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Around the World, Valley of the Kings, Luxor Egypt

bamagrad75

Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost
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A quiet cruise back up the Nile to Luxor & my last couple of stops...first the Valley of the Kings.

It's both disappointing & inspiring. You expect some massive entrance, but you just round a curve & there it is. But the sheer number of sites could keep you there for weeks. Fortunately, they only open a few a day to the public & it was Ramses week.

There are over 60 burial sites, some simple graves, others with hundreds of chambers doing deep in the earth. Some go down, so go across, a few broke into other's tombs as they were being built. They know there are more but the composition of the ground defeats ground penetrating radar so they just dig & hope.

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Entrance to the Valley of the Kings.

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Ramses, long walk down into the tomb. In most, we weren't allowed to go deep into the actual tomb & chambers.

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Because the tombs were pretty much sealed & out of the weather, the colors on the walls have stayed impressively bright.

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Every inch, from floor to ceiling covered in carvings & color.

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A long walk down to one of the chambers, you can see the stone excavation. One of the few we were allowed to go into any distance. Another Ramses.

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An actual chamber.

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Colors still vibrant

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One of the inner chamber areas.

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Deep inside one of the Ramses tombs

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And, of course, King Tut. The tomb had just finished being restored & open to the public. No pictures allowed, though his coffin is on display there now. I passed just because of the heat & the expense. Oddly, his tomb is right near the beginning of the Valley. They had to walk past it to get to the others & didn't realize it was there.

Another aside, the tombs are noted with a K.V. (and a number). It stands for Kings Valley. Now why it's the Valley of the Kings & not the Valley of the Pharaohs, nobody could tell me.

And this site goes for for a long time. You could spend weeks touring the various tombs..if they are open. Some, iike Tut's, require a special charge to enter. The charge for Seti I is quite steep.
 
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