Day 11: Valley of the Kings
This was our second trip to the Valley of the
Kings. We had a ticket with 2 tombs left from the excursion
from the boat, so we told Hossam that we want to buy one three
tomb ticket and try to use the rest of the previous day's ticket.
His advice was OK, but use the old ticket first. As we saw
Tutmoses III on the day the cruise bus took us here, and we
didn't want to go through the hassle of seeing Tutankhamun's
tomb, we went through the open tombs with Hossam and chose
the following possiblities:
Merenptah, Seti II, Ramesses III, Ramesses IX Ramesses I and Rameses
VI
What we actually saw was Merenptah and Ramesses III, Seti
II, Tawseret/Setnankht, and Ramesses IV. You'd have to be there
to understand. Even on the less busy Sunday, there were a lot
of people there in the Valley. Merenptah is close to Tutankhamun
and so is Ramesses III. Seti II and Tawseret/Setnankht are
at the furtherest end of the Valley. So when we had finished
Merenptah which had a few people in it and Ramesses III, which
had a lot of people in it, we headed for the furtherest tombs,
hoping to get a more leisurely view of one of the tombs, and
it worked, even Tutmoses III didn't have a single person in
line to see it, and on the day we were there it was full to
capacity.
As we couldn't photograph in the Royal tombs, the first picture
on this page was taken of Seti II in the days when you could still
purchase a camera ticket. It has traditional decoration, but the
sarchophagus is a bit different.
 I made audio recordings of the visits to the tombs on a little
digital recorder. This initially confused the guards because
they thought it was a phone camera. So at each tomb I had to
show at least one of them that it was voice only. They believed
me, and of course, it was true.
Merenptah is a lovely tomb with a different color sch eme, it is
done in three basic colors, ochre,red and blue. and the sarchophogus
is cartouche shaped granite with a likeness of the king, arms folded
on the lid..
Rameses III and Ramesses VI are very similar in theme, but Rameses
VI has a Nut ceiling over the sarchophagus, where the Goddess is
shown receiving the sun in her mouth each day and it exiting her
body each night. We chose Ramesses III and found to my delight that
it is the famous "Bruce's Tomb", open since antiquity
and with the famouse harpists painted in one of the annexes.
Tawseret/Setnankht is a tomb first built for Tawseret the wife
of Seti II, and a ruler of the two lands for a short time. It was
appropriated by Setnankht, who also had a short rule. and thus has
a little different decoration. Especially famous scenes are the
final scene of the Book of the Caverns showing the sun god as a
beetle, disc and ram-headed bird with outstretched wings.
Seti II tomb is shorter but has some beautiful raised reliefs.
After the Valley of the Kings we went to lunch in Luxor and
went back to the hotel.
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