# Why Pharaohs Stopped Building Pyramids Source: https://luxor101.com/journal/why-pharaohs-stopped-building-pyramids Language: en History Reading time 3 min # Why Pharaohs Stopped Building Pyramids New Kingdom kings at Thebes used rock-cut tombs and separate commemorative temples. Landscape, royal tradition and protecting the burial all help explain the change; no single surviving account settles why it happened. The New Kingdom royal tombs at Luxor look very different from the great royal pyramids near Cairo. Here, kings were buried in rock-cut chambers in the desert hills, while large temples nearer the cultivated land maintained their cults (the worship and rituals devoted to a deity or royal figure) and honoured the gods. Burial and public monumental display took different forms and occupied different settings. Security is part of the usual explanation for concealed tombs, but it is not the only consideration. Religious ideas, the Theban landscape and changing royal traditions also matter. The pyramid-shaped peak of al-Qurn is a striking feature above the Valley of the Kings; its role in selecting the burial ground is an interpretation, not something we can prove from its shape alone. The change did not mean that royal funerary investment disappeared. The Ramesseum and Medinet Habu show the scale of royal commemorative temples, while the decorated tombs carried elaborate texts and images concerned with transformation and renewal after death. Nor did every use of the pyramid form end: small pyramids appear above private tomb chapels at Deir el-Medina. Concealment was not a complete answer to robbery. Ancient investigations and the later movement of royal mummies show that many burials were disturbed. Tutankhamun’s tomb is exceptional for the amount of burial equipment it preserved, not because it was never entered in antiquity. When you visit, connect a tomb with a temple rather than treating them as interchangeable monuments. They belonged to related religious institutions, but served different purposes. That connection makes the west bank easier to understand without reducing centuries of change to one explanation. ## Place the change in time Place the change in time | Period | What to notice or check | | --- | --- | | Old Kingdom | Royal pyramid complexes joined burial with spaces for offerings and commemoration. | | Middle Kingdom | Royal pyramid building continued; the move to Theban rock-cut tombs was not the immediate end of the Old Kingdom tradition. | | New Kingdom at Thebes | Kings used tombs in the hills and temples nearer the cultivation. These fulfilled connected purposes in separate locations. | - [See the periods on the timeline](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/timeline) > The burial and the temple tell connected parts of a king’s afterlife. 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)[Monument · West bank ### Colossi of Memnon Two seated figures of Amenhotep III mark the entrance area of a once vast royal temple. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/colossi-of-memnon)[Person ### Thutmose I The soldier king usually named as the first buried in the Valley of the Kings. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/thutmose-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 ### Seti I A ruler whose finely worked reliefs reward a close look at Egyptian carving. ](https://luxor101.com/ancient-luxor/pharaohs/seti-i) Sources & further reading 4 Tier 2 The Complete Valley of the Kings, Nicholas Reeves and Richard H. Wilkinson Thames & Hudson Tier 1 Theban Mapping Project — Atlas of the Theban Necropolis Theban Mapping Project 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)