- Thread starter
- #1
- 35,636
- 24,597
- 1,033
- Joined
- Nov 30, 2018
- Location
- On a Reef Somewhere
- Hoopla Cash
- $ 3,000.00
- Fav. Team #1
- Fav. Team #2
- Fav. Team #3
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.
Entrance to the Valley of the Kings.
Ramses, long walk down into the tomb. In most, we weren't allowed to go deep into the actual tomb & chambers.
Because the tombs were pretty much sealed & out of the weather, the colors on the walls have stayed impressively bright.
Every inch, from floor to ceiling covered in carvings & color.
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.
An actual chamber.
Colors still vibrant
One of the inner chamber areas.
Deep inside one of the Ramses tombs
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.
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.
Entrance to the Valley of the Kings.
Ramses, long walk down into the tomb. In most, we weren't allowed to go deep into the actual tomb & chambers.
Because the tombs were pretty much sealed & out of the weather, the colors on the walls have stayed impressively bright.
Every inch, from floor to ceiling covered in carvings & color.
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.
An actual chamber.
Colors still vibrant
One of the inner chamber areas.
Deep inside one of the Ramses tombs
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.
