Valley Of The Kings, Egypt
Posted On December 1, 2009
The Valley of the Kings is commonly known as the Valley of the Gates of the Kings is a huge deep valley located in Egypt. Hear for nearly a period of 500 years starting from the 16th BC to 11th century BC, various tombs were constructed which were devoted to the kings and powerful upper class of the New Kingdom. New Kingdom consisted of the Eighteenth as well as the Twentieth Dynasties which belonged to the Ancient Egypt. The valley of the kings is located on the western bank of the river Nile directly opposite to the Thebes, the modern day Luxor. It is located at the center of the Theban Necropolis. The wadi has two different valleys to classify the East Valley and the West Valley. In the east you will come across maximum of the royal tombs.
In the 2006 a new chamber named KV63 was discovered, and in the year 2008 2 different tomb entrance was been discovered. The valley has around 63 different tombs as well as numerous chambers. The chambers are of different size and shapes it is said that there are around 120 chambers. The valley was the major and the most important place used for the burial of the main imperial figures that belonged to the Egyptian New Kingdom.
The scenes from Egyptian mythology are used in the decoration of the majestic tombs. From this you will get the clues about the beliefs as well as funerary rituals of that particular period. It is observed that mostly all of the tombs have been opened some or the other time and are robbed in ancient times, but you can still get the idea of the power and the lavishness rulers of that time possessed.
Since early nineteenth century the area has always been a center of intense egyptological as well as archaeological investigation. The various tombs and the numerous burials still continue to arouse interest and the research. In the recent times the valley received huge fame for its discovery of the royal tomb of Tutankhamun which is known to be the Curse of the Pharaohs also it is one of the most popular archaeological sites in the world. It was declared as the World Heritage Site in the year 1979, at the same time rest of the Theban Necropolis was also declared as the World Heritage Site by UNESCO. A new tourist center is opened in the valley also the conservation, excavation as well as exploration takes place in the valley even today.
A variety of soil is found in the valley of the kings. Stones ranging from limestone to the sedentary rocks are found here. Originally, the sedimentary rocks were put down in the valley around 35–56 million years ago. It was the time when the herald to the Mediterranean Sea had enclosed an area that unmitigated much additional inland than it is today. The valley during the Pleistocene period was been carved out of the huge plateau by solid and heavy rains. Now-a-days you will find a very little all year-round rain in this section of the Egypt, but occasionally the heavy floods take place and hit the valley very badly, the rains indirectly dumps huge amount of the debris into the tombs which are still open.
The tombs KV43 and KV34 were found very early situated in the cliffs at the crest of scree slopes, beneath the heavy storm-fed waterfalls. As the usage of these locations started very soon, the burials of the royal nobles were then moved down to the valley floor, and thus moving back towards the upper slopes as the bottom of the valley was packed up with debris. This clearly explains the location of the two tombs KV62 and KV63 which were buried down in the valley floor.
Even though the pharaohs took extra steps to make their tombs safe from cave robbers but the gods did not work in favor of them in the valley of the kings as many of the burial sites have been robbed over centuries.
