# Before You Visit the Valley of the Kings Source: https://luxor101.com/journal/before-you-visit-the-valley-of-the-kings Language: en History Reading time 3 min # Before You Visit the Valley of the Kings The Valley of the Kings is a royal burial ground with tombs that vary in route and decoration. Learn the difference between a burial chamber and funerary scenes, then choose a few tombs around your interests and access needs. The Valley of the Kings was a principal royal burial ground of the New Kingdom. Its rock-cut tombs lie in the desert hills west of the Nile, separate from the major commemorative temples closer to the cultivated land. The valley includes burials beyond reigning kings, and its history involves reuse, robbery, restoration and rediscovery. The natural peak of al-Qurn overlooks the landscape. Its pyramid-like shape is often discussed in interpreting the choice of burial ground, but that connection is not a proven reason for selecting the site. Tomb codes such as KV9 or KV62 identify records, not reign dates. The numbering is not a royal chronology, so neighbouring numbers need not mean neighbouring rulers. Use the owner’s name and the tomb’s history when comparing them. Inside, texts and images served the dead and their hoped-for transformation. Compositions such as the Amduat and Book of Gates describe the sun’s nocturnal journey, while other funerary works have different structures. Not every tomb uses the same texts, and the decoration is not simply a biography. Private tombs also combine social identity with religious and funerary purposes. Plans differ just as much. Some tombs have long descents, turns and side chambers; others are more compact. Relief, painting and unfinished work offer different things to notice. Choose according to interest and the route you can manage, then confirm opening status and ticket coverage. Allow for exposed walking and enclosed interiors. Temperatures, ventilation and crowding vary; do not count on tombs as a rest from the heat. Bring water, plan breaks and follow the marked route. Two carefully chosen tombs can be a satisfying visit, and leaving time to look is more useful than reaching an arbitrary total. ## Three terms for a first visit Three terms for a first visit | Term | What to notice or check | | --- | --- | | KV number | A modern catalogue identifier for a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, not a king’s number in the dynasty. | | Burial chamber | The space prepared to hold the burial. It is one part of a tomb’s route and decoration. | | Funerary composition | A body of texts and images concerning the afterlife. The Amduat and Litany of Re have different structures and purposes. | - [Choose tombs by interest and route](https://luxor101.com/journal/which-valley-of-the-kings-tombs) > A tomb number identifies a record, not a place in the royal succession. Approximate reading time, calculated from the English text at 200 words per minute. Arabic reading time may differ. Look for this ## At Valley of the Kings, look for this. Explore related details in the site’s field guide. Current access still needs checking. 1. 1 ### The peak that is shaped like a pyramid Look up and south-west from the valley floor, above the tomb entrances Al-Qurn, “the horn”: a natural limestone peak that rises over the valley in a near-perfect pyramid, and is visible from almost everywhere in it. Interpretation Fact — the peak and its shape, and that it dominates the valley. Interpretation — that the shape influenced the choice of burial ground. The kings gave up building pyramids and then had themselves buried underneath one that was already there. Whether that was the reason for choosing this valley cannot be shown, but it is the first thing anyone standing here notices. 2. 2 ### Walls where the work stopped mid-scene In several tombs, in the chambers nearest the burial chamber Look for a wall carrying red grid lines and a draughtsman’s outline with no colour in it, or smooth plaster laid ready and never carved. Sometimes the finished decoration and the bare outline meet in the middle of the same figure. Unfinished surfaces can reveal stages of cutting, plastering, drawing and carving. A king’s death could limit the time available, but the reason a particular section was left unfinished needs evidence specific to that tomb. 3. 3 ### These walls carry books, not biographies The corridor walls of any decorated royal tomb Registers of dense text with small figures worked into them — serpents, barques (a ceremonial boat carrying a sacred image), gateways, ram-headed and mummiform forms of the sun — and almost nothing of banquets, hunting, farming or family. Funerary compositions connect the king with divine protection and renewal. Their selection differs between tombs, and private tombs also use religious imagery alongside scenes of work and family. 4. 4 ### Graffiti left by ancient visitors The entrance corridors of the tombs that stood open in antiquity — most of all KV9 Names, dates and short lines scratched into the plaster and the stone in Greek, Latin and Coptic, sometimes in careful lettering, sometimes not. Some tombs were known and entered in antiquity; others were rediscovered through excavation. Ancient graffiti record particular visits, not necessarily uninterrupted access. [Open the Valley of the Kings guide](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/valley-of-the-kings) Look closely, photograph only where permitted, and keep hands and bags clear of ancient surfaces. Follow barriers and conservation instructions. Continue reading ## Where this leads. 1–1 / 8 [Necropolis · West bank ### Valley of the Kings The royal burial landscape of the New Kingdom: rock-cut tombs tucked into a desert valley, separate from the kings’ major commemorative temples. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/valley-of-the-kings)[Temple · West bank ### Temple of Hatshepsut Terraces set straight into the cliff at Deir el-Bahari — and a reign that was later chiselled off its own walls. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/temple-of-hatshepsut)[Temple · West bank ### The Ramesseum Ramesses II’s mortuary temple, largely collapsed — including the colossus that put “Ozymandias” into English. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/ramesseum)[Temple · West bank ### Medinet Habu Colour survives here wherever the roof did — on a temple built by a king fighting to hold Egypt together. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/medinet-habu)[Person ### Tutankhamun A short reign, a remarkable burial and an extraordinary legacy for the study of ancient Egypt. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/tutankhamun)[Person ### Seti I A ruler whose finely worked reliefs reward a close look at Egyptian carving. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/seti-i)[Person ### Thutmose III Seventeen campaigns, and an empire that outlasted him by two hundred years. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/thutmose-iii)[Person ### Ramesses III The king behind Medinet Habu, whose reign left records of both military ambition and economic strain. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/ramesses-iii) Sources & further reading 5 Tier 1 [Sarcophagus of Wereshnefer, 14.7.1a, b — Amduat and Litany of Re](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/549534) The Metropolitan Museum of Art Online source checked 2026-09-19 Tier 1 Theban Mapping Project — Atlas of the Theban Necropolis Theban Mapping Project Tier 2 The Complete Valley of the Kings, Nicholas Reeves and Richard H. Wilkinson Thames & Hudson Tier 2 The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, Erik Hornung Cornell University Press Tier 2 The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt, edited by Ian Shaw Oxford University Press Source review is incomplete. Consultation dates are shown only for checked references. Published works and institutional references for further reading. [Sources and review status](mailto:corrections@egyptmore.com?subject=Luxor101%20correction) [All stories](https://luxor101.com/journal)