Valley of the Kings

Timeline

1. c. 1539 BCE

   Thutmose I cuts the first royal tomb

   Founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty, Thutmose I orders his architect Ineni to build the first hidden rock-cut royal tomb in this remote wadi, inaugurating the valley as the New Kingdom royal necropolis

2. c. 1290 BCE

   Seti I commissions KV17

   The Nineteenth Dynasty pharaoh excavates the longest and deepest tomb in the valley at 137 meters, with painted astronomical ceilings and Book of the Dead reliefs that mark the artistic peak of royal tomb decoration

3. c. 1323 BCE

   Tutankhamun is buried in KV62

   The young pharaoh dies suddenly at around 19 and is interred in a small, hastily prepared tomb with a golden mask and more than 5,000 grave goods that will remain undisturbed for over 3,000 years

4. c. 1070 BCE

   Systematic tomb robbery and royal cache

   Faced with organized looting, late Twentieth and Twenty-first Dynasty officials recover royal mummies and rebury them in hidden caches at Deir el-Bahari and KV35, where they survive forgotten for three millennia

5. 1798-1801

   Napoleon's savants survey the valley

   The scholars accompanying Napoleon's Egyptian campaign produce the first systematic European maps and drawings of the valley, fueling the Egyptomania that would sweep nineteenth-century Europe

6. 1816

   Belzoni discovers the tomb of Ay (WV23)

   Italian strongman-explorer Giovanni Belzoni, working for British consul Henry Salt, opens the West Valley tomb of Ay, Tutankhamun's successor, marking the first major European discovery in the valley

7. 1817

   Belzoni opens Seti I's KV17

   Belzoni breaks into Seti I's tomb the following year, removes the alabaster sarcophagus and ships it to London, where it now anchors the basement of Sir John Soane's Museum

8. 1827

   Wilkinson establishes KV numbering

   British Egyptologist John Gardner Wilkinson assigns numbers from the valley entrance southward, fixing the KV1-KV64 sequence and the WV West Valley convention still used today

9. November 1922

   Carter opens Tutankhamun's tomb

   Howard Carter, funded by Lord Carnarvon's last season, uncovers the staircase of KV62 and finds the only nearly intact pharaonic burial, recovering the golden mask and more than 5,000 objects in the find of the century

10. 1979

    UNESCO World Heritage inscription

    The valley is inscribed as part of Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis, alongside Karnak, Luxor Temple, Deir el-Bahari and Deir el-Medina, recognizing its outstanding universal value

11. 1994

    Flash flood damages open tombs

    A sudden cloudburst sends water and debris into several open tombs, damaging painted walls and triggering decades of drainage works and conservation that continue under joint Egyptian and international supervision

12. 2005

    KV63 discovered

    An American team uncovers a previously unknown Eighteenth Dynasty chamber containing embalming caches and coffins — the first new entry into the valley since Carter, and proof that further finds remain possible

13. 2011

    KV64 officially excavated

    After radar anomalies had been reported in 2006, the Supreme Council of Antiquities formally excavates and describes KV64 in 2011, an Eighteenth Dynasty burial confirming the valley is not yet exhausted

Detailed History

The Valley of the Kings begins around 1539 BCE with Thutmose I, founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty, who broke with a millennium of pyramid building to commission a hidden rock-cut tomb in this remote western wadi. His architect Ineni boasted on his stele that 'I alone oversaw the construction of His Majesty's cliff tomb; none saw, none heard.' Over the next four centuries his successors — Hatshepsut, Thutmose III, Amenhotep II, Akhenaten's heirs and Tutankhamun — were cut into the same limestone, refining the descending corridor-and-chamber plan that became canonical. The Nineteenth Dynasty raised this tradition to its peak. Seti I (reigned c. 1290-1279 BCE) ordered the 137-meter KV17, longest and deepest in the valley, with painted ceilings of the heavens and scenes from the Book of the Dead. His son Ramesses II built KV7, and the great Twentieth Dynasty pharaohs followed: Ramesses III with KV11, Ramesses VI with KV9. From the late Twentieth Dynasty the New Kingdom state was unraveling. Tomb robbery became systematic; trial papyri from the reign of Ramesses IX detail the breaking-in of royal burials. The Twenty-first Dynasty priests of Amun then conducted an extraordinary salvage, reburying royal mummies in hidden caches at Deir el-Bahari and within KV35, where they remained forgotten until the late nineteenth century. The valley slipped into obscurity for over a thousand years; Coptic monks repurposed some tombs as hermitages in late antiquity. Napoleon's 1798-1801 campaign brought the savants of the Description de l'Egypte, who surveyed the valley. In 1816 Giovanni Belzoni discovered the tomb of Ay (WV23); the following year he opened KV17 of Seti I, sending its alabaster sarcophagus to London. In 1827 John Gardner Wilkinson assigned the KV1-KV64 numbering still used today. The defining moment came on November 4, 1922, when Howard Carter, backed by Carnarvon's last season of funding, exposed the staircase of KV62 and four months later breached Tutankhamun's burial chamber, recovering over 5,000 objects in the only nearly intact royal tomb of the New Kingdom. The Theban Necropolis was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1979. A 1994 flash flood prompted decades of drainage works. KV63 in 2005 and KV64 officially excavated in 2011 show the valley is still giving up its secrets a century after Carter.

Cultural Significance

Since 1979 the Valley of the Kings has formed the core of the UNESCO property Ancient Thebes with its Necropolis, alongside Karnak, Luxor Temple and Deir el-Bahari. The valley sits beneath al-Qurn, the pyramid-shaped peak identified by the ancients as 'ta dehent' (The Peak) and as the dwelling of the cobra goddess Meretseger, 'She Who Loves Silence,' protector of the necropolis. Each pharaoh's descent into the underworld was understood as a re-enactment of the sun god Re's journey through the twelve hours of the night, and the walls of every tomb were covered with funerary literature — the Amduat, the Book of Gates, the Book of the Dead — illustrated as a roadmap for the deceased king. The 'KV' and 'WV' numbering was fixed by Wilkinson in 1827 and extended to KV64 by 2011. The 1922 discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb is regarded as the most important archaeological find of the twentieth century. It launched a worldwide craze for Egyptian-revival design, inspired the Curse of the Pharaohs legend after Carnarvon's sudden death the following spring, and seeded a century of popular culture from Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile to the Brendan Fraser Mummy films and Indiana Jones. International missions continue to excavate, with the tantalizing possibility that the burial of Nefertiti still lies somewhere in these cliffs.

Architectural Details

The royal tombs share a descending plan: an inclined corridor leading through antechambers and a pillared hall to the burial chamber, mirroring the sun god's descent. Early Eighteenth Dynasty tombs follow a 'bent-axis' layout — KV34 (Thutmose III) and KV43 (Thutmose IV) are typical, with cartouche-shaped burial chambers. After Amarna the plan straightens through a 'jogged axis' (KV57, Horemheb) and finally a 'straight axis' (KV11, Ramesses III; KV9, Ramesses VI). A 'well' shaft midway down acquired a magical role as the afterworld's symbolic shaft. Wall decoration follows a strict funerary sequence: earliest tombs carry the Amduat charting Re's twelve-hour nocturnal voyage; from Horemheb the Book of Gates appears; the Book of Caverns enters late Nineteenth Dynasty (complete in KV9); Ramesses III introduces the Book of the Earth. From Seti I's KV17 the burial-chamber ceiling is formalized as the Book of the Heavens with the Litany of Re. The East Valley holds most royal burials; the West Valley (Valley of the Monkeys) houses Amenhotep III's WV22 and Ay's WV23. Thebes limestone interbedded with marl and water-expansive shale forced redesigns: Setnakhte broke into Amenmesse cutting KV11, usurped Twosret's KV14, and Ramesses III later completed KV11. Almost every tomb was looted in antiquity; KV62 survived only because flood debris had buried its entrance until 1922.