The hidden valley of rock-cut royal tombs, among them Tutankhamun's KV62.
Where
A desert valley behind the cliffs of western Thebes, opposite Luxor
When
The New Kingdom, c. 1500–1070 BC
Tombs
More than 60, numbered KV1 to KV64 in the order they were found
Famous for
Tutankhamun's tomb (KV62), found by Howard Carter in 1922
Who built what
From the early 18th Dynasty (probably beginning with Thutmose I) to the end of the 20th, the kings were buried in tombs cut deep into the rock of this valley, under a peak shaped like a pyramid, instead of under pyramids. Their memorial temples were built separately, along the edge of the farmland. The tombs were cut and painted by the workmen of Deir el-Medina, whose village lay over the hill.
A typical tomb is a long series of corridors and halls going down into the hill, painted with the books of the underworld that describe the sun god's journey through the night, which the king was believed to share.
What survives
Almost every tomb was robbed in ancient times; at the end of the New Kingdom the priests gathered many royal mummies into caches to save them. Tutankhamun's small tomb, hidden under rubble from a later tomb, was the exception. Carter found its first step on 4 November 1922, working for Lord Carnarvon; it took ten years to empty the 5,398 objects in its stairway, corridor, antechamber, annex, burial chamber and treasury.
Tutankhamun's mummy is still in KV62; his treasures, including the gold mask, are in Cairo. A full-size copy of the burial chamber has been built near Howard Carter's house so that visitors can see it without harming the real one.
Some of the kings buried in the Valley, from Thutmose I to Ramesses III.
2 short, well-known texts from Valley of the Kings, each with its transliteration (the Egyptian sounds in Latin letters) and a translation. Tap Sign by sign to see what each sign is and how it is read. Royal names are drawn in their cartouches.
Tutankhamun's birth name
Transliteration
twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn
Translation
“Tutankhamun ("Living image of Amun")”
Where: On the coffins, the shrines and hundreds of objects from KV62, and on the painted walls of the burial chamber.
He was born Tutankhaten, "living image of the Aten", and changed the end of his name when the old gods were restored. Amun's name is written first out of honor.
Simplified: His full cartouche adds ḥqꜣ-jwnw-šmꜥ, "ruler of southern Heliopolis"; this shows the name alone.
Sign by sign
Reading: The standard reading (Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar (3rd ed., 1957), Excursus A on the royal titulary); the Wikipedia article "Tutankhamun".
Nebkheperure, his throne name
Transliteration
nb-ḫprw-rꜥ
Translation
“Nebkheperure ("Lord of the forms of Ra")”
Where: On the seals of the doorways, on the objects in the tomb, and on finds elsewhere that helped Carter decide the king's tomb was still to be found in the Valley.
The three strokes make ḫprw plural, and the sun disk is read last. Small objects with this name, found in the Valley before 1922, were one of the clues that his tomb was there.
Sign by sign
Reading: The standard reading (Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar (3rd ed., 1957), Excursus A on the royal titulary); the Wikipedia article "Tutankhamun".
H. Carter and A. C. Mace, The Tomb of Tut.ankh.Amen, vol. I (1923)
Dates follow Shaw, ed., The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000); before 664 BC they are approximate. Readings are the standard ones in the sources named under each inscription; translations are Teddy Rook Book's own. The hieroglyphs are drawn in the site's font, TRB Hieroglyphs, so their shapes are simplified; where an inscription's arrangement or signs can't be shown faithfully, the card says so.