Across the River at the Valley of the Kings

After our day at the temples we went to the Valley of the Kings.  It was exciting.  This is where you find many of the tombs of the great kings.  Not all were buried in pyramids but, in fact, the pyramid shape remained important.  One of the mountains in this area is shaped kind of like a pyramid which is why this place was chosen.

In fact, there is a valley of the Kings, a valley of the Queens and a valley in which nobles and others were buried.  We went to the Valley of the Kings and to the workers graves.  Our guide pointed out that the tombs of the workers are often more beautiful than those of the nobles and royalty because they were made for themselves and they lavished special attention on them.

There are a lot of undiscovered tombs.  And the hills in that area are honeycombed with tombs.  We saw lots of tomb entrances as we drove along.  Of course, almost all the tombs were looted at one point or another.  In fact, King Tut's tomb was not intact but a lot of the treasure remained in the tomb for whatever reason.

Our tickets allowed us to go into three tombs.  The ones I went in were all for a king named Rameses.  Two late ones and Rameses III.  Rameses II is one of the most famous and powerful kings but his tomb was closed for restoration.  I think that my favorite was the tomb of Rameses III.  It had some different styles of art in parts of it which I found particularly beautiful. 

In general one had to purchase a special pass to take pictures.  I decided not to.  As I said, my goal was to absorb, knowing that any pictures I took would not be that great.  CTU will be providing us with a dropbox that pictures can be put into so once that is up I may post a few more later.

We went out to the tombs in little "Disney" trains.

Here you can see the mountain that resembles a pyramid.  Because of that this was the area chosen for the royal tombs.

Yes. I was really there.

This a worker's village that has been excavated.  We saw the worker's tombs here.  The Egyptians built whole cities for the workers with everything they would need.  This was to discourage them from going into town and revealing where the tombs were that they were working on.  It was quite impressive.

We then went to another of my favorite spots - the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut.  This was one of those funerary temples designed to be used only for the funeral rites of the queen.  She was controversial in the sense that many did not feel it was proper for a woman to rule.  She is omitted from some king lists since she was considered by them a usurper.  Her life was quite colorful and interesting.  And she could be ruthless.

It is three stories high and quite large. 

Here you see her face chopped out as a way of showing contempt for her as a usurper.

Here she is dressed in the garb of a male king.

From the top temple platform.

We ended another long day by stopping for a Kodak moment at two colossal statues that at one time "moaned" from a cavity in the statue.  It was later stopped up so it no longer occurs.

Just to show you the incredible richness of Egyptian antiquities we had lunch across the street from the funerary temple of Rameses II.  Remember, basically used just for his funeral rites and an occasional visit to remember and honor him.

As one last little interesting site.  Hatsehpsut sent an expedition to Punt which is believed to be in what we today call the Horn of Africa, to the southeast of Egypt. The expedition is depicted on the walls of the temple and in front of the temple are two little tree stumps.  As you can see they are said to have been brought back by the expedition.