Valley of the KingsAncient Egyptian Mythology

In Egyptian cosmology, the Duat was the underworld through which the sun god Ra traveled each night in his solar barque, battling the chaos serpent Apophis before being reborn at dawn. The dead pharaoh joined Ra on this nightly journey, and the tombs of the Valley of the Kings were designed as physical models of the Duat itself.

The tomb walls are covered with texts and images from the Book of the Dead, the Amduat ('That Which is in the Underworld'), the Book of Gates, and the Book of Caverns — guidebooks to the afterlife describing the twelve hours of the night, the dangers the soul would face, and the spells needed to overcome them. The judgment scene before Osiris, where the heart of the deceased is weighed against the feather of Ma'at, is the most iconic image in Egyptian mythology.

The valley's location on the west bank of the Nile was deliberate: the west was the land of the dead, where the sun set each evening to begin its journey through the underworld.

The Valley of the Kings is a narrow wadi (dry riverbed) cut into the limestone cliffs of the Theban Hills on the west bank of the Nile, directly opposite the temples of Luxor and Karnak. The valley is dominated by a natural pyramid-shaped peak called al-Qurn ('the Horn'), which may have influenced the pharaohs' choice of this location.

The valley contains 65 known tombs, ranging from small undecorated pits to the vast tomb of Seti I with its astronomical ceiling and vivid wall paintings. The tomb of Tutankhamun (KV62), discovered by Howard Carter in 1922, is the most famous. Summer temperatures regularly exceed 110°F.

The Valley of the Kings was used for royal burials from approximately 1539 to 1075 BCE (the 18th through 20th Dynasties). The shift from pyramid burials to hidden rock-cut tombs was driven partly by security concerns — the pyramids had been systematically robbed — and partly by theological developments emphasizing the pharaoh's journey through the underworld.

Despite the secrecy, nearly every tomb was robbed in antiquity. The sole exception was Tutankhamun's small tomb, overlooked because construction debris from Ramesses VI's tomb above had buried its entrance. Carter's discovery in 1922 — and the spectacular golden treasures within — sparked worldwide Egyptomania and remains the most famous archaeological find in history.