Valley of the Kings
Photographs by Kenneth Garrett
Text by Kent R. Weeks
In life they ruled like gods. In death the pharaohs of ancient Egypt's New Kingdom were united with their deities. Decades of excavation in the necropolis near Luxor have turned up treasures like Tutankhaman's gold mask, along with insight into the soul of a dead civilization.
Pyramids were the tombs of choice for pharaohs of Egypt’s Old Kingdom, whose political world was centered on Giza and the Nile Delta region. But pharaohs of the early New Kingdom traced their dynastic roots farther south to Thebes (present-day Luxor) and wanted their tombs built closer to home. Between 1539 and 1078 B.C., practically all pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings.
During a decades long mapping project, Egyptologist Kent Weeks uncovers KV 5, the largest tomb ever found in the Valley of the Kings. Containing at least 110 chambers, its artifacts and hieroglyphs promise to change what we know about Ramses II, one of antiquity’s most powerful rulers.
NGM 1998/09