital of the Egyptian empire for almost one thousand years, which Homer referred to in the IX canto of the Iliad as “Thebes with one hundred gates” and for which “only the grains of sand in the desert surpassed the abundance of wealth contained therein”. The Copts called it Tapé, hence the Greek Thebai, but for Egyptian inhabitants it was Uaset, meaning “the chief town” and Niut, “the City” it was later on called Diospolis Magna. Its present name of Luxor comes from the Arab El Qousour, translation of the Latin “Castra” with which the ancient Romans indicated the city where they had installed two encampments. In the Memphis era it was a small village where the God of War Montu was worshipped and its temples marked the boundaries of the territory. As from the X Dynasty, thanks to its geographical position and political grounds, its importance started to increase considerably until the military successes of its princes made it a great power. Capital of the pharaohs of the New Empire, the god Amon was worshipped in great splendour in the triad in Mut and Khnsu. It was the age of great victories and triumph in Asia Minor, Nubia and Libya. It was a happy period – perhaps the happiest in Egyptian history – and Thebes had no rivals : victorious Pharaohs accumulated incredible wealth there (city where the houses are rich in treasure) from war booty; from the Red Sea the Persian Gulf and even from the Sahara – across the road of the oases – merchants arrived to grow rich and to enrich the townsmen of Thebes who reached the incredible figure of half a million! One the east bank rise the temples in which the gods dwelt whereas on the west bank building were constructed for the worship of dead sovereigns; apart from this theory of temples, parallel to the river runs the heavy rock curtain that conceals the Valley of the Kings. Thebes then inexorably fell. The very geographical position that one thousand years beforehand had favored the birth of its power now became the main reason for its decline : too far from the “hot” delta region, where the Ramses were forced to create military stations to stem foreign invasions, Thebes lost its political, spiritual and military supermacy. Subsequent dynasties originally came from the delta and the twons of tains, Bubast and Sais replaced it as capital of Egypt. Left defenseless. Thebes fell prey to the Assyrian army lead by Assarhaddon, which sacked it in 672 B.C.; once again in 665, Assurbanipal’s army deported the townsmen before turning them into slaves and stripped the town of its statues and treasures. Lastly, it was completely razed to the ground in 84 B.C. by Ptolemy Lathyros to the extent that during the roman era it was a mass of ruins visited by wayfarers; the few remaining townsmen settled in what remained of the temples and the tombs were reduced to stables. This time too, as happened in the case of Memphis, Ezekiel’s prophecy that Thebes would be violently shaken came true. Temple of Amon Ra In Luxor, all that remains of its glorious past is the temple that the ancient Egyptians built to the glory of Amon ra king of the gods, and which they called “Southern harem of Amon”. Brought back to light in 1883 by Gaston Maspéro, the temple is 260 metres long and its construction was basically commissioned by two Pharaohs, Amon-Ofis III who started it in the XIV century B.C. and Ramses II who completed it adding the porticoed courtyard with its axis moved eastwards, and no longer north-south as in the case of the rest of the temples. The architect was probably amenophis, son of Hotep. The temple of Luxor was joined to that of karnak by a long stone-paved dromos, a drome and a processional avenue, flanked by sphinxes with rams heads that the XXX Dynasty replaced with sphynexes with human heads. This street has not been brought to life completely and they are still working on it. The avenue ended at the entrance to the temple of Luxor, marked by the large pylon erected by Ramses II, which features a 65-metre front decorated with bas-reliefs illustrating scenes of the military campaigns of the Pharaoh against the Hittites. In ancient time, the pylon was preceded by two obelisks, two seated colossi and two standing colossi. Today, only the left 25-metre high obelisk is still standing: the other was taken to Paris in 1833 and placed by the engineer Lebas in Place de la Concorde on the 25th October 1836. The two colossi in granite represent the Pharaoh seated on his throne, fifteen and a half metres in height on a base of about one metre. Of the other four statues in pink granite leaning against the pylon, one was to represent Queen Nefertari and another decrepit one to the right, his daughter Merit-Amon. Having passed through the triumphal entrance, one enters the court of Ramses II, with its double row of columns with closed papyrus capital and statues of Osiris in the inter columns. To the north-west of the courtyard one can admire the temple-deposit of the sacred boats built by Thot-Mosis III and dedicated to the triad Amon, Mut and Khonsu. Then follows a colonnade of two rows of bell-shaped columns 52 meters long that take us to the second sourtyard, or courtyard of Amon-Ofis II, surrounded on three sides by two rows of columns with closed papyruses, a real, highly evocative forest. From here, across a transversal hypostyle hall, one enters the last sanctuary, the most intimate and sacred part, which gave the temple its name of “Adytum of the south” theatre o the final moment of the festival of Opet, the largest and most solemn held during the year. The festival, which lasted little more than fifteen days, started on the nineteenth day of the second month of the flood, that is towards the end of August. The highlight of the ceremony came when out of the temple of Karnak came the sacred boat of Amon-Ra which carried by thirty priests and followed by those of Mut and Khonsu, covered the whole avenue of sphinxes and arrived at the temple of Luxor; here the boats were closed in the sanctuary for a couple of days, before returning to the temple of karnak, always accompanied by a rejoicing crowd singing and dancing. LUXOR MUSEUM Recently built, this Museum displays countless inter – esting finds relating to the history of ancient Thebes. The wall, formed by hundreds of small scenes, shows work in the fields and craftsmen at work, not to men- tion Pharaoh and Queen Nefertiti worshipping the Sun. It is worth mentioning the elegant head of Hathor in the form of a cow in gilt wood and from Thutankamun’s tomb; a large sandstone head with the unmistakable features of Akhen-Aton and a stone statue of Thot-Mosis I holding the ankh in his hands. The mummification museum considered to be one of the most important Specialized museums in the world, cause it’s contains every thing belongs to the operation of mummification in the ancient Egyptian history. The museum it self contains hall for showing the mummification operation, The prices of tickets: Egyptian students: one Egyptian pound. Egyptians: three Egyptian pounds. Foreigner students: ten Egyptian pounds. Foreigners: twenty Egyptian pounds. The prices of Photography : (without flash) 5 Egyptian pounds: usual camera for Egyptians. 10 Egyptian pounds: usual camera for foreigners. 100 Egyptian pounds: for vedio camera (Egyptians, foreigners). Visiting time: the museum works tow shifts: Summary: from 9:00 am to 1:00 PM and from 5:00pm to 10:00 PM. Wintry : from 9:00am to 1:00pm and from 4:00pm to 9:00pm. WEST BANK strip of green in the middle of the desert tilled fields and in the background the red rocks of the “Libyan Chain” Here lies Luxor, one of the
greatest capitals of the ancient world.
Charming and evocative, with the Nile along the
quiet waters of the river, the small, silent streets
of the Bazaar that come to life in the evening
with their colours, sounds and lights.
The most interesting piece is Talatat’s wall, a recomposition of an 18-meter well from the temple of Akhen-Aton in Karnak and destroyed by its success- sors; the 283 blocks forming it were found in the filling of the ninth pylon of the temple of Amon in Karnak.
It was opened in 6/5/1997AD, by MR-president Mohamed Husny Mubark and the first lady of Egypt MRS-Suzan Mubark, and with some other guests and ministers.
measures about: 360M2, and contains 19 for the museum showing.
That hall had done as a royal tomb built with more careful with slight light
and as a new style in Architectural.The mummification museum considered to
be one of the museums which showing the idea of mummification just like
the ancient Egyptians as an operation from beginning to finishing.
In the West side you will visit the Valley of the kings where we have discovered 62 tombs. The most famous one is king Tut Ank Amoun. It was found in 1922 by an English Egyptologist. Also the Valley of Queens in that side where 75 Tombs have been discovered. Most famous Tomb is Queen Nefertary wife of Ramsess second. The tombs of the Nobles between the kings and Queens where more than four hundred Tombs have been discovered. They are very beautiful colors. In the Western side you can visit too the temple of Ramses third which called Medaint Habu. It is one of the most beautiful funural temples where you will find the colors still on the walls as if the Artist finished it yeasterday. Madinet Habu
The monumental complex of Medinet Habu included the Temple of Ramses III, in front of which stood the template of Thot-Mosis I and the Chapels of the deities that worshipped Amon.
One is struck with awe by the almost military grandeur of the Southern Gate, known as the Royal Pavilion, which was preceded by a landing-stage on a canal that used to connect it to the Nile.
This triumphal gate is set between two towers and crowned by two orders of longitudinal windows. The bas-reliefs sculpted on the walls also repeat the “warlike” nature of this construction, where prisoners were sacrificed, the Pharaoh brought the captured enemy to the god Amon and so forth. The temple of Ramses III, 80 meters beyond the triumphal gate, is one of the most perfect buildings stylistically speaking of ancient Egypt.
After a 63 meter wide pylon decorated with war scenes, one enters the first courtyard with the god Thot and the other the Pharaoh with Maat. One thousand two hundred years after Imhotep, another architect, Senmut, went down in Egyptian history with another architectural master-piece. Queen Hatshepsut, more a benefactress of the arts than a military leader, Having been abandoned, in Queen Hashepsut’s monument, they installed a Christian convent known as the “convent of the north”, hence the area’s present name of Deir el-Bahari; it was thanks to the insertion of the convent in the Pharaoh’s temple that it was preserved. The architect-minister Senmut had the intuition to make the widest possible use of the dramatic range of ochre-coloured rocks spread out inside. The design of the monument was also new and avant-garde to the extent that the temple of Hatshepsut, called Djeseru or “the most magnificent of the magnificent” by the ancient Egyptians, is unique in Egyptian architecture. The temple, which faces eastwards, was a series of vast terraces, which, by means of flights of stairs, ascended to the sanctuary. An avenue of sphinxes and obelisks provided access to the first terrace, enclosed on the far side by a portico consisting of 22 pillars and flanked by two Osiris pillars. On one of the walls, bas-reliefs narrate the birth and childhood of the queen and the expedition that the sovereign promoted in the mysterious country of Punt, perhaps what is known as Somalia nowadays, as they feature giraffes, monkeys, panther skins and ivory objects. On the far wall, 18 large and small niches were supposed to house statues of the queen, both seated and standing. This temple is characterized by its 16-corner pillars, so admired by Champollion, who called it protodoric. The entire left part of the valley, however, was occupied by the gigantic burial temple of Montu-Hotep I. Five hundred years before Hatshepsut decided to built his temple in this valley, Pharaoh Montu-Hotep I had the same idea and built his tomb along the typical lines of the Old Empire but tending towards the tombs of the New Empire. The monumental complex of Montu-Hotep I was formed by a gigantic tomb with a pyramid featuring the king’s grave in its centre. |
The famous Colossi of Memnon are all that remains of the burial temple of amon-Ofis III and whose magnificence is recorded in a stele found by the archaeologist Petrie. |  |
metres in length and 1 meter in width. Cut in monolithic blocks of sandstone and portraying the Pharaoh seated on his throne, with his hands resting on his knees, the south colossus is in better shape than the other, to which a legend is connected.
It would appear that in 27 B.C a terrible arthquake serverly damaged almost all monuments in Thebes and that an enormous crack opened up from the top to the middle of the colossus, which it toppled. Others, however, attribute this fact to the barbarities of king Cambise and this seems more likely as Egypt has never been prone to seismic movements.
At the time every morning at daybreak the statue gave out a prolonged sound in which some believed to hear a sad, yet harmonious song.
Greek poets soon created a beautiful legend around this strange fact testified by great historians such as Strabo, Pausanias, Tacitus and Philostratus. According to them, the "stone that sings" represent Memnon, the mythical son of Aurora and Tithonus, the king of Egypt and Ethiopia.
Sent by his father to help Troy besieged by the Greek army, Memnon achieved great glory by slaying Antilochus, son of Nestor, but in turn he fell under the revengeful hand of Achilles.
Aurora in tears then beseeched Jupiter to resuscitate her son at least once a day; in this way, every morning, while Aurora was caressing her son with her rays, he replied to his mother disconsolately by wailing.
In actual fact, the sounds were due to the vibrations produced in the sufface which had been broken by the brusque passage of the cold of the night to the heat of the first rays of sun.
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Ramesseum was the name given during the nineteenth century to the funerary temple that Ramses II had built on the west bank of the Nile. His “Castle of a million years” was built by the architect Penre on such a vaste scale, according to Diodorus of Sicily, that it surpassed all other temples at the time. Unfortunaltely, nowadays very little remains of that splendour: |  |
the Osiris pillars still remain on the façade of the hypostyle hall and so does a fallen statue of Ramses II seated on his throne, reminiscent of a defeated giant. It once measured 17 meters and weighed over one thousand tons. Diodorus of Sicily got the Pharaoh’s first name, User-Maat-Ra wrong, and wrote that the statue represented Osymandios.
The valley of the Queens. known today as Biban el Harim, opens up at about one and a half kilometers south west of the Valley of Kings. Schiaparelli discovered about eighty tombs, many of which were seriously damaged; some of them featured traces of fire whereas others were reduced to stables. Tomb of Queen Thiti Tomb of Amon-her-Khopechef Nefertari's Tomb Tomb of Kamusat
The ancient Egyptians gave in the evocative name of Set Neferu, meaning "seat of beauty:. From 1903 to 1906 the Italian archaeological expedition led by Ernesto 
They contained the mortal remains of queens and princes from the XIX to the XX Dynasty; therefore, they can be dated back from 1300 B.C. to 1100 A.D.
Thiti was the wife of one of the numerous Ramses of the XX Dynasty, maybe Ramses IV. Her tomb, abandoned and reduced to a donkey stable, is well preserved and features an interesting embossed decoration on limestone highlighted by a light pink shade.
Before Amon-her-Khopechef, son of Ramses III, this tomb was built to house the mortal remains of another prince, son of the same Pharaoh. Simply structured - a stairway that leads to a square room and a corridor that leads to the room of the sarcophaghi - the tomb is characterized by a brightly coloured decoration. An unusual sepulchre is the dominant colour in the whole sepulchre.
This tomb, discovered in 1904 by the Italian Ernesto Schiaparelli, was excavatd to the west of the valley for Nefertari Mery-en-Mut, the best-loved of Ramses II's numerous wives; it was in her honour that he built the beautiful temple of Abu Simple. The 27 and a half metre long tomb is to be found eight metres under ground level; it was dug in a very friable layer of rock so that the walls were covered by a thick layer of plaster, on top of which the pictorial decoration takes on the appearance of a relief. When discovered, the sepulchre seemed to have been broken into since ancient times: all the objects had disappeared and the mummy of one of the most famous Egyptian queens had been reduced to a sunder. Only the magnificent paintings bear witness to the fact that this was one of the most important and beautiful tombs in the entire Valley of the Queens.
Son of Ramses III and probably the younger brother of Amon-her-Khopechef, Prince Kamuast had a tomb similar to that of the kings in its plan, even though it is greatly reduced in size. Even in this tomb the decoration is very bright, with scenes of offerings and tributes
Valley Of kingsBeyond the semi-circle of rocks of Deir el-Bahari lies the valley of the kings, or Biban el-Muluk, which means the Gates of the Kings. This famous gorge, dominated by a peaked mountain called “Theban crown”, contains the necropolis of the great Egyptian sovereigns from the XVIII to the XX Dynasties. 
Its history started with the sudden, unexpected decision of Thot-Mosis I to separate his tomb from the burial temple; moreover, he gave orders to bury his body not in a luxurious monument but in a secret, inaccessible place. His decision rudely interrupted a 1700 year-old tradition! His chief architect, Ineni, dug a well-tomb in a solitary valley, cutting a steep flight of steps into the rock leading to the tomb, along certain lines which were then followed by subsequent Pharaohs. It was Ineni himself who wanted to document the secrecy of his undertaking, ordering the engraving on the burial chapel wall of the phrase “I alone watched over the construction of His Majesty’s rock-tomb. No-one saw or heard anything”. The latter phrase, however, is hard to believe: it is much more likely that the workers who built it were war prisoners who were then eliminated upon term Its history started with the sudden, unexpected decision of Thot-Mosis I to separate his tomb from the burial temple; moreover, he gave orders to bury his body not in a luxurious monument but in a secret, inaccessible place. His decision rudely interrupted a 1700 year-old tradition! His chief architect, Ineni, dug a well-tomb in a solitary valley, cutting a steep flight of steps into the rock leading to the tomb, along certain lines which were then followed by subsequent Pharaohs. It was Ineni himself who wanted to document the secrecy of his undertaking, ordering the engraving on the burial chapel wall of the phrase “I alone watched over the construction of His Majesty’s rock-tomb. No-one saw or heard anything”. The latter phrase, however, is hard to believe: it is much more likely ination of the work.Beyond the semi-circle of rocks of Deir el-Bahari lies the valley of the kings, or Biban el-Muluk, which means the Gates of the Kings. This famous gorge, dominated by a peaked mountain called “Theban crown”, contains the necropolis of the great Egyptian sovereigns from the XVIII to the XX Dynasties.
But, as in the case of the other sovereigns, Thot-Mosis I was destined to reign for a very short time because already in the Pharaoh age, despite the safeguarding of teams of guardians night and day, robbers systematically broke into the tomb to remove the valuable objects: one of the most sought after articles was the “scarab beetle of the heart” the amulet which placed on the heart of the mummy, enabled the dead man to save himself from the day of judgement.
But these powerful sovereigns were destined not even to find peace upon their death. In fact, it so happened that at the time of the weak reign of the Ramses, the priests of Amon had lost all their power and authority. As a sign of their devotion, to ensure their dead sovereigns a quiet life in the next world and to avoid profanation, they started transporting the royal mumies from one burial place to another and these transfers were so frequent that Ramses III was buried thrice!
Finally, they decided to secretly prepare a virtually inaccessible hiding-place: on Mount Deir el-Bahari they dug an approximately twelve-metre deep well connected by a long corridor to a large room. At night by torchlight, as furtive as tomb-robbers, the priests removed the Pharaohs from their sarcophagi in the Valley and assembled their corpses in a cave in the mountains, hanging a shield around their necks bearing their names for identification purposes. They had been dead for a few years or numerous centuries and had had short-or long-lived reigns; some of them had been the most powerful sovereigns in the entire world. And now here they all were alongside each other helter-skelter: Ahmoses, the founder of the XVIII Dynasty next to the conqueror Thot-Mosis III; the great Ramses II alongside his father SetiI. Altogether, there were forty Pharaoh’ bodies hidden in this anonymous sepulchre in the heart of the mountain for three thousand years.
It was young tomb-robber by the name of Ahmed Abd el Rasul from the village of Gurnah who came across that hiding-place in 1875; for six years he and his brothers managed to keep the secret, enriching themselves by trading the objects that they gradually sacked from the royal mummies. Then it was gradually brought to light and on the 5th July 1881, after a long interrogation, the young Arab led the vice director of Cairo Museum at the time, Emil Brugsch – brother of the famous Egyptologist heinrich – to the entrance to the well.
It is hard to imagine how the scholar felt when the uncertain light of a torch revealed the mortal remains of forty sovereigns of the ancient world! A few days later, the mummies were packed and transported to the valley, where a ship was to take them to Cairo. And then a strange, stirring event occurred: on hearing that the refound Pharaohs were leaving their century-old burial place, the peasants of the valley with their wives assembled on the banks of the Nile and, with the slow passing of the ship, paid homage to their ancient kings, the men shooting into mid-air and the women wailing and sprinkling their faces and chests with dust.
Nowadays access is gained to the valley by means of a comfortable carriage road that largely follows the old tracks of the funeral procession. The tombs have kept their ancient charm intact: the countless graffiti on the walls show that since Greek and Roman times they were the destination of visitors and pilgrims who left a souvenir of their visit in this way. One of them, the English Dean Stanley, left an account of his journeys in 1856, affirming that “he had seen the tombs of the kings and the entire religion of Egypt revealed as it appeared to the most powerful Egyptian rulers in the most salient moments of their lives”
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| It is the first tomb that one comes across on approaching the center of the Valley. It is small in size (66 metres long) and contains the sarcophagus of Ramses IV, sovereign of the XX Dynasty and don of Ramses III. |
The plan of the tomb is traced on a papyrs kept in Turin Museum; as from the V century, the tomb was utilized as a chuch by a small Christian community of the Valley. In the Magnificent decoration of the tomb, texts are predominant, with scenes from the Book of the Dead, from the Book of Gates and the Book of Caves.
Unfortunately in a bad state of repair the tomb belongs t one of the last Ramses of the XX Dynasty, whose reign was distinguished by a long series of internal disorders and famine. On discovering the tomb, they found an enormous pair of runners, coming from the skid on which the Pharaoh’s coffin was transported and several hundred fragments on |
which workers working on the king’s sepulchre had noted the number of utensils, hours of labour and the list of supplies, etc.
The tomb consists of a long flight of steps leading to a corridor connected to two rooms, one of which features four pillars and a second smaller corridor providing access to the sarcophagus room.
The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb was one of the most exciting finds of modern archaeology, enhanced by the enormous wealth of artistic heritage brought to light. n 1922 Englishman Lord Carnarvon, art collector and great traveler, had already invested about 50.000 pounds sterling in financing numerous excavations in Egypt, all of which had been fruitless. |  |
I All hope of finding something grandiose, possibly the intact tomb of a Pharaoh, was virtually lost. His missions were directed by another Englishman, the archaeologist Howard Carter. At the time it was common belief that there was nothing left to discover in the Valley of Kings which had been combed high and low. They had still found no trace of the tomb of the heretic Akhen-Aton, who, however, was almost definitely buried at Tell-el-Amarna, and that of Tutankhamun, the Pharaoh of transition who brought back the capital to Thebes reviving the ancient cult of Amon-Ra and the other gods, changing his real name from Tutankhatun to Tutankhamun. His was a short-lived reign lasting only nine years as he died at the age of nineteen in about 1350 B.C.
Lord Carnarvon thus decided that this was to be his last mission in Egypt. The great discovery was made on the 4th November 1922: almost at the base of the tomb of Ramses VI they came across a stone step that led to a second one and so forth, until the sixteenth step stopped in front of a sealed door, walled in with slaked lime. It would appear that this tomb had been robbed, but to what extent? And did they find the mummy intact? On the 26th of the same month Carter had his day: having broken through a second door bearing intact the seals of the child-Pharaoh, the archaeologist made a small opening with an iron bar and pushed it through the hole, meeting no obstacles. He then carried out tests with a candle, not detecting any gases. He finally poked his head through the hole and as his eyes gradually adapted to the darkness, “strange animals, statues and gold – everywhere the flash of gold, emerged slowly from the darkness …”
“What marvelous things”, exclaimed Carter, his voice broken with emotion to Carnarvon who was impatiently asking him what he saw.
The marvelous things were t Its history started with the sudden, unexpected decision of Thot-Mosis I to separate his tomb from the burial temple; moreover, he gave orders to bury his body not in a luxurious monument but in a secret, inaccessible place. His decision rudely interrupted a 1700 year-old tradition! His chief architect, Ineni, dug a well-tomb in a solitary valley, cutting a steep flight of steps into the rock leading to the tomb, along certain lines which were then followed by subsequent Pharaohs. It was Ineni himself who wanted to document the secrecy of his undertaking, ordering the engraving on the burial chapel wall of the phrase “I alone watched over the construction of His Majesty’s rock-tomb. No-one saw or heard anything”. The latter phrase, however, is hard to believe: it is much more likely that the workers who built it were war prisoners who were then eliminated upon termination of the work. But, as in the case of the other sovereigns, Thot-Mosis I was destined to reign for a very short time because already in the Pharaoh age, despite the safeguarding of teams of guardians night and day, robbers systematically broke into the tomb to remove the valuable objects: one of the most sought after articles was the “scarab beetle of the heart” the amulet which placed on the heart of the mummy, enabled the dead man to save himself from the day of judgement. But these powerful sovereigns were destined not even to find peace upon their death. In fact, it so happened that at the time of the weak reign of the Ramses, the priests of Amon had lost all their power and authority. As a sign of their devotion, to ensure their dead sovereigns a quiet life in the next world and to avoid profanation, they started transporting the royal mumies from one burial place to another and these transfers were so frequent that Ramses III was buried thrice! Finally, they decided to secretly prepare a virtually inaccessible hiding-place: on Mount Deir el-Bahari they dug an approximately twelve-metre deep well connected by a long corridor to a large room. At night by torchlight, as furtive as tomb-robbers, the priests removed the Pharaohs from their sarcophagi in the Valley and assembled their corpses in a cave in the mountains, hanging a shield around their necks bearing their names for identification purposes. They had been dead for a few years or numerous centuries and had had short-or long-lived reigns; some of them had been the most powerful sovereigns in the entire world. And now here they all were alongside each other helter-skelter: Ahmoses, the founder of the XVIII Dynasty next to the conqueror Thot-Mosis III; the great Ramses II alongside his father SetiI. Altogether, there were forty Pharaoh’ bodies hidden in this anonymous sepulchre in the heart of the mountain for three thousand years. It was young tomb-robber by the name of Ahmed Abd el Rasul from the village of Gurnah who came across that hiding-place in 1875; for six years he and his brothers managed to keep the secret, enriching themselves by trading the objects that they gradually sacked from the royal mummies. Then it was gradually brought to light and on the 5th July 1881, after a long interrogation, the young Arab led the vice director of Cairo Museum at the time, Emil Brugsch – brother of the famous Egyptologist heinrich – to the entrance to the well. It is hard to imagine how the scholar felt when the uncertain light of a torch revealed the mortal remains of forty sovereigns of the ancient world! A few days later, the mummies were packed and transported to the valley, where a ship was to take them to Cairo. And then a strange, stirring event occurred: on hearing that the refound Pharaohs were leaving their century-old burial place, the peasants of the valley with their wives assembled on the banks of the Nile and, with the slow passing of the ship, paid homage to their ancient kings, the men shooting into mid-air and the women wailing and sprinkling their faces and chests with dust. Nowadays access is gained to the valley by means of a comfortable carriage road that largely follows the old tracks of the funeral procession. The tombs have kept their ancient charm intact: the countless graffiti on the walls show that since Greek and Roman times they were the destination of visitors and pilgrims who left a souvenir of their visit in this way. One of them, the English Dean Stanley, left an account of his journeys in 1856, affirming that “he had seen the tombs of the kings and the entire religion of Egypt revealed as it appeared to the most powerful Egyptian rulers in the most salient moments of their lives” Ramses VII Ramses III (never occupied) Ramses II Amenmes Thot-Mosis IV Montu-Kopechef Hatshepsut Mineptah-Siptah Sethnakht Thot-Mosis I Seti II Beyond the semi-circle of rocks of Deir el-Bahari lies the valley of the kings, or Biban el-Muluk, which means the Gates of the Kings. This famous gorge, dominated by a peaked mountain called “Theban crown”, contains the necropolis of the great Egyptian sovereigns from the XVIII to the XX Dynasties. 
It is the first tomb that one comes across on approaching the center of the Valley. It is small in size (66 metres long) and contains the sarcophagus of Ramses IV, sovereign of the XX Dynasty and don of Ramses III.
The plan of the tomb is traced on a papyrs kept in Turin Museum; as from the V century, the tomb was utilized as a chuch by a small Christian community of the Valley. In the Magnificent decoration of the tomb, texts are predominant, with scenes from the Book of the Dead, from the Book of Gates and the Book of Caves.
Unfortunately in a bad state of repair the tomb belongs t one of the last Ramses of the XX Dynasty, whose reign was distinguished by a long series of internal disorders and famine. On discovering the tomb, they found an enormous pair of runners, coming from the skid on which the Pharaoh’s coffin was transported and several hundred fragments on |
which workers working on the king’s sepulchre had noted the number of utensils, hours of labour and the list of supplies, etc.
The tomb consists of a long flight of steps leading to a corridor connected to two rooms, one of which features four pillars and a second smaller corridor providing access to the sarcophagus room.
The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb |
Of all the precious objects in the sovereign’s tomb, the most impressive of all was the great sarcophagus: a single, enormous block of quarzite housed four gilt wooden containers placed one inside the other like Chinese boxes; only after 84 days of hard toil dismounting them to brings the 80 pieces composing the four catafalques to light was Carter able to admire the brilliant colours of the paintings decorating the walls of the burial chamber. The sarcophagus was of an extraordinary beauty, “worthy of containing the mortal remains of a sovereign”
On the 12th February 1924, in front of nineteen illustrious guests, a complex winch lifted the ton and a half of granite of the lid. When Carter shone his light on the interior, his first glance must have been most disappointing: only discolored linen cloths! But when the linen cloths were slowly cast aside, the king and the gold gradually appeared: a wooden sarcophagus entirely plated in gold and inlaid with glass and semiprecious stones with the Pharaoh represented as Osiris his face expressing great serenity. And yet, affirms Carter, in all that splendor, the most moving thing was a small garland of flowers, possibly laid by his young wife Ankhesanem: after thirty-two centuries, those flowers still conserved a bit of their original colour.
Almost one year later, on the 25th january 1925, Carter tried to open the sarcophagus. The lid of the first anthropoid sarcophagus (2 metres 25 centimetres long) was lifter revealing more linen bands and garlands of flowers. By examining the floral wreaths, they were able to establish the burial season of the sovereign, between mid-March and late April, because botanists also recognized corn-flowers, bittersweet’s and mandrakes which blossom during that period. Under the sheet they found a second gold-plated, wooden, anthropoid sarcophagus encrusted with cloisonnés of coloured glass and semi-precious stones. With the help of eight men, the lid of this second coffin was lifted; even if at this stage, Carter expected to find a third sarcophagus, he certainly did not expect to find a third sarcophagus, he certainly did not expect to find a 22 carat solid gold coffin weighing 1,170 kilograms! “An incredible mass of pure gold”: the material itself was priceless! Apart from his head-gear with a cobra and vulture, the king also wears a false beard and a heavy necklace in gold grains and majolica, while holding the whip and scepter, symbols of the two Egyptian kingdoms; the divinities Nekhbets and Uadjets spread their wings to protect the mummy, while Neftis and Isis are resuscitating the dead Pharaoh, One can just imagine with what awe and suppressed emotion Carter approached the content of this coffin; in fact, he knew that he would have found intact the mummy of Thutankamun. In fact, the mummy was completely covered in gold and jewels. Once again, the delicate, serene features of the nineteen-year old king appeared on the magnificent mask in gold and semiprecious stones that covered the sovereign up to his shoulders. The heavy names in blue and gold stripes with the royal symbols on his forehead, inlaid with turquoise lapislazulae and cornelians, made an impressive sight.
Three sarcophagi, four funeral chapels and kilograms of gold had managed to keep the mortal remains of the great king hidden from the eyes of the world for 132 centuries.
| Known in ancient times as the tomb of Memnon and also the “tomb of the metempsychosis” by the scholars of the archaeological expedition of the 1798, it was discovered by the Englishman James Burton. On a par with the other great tombs of the Ramses, access was gained to it |
about 400 meters from the bottom of the valley-exactly the opposite to the deeply dug tombs of the sovereigns of the XVIII Dynasty. The front part is the oldest and was commenced under Ramses V.
Having been enlarged, the plan is now quite linear with a corridor that leads to an anteroom, a room with pillars, a second corridor and a second anteroom preceding the sarcophagus room. The latter has an “astronomic” room, that is, entirely decorated with astronomic scenes and frescoes narrating the creation of the sun. the leitmotiv is the sky goddess Nut, repeated twice, covering the eastern and western spheres. The tomb. In which numerous scraps of workers’ tools were founds, has been visited since the most ancient times, as can be seen from the numerous Greek and Coptic graffiti engraved on the wall.
| Mineptah, fourth and last Pharaoh of the XIX Dynasty, ruled Egypt from 1235 to 1224 B.C. He was the thirteenth son of Ramses II and Isinofret and came to power at a ripe old age. If his father was considered the Pharaoh of the Jewish slavery in Egypt, his son Mineptah was considered the Pharaoh of the Exodus. In fact, under him the name of Israel appeared for the first time in a granite stele: |
“Desolated Israel, that has lost its seed” The mummy of Mineptah, which was not found in this tomb but in the tomb of Amon-Ofis II was encrusted with salt upon discovery : this reinforced the belief that he was the very Pharaoh who drowned in the Red Sea while he was chasing the Jews! Apart from the legend, Mineptah was responsible for the military campaign against the “sea nations”: the ancient Lybians and their allies, the Lycians, the Achaeans, the Sards and the Etruscans. The tomb plan is simple, a long corridor in sections that descend to the room that still contain the sarcophagus. The scenes illustrated there are the usual funeral myth scenes.
| He was the second sovereign of the XX Dynasty and also the last of the great Pharaohs of the Middle Reign. After his reign, there was a confused period of internal struggles and disorders, and Egypt plunged deeper and deeper into chaos. He reigned from 1198 to 1188 and it would appear that he brought about an important administrative and social reform. In the eighth year of his rule, in |
a fierce battle on the delta, he dealt a heavy defeat to the coalition among the “sea nations” and the Libyan tribes; the battle is recalled in a relief on the temple of Madinet Habu, where some Peleseth prisoners can be seen. Subsequently, they settled in Palestine and were called Philistines. From a papyrus kept in the Egyptian Museum of Turin known as the “Legal Papyrus”, we know that during the 32nd year of his reign, Ramses III was the victim of a palace plot: the guilty were captured and sentenced according to the deeds in the papyrus. His tomb is also known as the “tomb of Bruce” from the name of its discoverer and also as the “tomb of the harpists” from the frescoes that represent – an unusual phenomenon of Egyptian art- some men playing the harp in the honor of certain gods. The Pharaoh’s sarcophagus, a magnificent block of pink granite, was taken away from the Paduan archaeologist, Giovanni Battista Belzoni, and sold to the King of France who displayed it at the Louvre. The 125 meter-long tomb drops only ten metres below valley level; this tomb was built on the site of a previous tomb belonging to Sethnakht, father of Ramses III, and one can still see some scrolls in the first corridor.
| Horemheb, king of Egyptian from 1340 to 1314 and the last Pharaoh of the XVIII Dynasty, did not have blue blood. He came from a family of provincial governors and he himself was the head of the archers under Amon-Ofis IV, who was a great friend of his. Once he became a general, he took the place of old Ay, denied the ancient Atonian religion and cancelled the name of his predecessor Tutankhamun, to replace it with his own. |
One of his most brilliant diplomatic feats was the peace stipulated with the king of the Hittites Mursili II. Right from the moment it was discovered, it was generally believed that the tomb of Horemheb was to be found in the desert near Memphis. It was the English archaeologist Edward Ayrton who found the general’s name written in hieratic writing on a tablet relating to inspections of the royal tombs in the Valley. Once it was discovered, the tomb of Horemheb appeared to be the link between the previous tombs and the simpler ones of the XVIII Dynasty and the more important ones which were to follow. In fact, the corridor no longer curves at a right angle, but after a slight initial deviation it proceeds practically in a straight line as far as the sarcophagus room. When discovered, the painted bas-reliefs illustrating the usual scenes of the funeral objects dazzled archaeologists with their perfect, bright, luminous colours, as if they had just been completed.
| Son of Thot-Mosis III, Amon-Ofis II ruled Egypt from 1450 to 1425. He oppressed a Syrian revolt and made his son and successor Thot-Mosis IV marry Miteniya, daughter of the king of the Mitanni. In the burial chamber is to be found the large quarzite sarcophagus wich when discovered, |
contained intact the Pharaoh’s mummy, his neck surrounded by a garland of flowers. The mummy was displayed in the tomb until 1934, when it was transported to Cairo Museum.
| The founder of the XIX Dynasty was a military man, general and vice roy of Horemheb, whom he succeeded in 1314. He only reigned for two years but during this period – as can be seen in the bas-reliefs in the hypostyle hall of Karnak – he encroached upon Hittite territory “as far as the village of Kadesh”. |
He immediately put his son Seti on the throne and made Tanis capital of the Empire. His tomb, discovered by Belzoni, is very basic as the old Pharaoh evidently died suddenly, while workmen were still busy on it.
The tomb of Seti I is the most imposing tomb in the Valley of Kings. The Pharaoh buried there was one of the most important in his Dynasty, the XIX. Son of Ramses I, he was head of the archers and vizier when his father was still alive. He revived the |
expansion policy in the East, marching into Syria, as far north as Tyre; he drove back Muwatalli, head of the Hittites, and reconquered Phoenicia.
His tomb ws discovered in October 1817 by Belzoni: this is why for
a long time it was referred to as the “tomb of Belzoni”. 105 metres long, a steep flight of steps leads to a much lower level. Here a corridor leads to a second flight of steps that takes one to yet another corridor connected to a hall where Belzoni found a well evidently dug to put people on the wrong track.
Belzoni noted a 65-meter crack in the other wall. Having adventurously surpassed the well, the archaeologist widened the opening to discover that it provided access to the room that ancient builders wished to keep hidden. However, none of the halls contained the sarcophagus; in fact, Belzoni was only half-way there. New corridors, new flights of steps and other rooms, lastly. Led to the sarcophagus which, however, no longer contained the mummy . in fact, seventy years later, the mummy was found in Deir el-Bahari whereas nowadays this outstanding sarcophagus forms part of the Soane collection in London. The extraordinary thing is that this tomb must have been dug even more deeply into the earth. In fact, underneath the sarcophagus ran a mysterious gallery that Belzoni started excavating for about ninety meters, before having to stop due to lack of air and the extreme friability of the rock. A further thirty meters were dug during the nineteen fifties. This gallery has remained a mystery and we still have not found out what purpose it served and where it led. But ancient legend in the Valley has it that the tunnel crosses the entire mountain before it comes out in the open near the temple of Hatshepsut in Deir el-Bahari. Belzoni maintained that this was the finest tomb to be discovered in Egypt: its decoration, in fact, covered walls, columns and ceilings, with paintings and bas-reliefs rich in meaning and symbolism.
| A steep iron stairway takes us up ten meters above the Valley bottom to the tomb of the Napoleon of ancient times. The illegitimate son of Thot-Mosis II and appointed Pharaoh was very young upon the death of his father; he was ousted by his aunt Hatshepsut, wife of the dead Pharaoh, who confined him to some unknown territory for twenty-two years. |
Only upon the death of his aunt did Thot-Mosis manage to reconquer the throne; in order to wreak his revenge upon her, he systematically cancelled her name on all monuments, replacing it with his own and that of this father. During his reign which lasted from 1504 to 1450, the country reached the heights of its glory; with seventeen military campaigns in Asia, it was at the very peak of its power. During his eighth expedition, he disembarked in Phoenicia and crossed Syria transporting the ships he had had built in Byblos across the desert. His victories are famous: Kadesh, Megiddo (where he defeated 330 Syrian princes) karkhemish when he crossed the Euphrates and defeated the Mitanni on their own home ground.
The egyptian empire also included “the island of the great circle” that is Crete, Cyprus and the Cyclades Islands. In about 1450, shortly before the end of his reign, Thot-Mosis III ventured as far as the fourth cataract of the Nile bringing the boundaries of Egypt from the Euphrates as far as Napata in Nubia, now known as Gebel Barkal.
His tomb, dug into a winding ravine at the southern boundary of the valley, features a simple plan; orits highlight is the decoration illustrating scenes of the sun’s journey in the world of the dead, carried out in a meticulous, almost surrealistic style.
| In the three neighboring districts of Assassif, Khokhah and Cheik-Abd-el-Gurnah lie the imposing necropolises of the nobility of the Middle Empire dynasties. As compared to the Pharaohs’ tombs, these tombs are extremely simple from the architectural point of view and all feature the same layout: they are preceded by an open-air terrace, followed by a vestibule whose painted walls describe the earthly functions of the owner. |  |
A corridor then leads to an alcove which very often contains the statue of the dead person, sometimes together with his wife of relations. The subjects illustrated in these tombs are characteriz ed by an extraordinary freshness, vitality and realism and provide accurate, valuable evidence of what court life was like in ancient Egypt. The most frequent topics were funeral banquets, with music and dancing, farm work, craftsmanship and daily life in general.
The tomb of kiki, the “Royal Administrator”, was avandoned for a long time, before being reduced to a stable. It is characterized by lively illustrations in bright colours. An entire wall was destined to illustrate the scenes of the journey of the corpse to Abidos. In fact, the Egyptians were supposed to make at least one pilgrimage in their lifetime to the temple of this holy city, dedicated to the worship of Osiris. |  |
In fact, religious Egyptians aspired to having a funeral chapel or at least a commemorative stele in this sanctuary, where Osiris’s head is said to be kept.
| Keruef Senaa was the “Administrator of the Great Royal Bride”, that is Tiyi, Syrian princess famous for her beauty and dearly beloved wife of Amon-Ofis III and mother of Akhen-Aton, the heretic Pharaoh. The tomb that the Administrator had built is large but remained incomplete; it is worth mentioning the west part of the courtyard, where the celebration of a jubilee (heb-sed) of Amon-Ofis III is commemorated. |  |
| Typical tomb dating back to the era of the XVIII Dynasty, it is one of the best preserved ones in the entire necropolis. The owner was a scribe and astronomist of Amon at the time of Thot-Mosis IV, whereas the wife was a singer of Amon. At the time of the heresy of Akhen-Aton, the name of Amon was systematically removed from all engravings. |
The tomb looks like a classic hypogeum and the precise decoration only occupies the transversal vestibule.
| This tomb, a fine example of Theban civil tombs at the time of the XVIII Dynasty, belonged to Rakh-Mara, Vice roy and Governor of Thebes and Vizier under Amon-Ofis II and Akhen-Aton. Both the vestibule and the chapel are decorated and the paintings are very interesting because they illustrate what must have been the relationships between Egypt and other countries at the time. The most lively scenes depict foreigners bearing offerings: |  |
envoys from Punt (Somalians) carrying ebony, ivory and ostrich feathers; messengers from Keft, maybe Crete, with curly hair and long plaits on their chests; negroes from Kush, dressed in panther skin, carrying a jaguar, a giraffe and monkeys and envoys from Ratenu (Syrians and Assyrians) leading two horses, a bear and an elephant.
| The owner of this tomb was menna, Cadastre Scribe under Thot-Mosis IV, who utilized a previous tomb, enlarging it. The scenes depicted are considered some of the most elegant of the entire necropolis on account of their liveliness; they illustrate hunting and agriculture. |
| A flight of 43 steps cut into the rock descends into the tomb of Sennefer, Prince of the Southern Town and Administrator of granaries and the cattle of Amon under Amon-Ofis II. It is also called “tomb of the vine” because the anonymous artist painted a beautiful pergola of black grapes on the ceiling vault. |
| Ramose was Governor of Thebes and Vizier under Amon-Ofis III and then under Akhen-Aton. This magnificently sculpted tomb was never completed; having commenced construction, Ramose had to leave it incomplete to build another one in the new capital of the heretic Pharaoh, Akhet-Aton, now known as Tell el – Amarna. |
| The tomb of Neberhabef, Frist Prophet of the Royal Kâ under Seti I, is decorated in the sumptuous style of the XIX Dynasty. |
Usirat, Royal Scribe under Amon-Ofis II, had this tomb built; its paintings are extraordinarily well preserved. It features the famous scene of the barber shaving his clients in a garden. |
| Khaemat, known as Mahu, was the Royal Scribe and Granary Inspector of Upper and Lower Egypt under Amon-Ofis III. His tomb, decorated with refined basreliefs, is to be found at the bottom of a courtyard onto which other tombs of the same period face. In the alcove of the burial chamber, deeply carved into the rock one can admire six statues of the dead man and his relations, divided into three groups. |
| This tomb was prepared for two sculptors, both active under Amon-Ofis III and Amon-Ofis IV: the former, Nebamon, was chief Sculptor of the Maestro of the two Egypt’s whereas Ipuky was Maestro of the two Egypt’s. Also known as the tomb of the engravers, it is of great interest as its decoration shows us how craftsmen worked in ancient Egypt. |
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| A few kilometers to the south of Cheik-Abd-el-Gurnah lies the valley known nowadays as Deir el-Medina, meaning “city convent” because once upon a time it was inhabited by the Copts of Thebaid. One can see the ruins of the village built at the time of Amon-Ofis I and inhabited by the workers who built and decorated the royal tombs of Thebes. |
Activities in this valley lasted five centuries, from 1550 to 1000 B.C. and involved stone-cutters, paining by means of a path that passed over the steep hills around Deir el-Bahari. They left their children and women, who worked in the wheat and barley fields, at home. The workers toiled an eight-hour day for nine consecutive days and the tenth day of rest was assigned to the decoration of their own tombs. The teams of these known as the “Servants of Truth Square”, were directed by various superintendents and were divided into two groups depending on whether they worked on the right or left walls.
As workmen on the royal tombs, these craftsmen were considered the “holders of secrets” and therefore made to dwell in a village surrounded by walls. Workmen’s houses were small and simple; built alongside each other in dried brick, their interiors were white-washed. Generally speaking, they consisted of a tiny entrance, a reception hall a second room and a kitchen. Sometimes, but not often, they had a canteen and terrace. Nothing has remained of a probable decoration. On the west slope of the valley lies the necropolis. The tombs all consisted of a chapel and a small painted basement.
A sculptor under Ramses II, Inpy had his tomb decorated with unusual, curious scenes: even though the style is rather brusque, its wealth of detail make it one of the best-known tombs of the necropolis. One just had to mention the scene of the oculist putting drops in a patient’s eyes. |
Sennedjen was a “Servant in Truth Square” and official of the necropolis at the time of the XIX Dynasty; perhaps, on account of the liveliness and freshness of its decoration, it is the most beautiful tomb of the necropolis. The main room of the tomb is more or less intact and is all that remains of the sepulchre; all the furniture contained therein is now on display at Cairo Museum. |
During the reigns of Ramses III and Ramses IV, Inherka filled the office of “Deputy Master of the two Egypt’s in Truth Square”: that is, he was head of a team entrusted with coordinating the work of workmen placed under him. He had two tombs built at the same time, but only the one furthest downstream and closest to the village is decorated in a lively, imaginative fashion. |