Egypt: Beautiful Valley of the Kings

Valley of the Kings refers to the area on the west bank of Nile at Luxor where many pharaohs built elaborate tombs from 16th-11th century BCE.I can see the major theme of this trip is turning out to be the universal and timeless obsession with death. John likes to accuse me of being obsessed with death. I only talk about it, these people took serious actions. I am very glad they did because of their artistic and historical value, though at the same time I realize that I am looking at the material evidence of the long history of inequality.

Optimizing cost of entry tickets, we chose the following four tombs, listed in order of preference.

• KV 9 Ramses VI
• KV 11 Ramses III
• KV 14 Tausert / Setnakht
• KV 6 Ramses IX

Initially we were unhappy that not all the chambers were open. In the end we went away in awe.

Our hotel was on the East Bank of the Nile so we took the ferry across to the West Bank, then a taxi to the Valley of the Kings.




It's pretty cool descending into these tombs cut out from the rocky hills. Here are some photos from the Tomb of Pharaoh Ramesses IX. The colors of the reliefs are still vivid after 3500+ years.










Tomb of Tausert and Setnakht.










Tomb of Ramses III (KV 11). This tomb was very popular and a bit crowded.










Coming up for air between the tombs. It's 100 degrees F.


Tomb of Ramesses V and VI (KV9)














View from the taxi window on the way back to the ferry.