EJIPT: Valley of the Kings

Our second day in Luxor found our party bicycling to the Valley of the Kings, the burial grounds of a plethora of New Kingdom pharaohs and nobles. This 9 km ride brought us over the dirt road leading from our lodging, through the winding and bustling streets of West Luxor, and finally to the rising and arid heights of that dusty valley.

On the way, we made a number of stops, the first being to pick up some pita and falafel sandwiches from a street vendor. Outside his awning, we noticed a couple of hot air balloons aloft some way off, between ourselves and our destination. This is a popular attraction here, though the haze on this particular morning certainly impeded any aerial sightseeing.

The continuation of our ride brought us past the Colossi of Memnon, a pair of imposing figures seated in an eternal watch over the east entrance of the funerary temple of Amenophis III. Originally representing the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, the ancient Greeks and Romans identified the duo as Memnon, an Ethiopian king who came to the aid of Troy during the Trojan War. After an earthquake in 27 BC, a large crack opened in the right figure, after which it purportedly would 'sing' on some mornings, and was thus called the "vocal" Memnon. Attributed to some machination of the evaporation of dew, the sound ceased forever after the Roman emperor Septimius Severus had the statue repaired after it refused to speak to him, thinking that repairing it would curry favor with the oracle.

After briefly admiring these majestic figures, we set off once more towards the mountains. Some confusion about where to purchase tickets forced us to backtrack a short ways, but we nonetheless soon found ourselves continuing our journey through sandy rock escarpments which flanked our path, guiding us into the valley. Upon arrival at the Valley of the Kings Visitor Center, we devoured our felafels and proceeded through yet another gauntlet of tourist shops that line the only route into the area.

We joined hundreds of tourists at the second necessary ticket office, many in large groups, whose buses passed us continually on the road up into the mountains. Fortunately crowds were not too bad, apart from the ticket area, as the throngs dispersed over the large area of the valley.

A single ticket limits visitors to only 3 tombs out of a possible 8 currently open, not including those with their own tickets such as that of King Tut. This is fortunate, for we have been living up to the maxim of 'Leave no stone unturned." I suspect we would have methodically gone inside each and every tomb otherwise, an undertaking which would have taken many hours, including the one reserved for lunch, a meal we have gone without on more than one occasion.

The first tomb of our allotted three goes by the alphanumeric moniker of KV14, and once belonged to the Pharaoh Sethnakht, who usurped the tomb from his predecessor, Queen Tawosret, the wife of Seti II. This tomb features walls covered in paintings featuring figures from Egyptian mythology and the ever- present scores of hieroglyphics. We next toured KV9, the tomb of Ramses III, whose slumber now continues in the Egyptian Museum. Similar to the other tombs, this one is notable for the presence of secular scenes intermingled with the usual religious ones. These include two blind harpists and the portrayal of foreign tribute.

With one tomb left of our allotted three, our route brought us by the highly anticipated tomb of King Tutankhamun, where the Pharaoh himself can still be seen, though lying in a glass box rather than his accustomed sarcophagus. We stopped here, and were somewhat disappointed with the tomb itself, which is one of the smallest in the valley. Indeed, it is only notable for being full of treasure at its discovery, all of which was moved to the Egyptian Museum.

The last tomb of the three belonged to the 13th son of Ramses II, Merenptah. It features a long passage leading deep into the mountain, as well as flood damage to the lower portions.

The final tomb of our visit, not covered by our primary ticket, brought us far off the beaten track, and we found ourselves the only ones walking the couple or so kilometers up a hot deserted dirt track, with a paucity of water in our goatskins. In fact, a guard passed us on a motorcycle to unlock it just for us, as it is evidently rarely visited. This tomb belonged to the Pharaoh Ay, the successor to King Tut, and was originally intended for the boy king himself until the new sovereign swapped tombs. It is notable for scenes of hunting, which are normally found in the tombs of nobles - flocks of birds rising above the marsh grasses.

Leaving the Valley of the Kings, our return trip brought us past our final site of the day, the Ramesseum, a memorial temple to Ramses II which inspired the poem Ozymandias by Percy Shelley. Though we saw the ruins of a colossal figure, "two vast and trunkless legs of stone" were notably absent, and we surmised the poem must itself be the inspiration for the phrase, 'Poetic License.'

-Nathaniel with a few additions from the other travelers of an antique land

Tut 2 and Mummy in front of the Colossi of Memnon

The Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut viewed from afar through the haze. Many tombs are visible dotting the dusty cliffs during the approach along the road leading past the Colossi.