KV1 – Tomb
of Ramses VII
This tomb lies on the right-hand side of the road, in a little valley
which leads westwards from a point before the barrier at the entrance to the
valley is reached .
It is of no particular interest, though it is accessible .
The scenes represent the Pharaoh worshipping Ptah-Osiris and Atûm
Harakhte . The priest who acts the part of Horus-the-Supporter-of-his-Mother at
the funeral purifies the dead Pharaoh, who is represented as Osiris . The
burial-chamber has a rough granite sarcophagus, unfinished, and a figure of
Nût, the sky-goddess, on the roof . There are graffiti of the Greek period on
the walls, so that the tomb was open at that time .
KV2 – Tomb
of Ramses IV
Lies on right-hand side of road, just outside of the barrier .
Ramses IV reigned for about six years, 1172-1166 B.C. . His tomb was
robbed at an early date, for his mummy must have been broken up before the
priests removed the batch of Pharaohs to the tomb of Amenhotep II, as they
could only find his empty coffin, which they duly hid . The tomb, though not
often visited, has interest from the fact that the architect's plan of it still
exists in the museum at Turin, as readers of the literature of the tomb of
Tutankhamun will remember .
Over the entrance is the sun's disk of Rê, and within it the Battle of
Khepri and the ram-headed figure of Atûm, thus giving the full emblems of the
rising sun, the sun in his strength, and the setting sun . This device will be
found elsewhere also, e.g., in the tomb of Seti I and Merneptah . Isis and Nephthys
worship the disk on either side . The designs and inscriptions are much
mutilated, having been executed on plaster, which has largely fallen off . The
inscriptions were largely from The
Book of the Litanies of Rê and The
Book of the Dead .
The great granite sarcophagus still remains in the burial-chamber . It
is over 10 feet long by 7 feet wide, and over 8 feet high . The left-hand wall
of the chamber has inscriptions and scenes from chapters I and II of The Book of Gates ; on the right-hand wall
are portions of the chapters III and IV of the same book, with illustrations .
The roof of the chamber has a figure of Nût, with the constellations marked
upon her body .
Beyond the burial-chamber is a corridor with chambers leading off from
it . The scenes and inscriptions here represent the sun's journey through the
underworld . There are Coptic scenes on the right-hand wall of the
entrance-passage, one of them being the figure of " Apa Ammonious, the
martyr " ; there are also many Coptic scrawls .
KV3 – Tomb
of the son of Ramses III
This
tomb, to the left of the road, was originally begun for Ramses III, but was
abandoned ; possibly because the rock was found to be of poor quality .
KV4 – A
late Ramses, possibly Ramses XI, The last Ramesside Pharaoh
The
tomb is unfinished, and the decoration has advanced no farther than a few
outlines finely drawn in red paint near the entrance, where the king worships
the God of the Four Winds, with his four rams' heads, Harakhte, and Mertseger
" the regent of the west " ( 1100 B.C. ) .
KV5 – Tomb
of the sons of Ramses II
This
tomb lies on the left of the road, close to the barrier . The tomb may originally
have been from an 18th Dynasty .
This tomb still under excavation, about 121 corridors and chambers have
been discovered so far, and it is may be that the numbers of these will
increase to 150 or more . Thus, this tomb is considered the largest tomb in the
Valley of the Kings and at least more than twenty royal sons are known to have
been buried in this tomb .
KV6 – Tomb
of Ramses IX ( or X )
This
Pharaoh, sometimes reckoned as Ramses X, reigned ( 1156-11326 B.C. ) . He was
the Pharaoh in whose reign the famous commission for the investigation of the
robberies of the royal tombs carried out its laborious and reluctant operations
. All its labours did not, however, save him from the fate which had over-taken
other monarchs at the hands of the thieves . His mummy was not found in either
of the two hiding-places, though a part of his burial furniture was in the
cache at El_Deir el_Bahari .
The tomb is on the left hand immediately after the barrier is passed,
and its entrance is an admirable illustration of the change which had come over
the royal tombs since the first tomb was opened in the valley . It is now
evident that the idea of concealment had been given up, and that the Ramesside
Pharaohs were now trusting simply to the mass of the great sarcophagus to protect
the mummy, a security which proved as futile as all the others which had
preceded it . The tomb is lighted, and is approached by a flight of stairs, with an inclined plane in the middle for convenience in sliding down the sarcophagus .
On entering the first corridor, we see (1) on the right a figure of the
king offering to Amen-Ra-Harakhte, and to Mertseger, the goddess of the dead,
" the Lover of Silence ", while on the opposite wall (2) he stands
before Harakhte and Osiris .
A little farther on two pairs of undecorated side-chambers .
On the right hand (3) notice nine serpents, followed by nine bull-headed
demons, nine figures enclosed in a cartouche oval, and nine jackal-headed
figures . These are enneads, or triple trinities of beings of the underworld,
and illustrate the sun's journey through the underworld, part of the text of The book of Gates being given .
On the left (4) is the text of chapter 125 of The Book of the Dead, the so-called "
Negative Confession " in which the deceased professes his sinlessness .
Beneath the text a priest in the guise of Horus-the Supporter-of-his-Mother
purifies the dead Pharaoh, now identified with Osiris . The priest in this case
wears the side-lock of a royal prince, so that he is probably one of the sons
of the dead king . The four chambers were probably used for the storage of
funerary offerings .
The second corridor has on either hand (5,5) a serpent guarding the door
. The one on the right is said to " watch the gate of Osiris ", while
that on the left watches the door " for him who dwells in the tomb "
.
On the left (6) the king goes forward into the tomb, accompanied by
Hathor .
And farther on (7) an inscription from The Book of the Dead is followed by a figure of
the king appearing in the presence of Khonsu-Neferhetep-Shu, who addresses him
in these terms . " I give thee my power, my years, my seat, my throne on
earth, to become a soul in the underworld . I give thy soul to heaven, and thy
body to the underworld for ever " .
On the right hand, demons and spirits are enclosed in cartouche ovals .
The roof of the corridor is decorated with stars .
We now enter the third corridor, which is guarded, as before, by
serpents . On the right wall (8), the king presents an image of Maet ( truth )
to Ptah, the goddess Maet standing before the great god .
Then (9) comes a symbolic representation of the resurrection, in which
the dead Pharaoh, as Osiris, is stretched across the mountain of the world,
with the sun rising above him, and the scarabaeus beetle coming forth from the
solar disk to give new life to the earth .
This is followed by rows of weird mythological representations or enigmatic
compositions, which contrast forcibly with the piece of simple symbolism just
noticed, and show the hocus-pocus aspect of Egyptian priestly ritual at its
worst .
The left wall shows the journey of the sun through the second hour and
part of the third from The Book of Amduat ( or Imydwat ) .
In the chamber which we now enter, two priests (10,11), right and left
opposite us, make offering before a standard . The priests wear the royal
side-lock as before .
We go on through a four-pillared chamber and a downward sloping corridor
to the burial-chamber . The granite sarcophagus has disappeared ; but the
cavity for holding it is to be seen .
The vaulted ceiling has two figures of Nut, the sky-goddess, with
constellations, etc.
Behind the sarcophagus-cavity (12) the wall shows the child-Horus seated
within the winged sun-disk, again a simple symbol of the uprising of new life after
death .
KV7 – Tomb
of Ramses II
This
tomb lies on the right-hand side of the road, opposite that of Ramses IX . The
. It was of great length, and is decorated with figures and inscriptions in low
relief .
Ramses II shared the usual fate of the Pharaohs, and his tomb had
already been robbed before the report of the royal commission in the reign of
Ramses IX . His mummy was removed, about 1100 B.C., to the tomb of his father
Seti I, its wrappings being removed . A generation later the great Pharaoh was
supplied with a new coffin . He was removed, somewhere about 973 B.C. to the
tomb of Anhapu, for greater security, and, about ten years later, to the tomb
of Amenhotep II . His wanderings finished with his transference to the cache at
El-Deir el-Bahari, where he remained in obscurity and peace, until in 1881 he
was removed to the Cairo Museum to be kept for a time in a publicity which even
he would scarcely have relished .
He has now ceased to be a show and a subject of unflattering comment .
Part ( 7 ) .. Coming
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