Ta-sekhet-aat

Beautiful Ladder of the West

"Ta-sekhet-aat" - "The Beautiful Ladder of the West" as the ancients called the Valley of the Kings or with the official ancient name of: "Great and Majestic Burial Place of the Millions of Years of the Pharaoh, Life, Strength, Health, in the West of Waset" , was located on the West Bank opposite modern Luxor. It is one of the most incredible of all the many places a tourist can visit in Egypt. The Arabs call it Biban el-Mulukh, the 'Gate of Kings'.

Deep within a valley, surrounded by massive, mute cliffs and with the peak of Meretseger, 'She of the Silent', hovering as a watchful sentinel, is located this resting place of over 60 ancient kings. The name, (yet another one was "The Great Place"), had the symbolic meaning of being the place where the kings began their ascent to the heavens and Eternal Life.

It probably began with Thutmose I (Dyn 18) who decided to separate his tomb from his mortuary temple and place it in a secret, safe place. His daughter Hatshepsut either usurped his tomb, or joined him in it, we don´t know for sure, but since then, it became the practice of the following kings to have their tombs cut into these rocks, and they kept on doing so until the end of Dynasty 20, when Ramesses IX became the last one to be buried here.

At that time, the valley situated several kilometers into the mountains, only accessible by narrow paths, seemed to be the optimum choice. Perhaps the formation of the high mountain peak looming over it, which had the look of a pyramidion, helped to decide the choice. In those days this secluded area was accessible only to the tomb workers and the guards - and the tomb robbers. The old kings did not get to rest peacefully for very long before their rich tomb furnishings were plundered, despite surveillance both night and day in the pharaonic times. After Ramesses IX, it was decided not to use the place any more for this reason. The priests moved 40 royal mummies to save them from profanation, and hid them in the cache at Deir el-Bahri, where they rested undiscovered until the 1880´s.

Among all the kings who made their tombs here are all the great ones of the period: Thutmose I and Hatshepsut as already mentioned, Thutmose III, Horemheb, Seti I, Ramesses II, Ramesses III, and TutAnkhAmen, whose tomb discovery by Carter amazed the whole world in the 1920´s. . Both the kings from the mummy cache and the finds from this, the only untouched tomb in the valley can be seen in the Cairo Museum.

The makers of these tombs were chosen among the best and most skilled of artisans. Thutmose I founded a village for them and their families, across the mountainridge, called the 'Set-Maat' - the 'Place of Truth', nowadays called Deir el-Medina. They were given, for the time, good living conditions, were highly paid and enjoyed a high reputation. The craft often was inherited within the family and some of the foremen could, in the times where no royal tomb was under construction, provide for their own burial.

To describe the majesty, the sense of lurking power, and the mystery which reigns this valley is not easy. Nowadays the whole place is abuzz already early in the mornings while the shadows still are tall. There is no trace of vegetation, you are surrounded by rock and above is the incredibly blue sky. The heat is already considerable at eight o´clock in the morning and the visitors crowd the sun shelters while waiting for entries into the deep and surprizingly hot tombs. The shuffling feet of hundreds of people, dozens of guides and a number of donkeys, not to mention the stinking engines of "taf-taf-trains" violate the solemnness of the place and turn it into something like a circus. The hours pass quickly and the impact of the vibrating heat together with the overwhelming experience of the descent into these long, sloping shafts where the decorations still shine with fresh brilliance can exhaust you. You wonder what the ancient kings would have to say about it all. Ironically, they certainly made themselves remembered and so live on into Eternity!

Early morning visitors fill the valley.

Get into the tombs!
Theban Mapping Project