1.
Twenty-first Dynasty of Egypt
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The Twenty-First, Twenty-Second, Twenty-Third, Twenty-Fourth, and Twenty-Fifth Dynasties of ancient Egypt are often combined under the group title, Third Intermediate Period. The known rulers, in the History of Egypt, for the Twenty-First Dynasty are as follows, After the reign of Ramesses III, the pharaohs of the Twenty-First Dynasty ruled from Tanis, but were mostly active only in Lower Egypt which they controlled. This dynasty is described as Tanite because its capital was based at Tanis. Meanwhile, the High Priests of Amun at Thebes effectively ruled Middle and Upper Egypt in all, the later Egyptian Priest Manetho of Sebennytos states in his Epitome on Egyptian royal history that the 21st Dynasty of Egypt lasted for 130 years. Jaroslav Černý, Studies in the Chronology of the Twenty-First Dynasty, JEA32, 24-30 Twenty-first dynasty of Egypt Family Tree High Priests of Amun at Thebes
2.
Ra
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Ra or Re is the ancient Egyptian sun god. By the Fifth Dynasty in the 25th and 24th centuries BC, he had become a god in ancient Egyptian religion. In later Egyptian dynastic times, Ra was merged with the god Horus and he was believed to rule in all parts of the created world, the sky, the earth, and the underworld. He was associated with the falcon or hawk, when in the New Kingdom the god Amun rose to prominence he was fused with Ra as Amun-Ra. During the Amarna Period, Akhenaten suppressed the cult of Ra in favor of another deity, the Aten, the deified solar disc. The cult of the Mnevis bull, an embodiment of Ra, had its center in Heliopolis, all forms of life were believed to have been created by Ra, who called each of them into existence by speaking their secret names. Alternatively man was created from Ras tears and sweat, hence the Egyptians call themselves the Cattle of Ra, in the myth of the Celestial Cow it is recounted how mankind plotted against Ra and how he sent his eye as the goddess Sekhmet to punish them. When she became bloodthirsty she was pacified by drinking beer mixed with red dye, to the Egyptians, the sun represented light, warmth, and growth. This made the sun deity very important, as the sun was seen as the ruler of all that he created, the sun disk was either seen as the body or eye of Ra. Ra was the father of Shu and Tefnut, whom he created, Shu was the god of the wind, and Tefnut was the goddess of the rain. Sekhmet was the Eye of Ra and was created by the fire in Ras eye, Ra was thought to travel on the Atet, two solar barks called the Mandjet or morning boat and the Mesektet or evening boat. These boats took him on his journey through the sky and the Duat, while Ra was on the Mesektet, he was in his ram-headed form. When Ra traveled in his sun boat, he was accompanied by other deities including Sia and Hu. Sometimes, members of the Ennead helped him on his journey, including Set, who overcame the serpent Apophis, and Mehen, when Ra was in the underworld, he would visit all of his various forms. Apophis, the god of chaos, was a serpent who attempted to stop the sun boats journey every night by consuming it or by stopping it in its tracks with a hypnotic stare. During the evening, the Egyptians believed that Ra set as Atum or in the form of a ram, the night boat would carry him through the underworld and back towards the east in preparation for his rebirth. When Ra was in the underworld, he merged with Osiris, the god of the dead, Ra was worshipped as the Creator god among some ancient Egyptians, specifically followers of his cult at Heliopolis. It was believed that Ra wept, and from his tears came man and these cult-followers believed that Ra was self-created, while followers of Ptah believed that Ra was created by Ptah
3.
Amun
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Amun was a major Ancient Egyptian deity. He was attested since the Old Kingdom together with his wife Amaunet, with the 11th dynasty, he rose to the position of patron deity of Thebes by replacing Monthu. After the rebellion of Thebes against the Hyksos and with the rule of Ahmose I, Amun acquired national importance, expressed in his fusion with the Sun god, Ra, Amun-Ra retained chief importance in the Egyptian pantheon throughout the New Kingdom. Amun-Ra in this period held the position of transcendental, self-created creator deity par excellence, he was the champion of the poor or troubled and his position as King of Gods developed to the point of virtual monotheism where other gods became manifestations of him. With Osiris, Amun-Ra is the most widely recorded of the Egyptian gods, as the chief deity of the Egyptian Empire, Amun-Ra also came to be worshipped outside of Egypt, according to the testimony of ancient Greek historiographers in Libya and Nubia. As Zeus Ammon he came to be identified with Zeus in Greece, Amun and Amaunet are mentioned in the Old Egyptian Pyramid Texts. The name Amun meant something like the one or invisible. Amun rose to the position of tutelary deity of Thebes after the end of the First Intermediate Period, as the patron of Thebes, his spouse was Mut. In Thebes, Amun as father, Mut as mother and the Moon god Khonsu formed a family or Theban Triad. The history of Amun as the god of Thebes begins in the 20th century BC. The city of Thebes does not appear to have been of great significance before the 11th dynasty, major construction work in the Precinct of Amun-Re took place during the 18th dynasty when Thebes became the capital of the unified ancient Egypt. Construction of the Hypostyle Hall may have begun during the 18th dynasty, though most building was undertaken under Seti I. Merenptah commemorated his victories over the Sea Peoples on the walls of the Cachette Court and this Great Inscription shows the kings campaigns and eventual return with booty and prisoners. Next to this inscription is the Victory Stela, which is largely a copy of the more famous Israel Stela found in the complex of Merenptah on the west bank of the Nile in Thebes. Merenptahs son Seti II added 2 small obelisks in front of the Second Pylon, and this was constructed of sandstone, with a chapel to Amun flanked by those of Mut and Khonsu. The last major change to the Precinct of Amun-Res layout was the addition of the first pylon, the local patron deity of Thebes, Amun, therefore became nationally important. The pharaohs of that new dynasty attributed all their enterprises to Amun. The victory accomplished by pharaohs who worshipped Amun against the rulers, brought him to be seen as a champion of the less fortunate
4.
Thebes, Egypt
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Thebes, known to the ancient Egyptians as Waset, was an ancient Egyptian city located east of the Nile about 800 kilometers south of the Mediterranean. Its ruins lie within the modern Egyptian city of Luxor, Thebes was the main city of the fourth Upper Egyptian nome. It was close to Nubia and the desert, with their valuable mineral resources. It was a center and the wealthiest city of ancient Egypt at its heyday. The Ancient Egyptians originally knew Thebes as Wose or Wase A was was the scepter of the pharaohs, a staff with an animals head. Thebes is the Latinized form of the Greek Thebai, the form of the Demotic Egyptian Ta-pe. This was the name not for the city itself but for the Karnak temple complex on the northern east bank of the city. As early as Homers Iliad, the Greeks distinguished the Egyptian Thebes as Thebes of the Hundred Gates, as opposed to the Thebes of the Seven Gates in Boeotia, from the end of the New Kingdom, Thebes was known in Egyptian as Niwt-Imn, the City of Amun. Amun was the chief of the Theban Triad of gods whose other members were Mut and this name appears in the Bible as the Nōʼ ʼĀmôn of the Book of Nahum and probably also as the No mentioned in Ezekiel and Jeremiah. In the interpretatio graeca, Amun was seen as a form of Zeus, the name was therefore translated into Greek as Diospolis, the City of Zeus. To distinguish it from the other cities by this name. The Greek names came into use after the conquest of Egypt by Alexander the Great. Thebes was located along the banks of the Nile River in the part of Upper Egypt about 800 km from the Delta. It was built largely on the plains of the Nile Valley which follows a great bend of the Nile. As a natural consequence, the city was laid in a northeast-southwest axis parallel to the river channel. Thebes had an area of 93 km2 which included parts of the Theban Hills in the west that culminates at the sacred 420-meter al-Qurn, in the east lies the mountainous Eastern Desert with its wadis draining into the valley. Significant of these wadis is Wadi Hammamat near Thebes and it was used as an overland trade route going to the Red Sea coast. In the fourth Upper Egyptian nome, Thebes was found to have neighboring towns such as Per-Hathor, Madu, Djerty, Iuny, Sumenu, according to George Modelski, Thebes had about 40,000 inhabitants in 2000 BC
5.
Karnak
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The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak, comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, chapels, pylons, and other buildings. Building at the complex began during the reign of Senusret I in the Middle Kingdom and continued into the Ptolemaic period, the area around Karnak was the ancient Egyptian Ipet-isut and the main place of worship of the eighteenth dynasty Theban Triad with the god Amun as its head. It is part of the city of Thebes. The Karnak complex gives its name to the nearby, and partly surrounded, the complex is a vast open-air museum, and the second largest ancient religious site in the world, after the Angkor Wat Temple of Cambodia. It is believed to be the second most visited site in Egypt. It consists of four parts, of which only the largest is currently open to the general public. The term Karnak often is understood as being the Precinct of Amun-Ra only, the three other parts, the Precinct of Mut, the Precinct of Montu, and the dismantled Temple of Amenhotep IV, are closed to the public. There also are a few temples and sanctuaries connecting the Precinct of Mut, the Precinct of Amun-Re. The Precinct of Mut is very ancient, being dedicated to an Earth and creation deity, the original temple was destroyed and partially restored by Hatshepsut, although another pharaoh built around it in order to change the focus or orientation of the sacred area. Many portions of it may have carried away for use in other buildings. The key difference between Karnak and most of the temples and sites in Egypt is the length of time over which it was developed and used. Construction of temples started in the Middle Kingdom and continued through to Ptolemaic times, approximately thirty pharaohs contributed to the buildings, enabling it to reach a size, complexity, and diversity not seen elsewhere. Few of the features of Karnak are unique, but the size. The deities represented range from some of the earliest worshiped to those worshiped much later in the history of the Ancient Egyptian culture and it also contains evidence of adaptations, using buildings of the Ancient Egyptians by later cultures for their own religious purposes. One famous aspect of Karnak is the Hypostyle Hall in the Precinct of Amun-Re,122 of these columns are 10 meters tall, and the other 12 are 21 meters tall with a diameter of over three meters. The architraves on top of columns are estimated to weigh 70 tons. These architraves may have been lifted to these heights using levers and this would be an extremely time-consuming process and also would require great balance to get to such great heights. A common alternative theory regarding how they were moved is that large ramps were constructed of sand, mud, brick or stone, if stone had been used for the ramps, they would have been able to use much less material
6.
Tanis
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Tanis is a city in the north-eastern Nile Delta of Egypt. It is located on the Tanitic branch of the Nile which has long since silted up, Tanis was a city in ancient Egypt and served as a parallel religious center to Thebes in the Third Intermediate Period. No archaeological evidence from it pre-dates the reign of Psusennes I, taniss creation was most likely due to the silting up of the Nile branch that ran by Pi-Ramesses, which forced people to seek another area with access to water. Later on, Tanis would become known as Thebes of Lower Egypt, the kings at Tanis saw themselves as the legitimate successors on the throne of Upper and Lower Egypt. They used traditional titles and displayed their royalty in building work, Tanis was founded in the late Twentieth Dynasty, and became the northern capital of Egypt during the following Twenty-first Dynasty. It was the city of Smendes, founder of the 21st dynasty. During the Twenty-second Dynasty, Tanis remained as Egypts political capital and it was an important commercial and strategic city until it was threatened with inundation by Lake Manzala in the 6th century AD, when it was finally abandoned. The refugees founded the city of Tennis. The Hebrew story of Moses’ being found in the marshes of the Nile River as told in Exodus 2, the demise of the city may well have been caused by the relocation of Nile tributaries. Tanis was the site of archaeological digs beginning in the 19th century, involving Flinders Petrie. In 1866, Karl Richard Lepsius discovered at Tanis the Decree of Canopus—an inscription closely related to the Rosetta Stone and this discovery contributed significantly to the decipherment of hieroglyphics. There are ruins of a number of temples, including the temple dedicated to Amun. However, the burials of three Dynasty 21 and Dynasty 22 pharaohs — Psusennes I, Amenemope and Shoshenq II — survived the depredations of tomb robbers throughout antiquity. The chief deities of Tanis were Amun, his consort, Mut and this triad was, however, identical to that of Thebes, leading many scholars to speak of Tanis as the northern Thebes. In 2009, the Egyptian Culture Ministry reported archaeologists had discovered the site of a lake in a temple to the goddess Mut at the San al-Hagar archaeological site in ancient Tanis. The lake, built out of blocks, had been 15 meters long and 12 meters wide. It was discovered 12 meters below ground in good condition and this was the second sacred lake found at Tanis. The first lake at the site had been identified in 1928, a French archeological team selected a site from the imagery and confirmed mud-brick structures approximately 30 cm below the surface
7.
Upper and Lower Egypt
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Upper and Lower Egypt also referred to as The Two Lands is a name used for Ancient Egypt. The concept appears in titles of Egyptian Kings and Queens and appears in scenes in temple, tombs, the concept also refers to an innate sense of duality in the Ancient Egyptian culture. The Egyptian expression sema-tawy is usually translated as The Uniter of the Two Lands and was depicted as a human trachea entwined with the papyrus, the trachea stood for unification, while the papyrus and lily plant represent Lower and Upper Egypt. Standard titles of a King of Egypt was King of Upper and Lower Egypt, similarly a Queen might use titles such as Lady of The Two Lands, Mistress of the Entire Two Lands, and Mistress of the Two Lands. Ancient Egypt was divided into two regions, namely Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt, to the north was Lower Egypt, where the Nile stretched out with its several branches to form the Nile Delta. To the south was Upper Egypt, stretching to Syene, Lower Egypt mostly consists of the Nile Delta. The two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt were united c.3000 BC, but each maintained its own regalia, the hedjet or White Crown for Upper Egypt and the deshret or Red Crown for Lower Egypt. Thus, the pharaohs were known as the rulers of the Two Lands, and wore the pschent, Ancient Egyptian tradition credited Menes, now believed to be the same as Narmer, as the king who united Upper and Lower Egypt. On the Narmer Palette the king is depicted wearing the Red Crown in one scene and the White crown in another, the union of Upper and Lower Egypt is depicted by knotted papyrus and reed plants. The binding motif represents both harmony through linkage and domination through containment, the duality is an important part of royal iconography. Sometimes the duality is further extended by having the knotted plants extend and bind foreign foes as well, during the first dynasty dualistic royal titles emerge, including the King of Upper and Lower Egypt title which combines the plant representing Upper Egypt and a bee representing Lower Egypt. The other dualistic title is the Two Ladies name or Nebty name, the two ladies as Nekhbet, the vulture goddess associated with Hierakonpolis in Upper Egypt, and Wadjet, the cobra goddess associated with Buto in Lower Egypt. There are many depictions of the ritual unifications of the Two Lands and it is not known if this was perhaps a rite that would have been enacted at the beginning of a reign, or merely a symbolic representation. Many of the depictions of the show two gods binding the plants. Often the gods are Horus and Set, or on occasion Horus, there are several examples of Barque stands from the reigns of Amenhotep III, Taharqa, and Atlanersa that show two river gods performing the rite. This matches a scene from the Temple at Abu Simbel from the time of Ramesses II, there are only a handful of scenes that show the King himself performing the ritual. All of these are from barque stands and date to the reigns of Amenhotep III, Sety I, the latter two may be copies of the first one. Upper Egypt Lower Egypt Narmer History of ancient Egypt
8.
KV62
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KV62 is the standard Egyptological designation for the tomb of the young pharaoh Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, now renowned for the wealth of valuable antiquities it contained. The tomb was densely packed with items in great disarray, partly due to its small size, the two robberies, and the apparently hurried nature of its completion. Due to the state of the tomb, and to Carters meticulous recording technique, the tomb took eight years to empty, Tutankhamuns tomb had been entered at least twice, not long after he was buried and well before Carters discovery. The outermost doors of the enclosing the kings nested coffins were unsealed. In 1907, just before his discovery of the tomb of Horemheb, erroneously assuming that this site, numbered finally as KV54, was Tutankhamuns complete tomb, Davis concluded the dig. But Davis was to be proven spectacularly wrong, the British Egyptologist Howard Carter hired a crew to help him excavate at the site of KV62. Carter went back to a line of huts that he had abandoned a few seasons earlier, after clearance of the huts and rock debris beneath, they found a stone step cut into the bedrock. A flight of steps was partially uncovered, leading to the top of a mud-plastered doorway stamped with indistinct oval seals, called cartouches. Carter ordered the staircase to be refilled, and sent a telegram to Carnarvon, the excavators cleared the stairway completely, which allowed clearer seals lower down on the door to be read, seals bearing the name of Tutankhamun. However, further examination showed that the blocking had been breached and resealed on at least two occasions. Clearing the blocking led to a corridor that was completely blocked with packed limestone chippings, through which a robbers tunnel had been excavated. At the end of the tunnel was a sealed door that had been breached and re-sealed in antiquity. Carter then made a hole in the door, and used a candle to check for foul gases, the first step to the stairs was found on November 4,1922. The following day saw the exposure of a complete staircase, the end of November saw access to the antechamber and the discovery of the annex, and then the burial chamber and treasury. On November 29, the tomb was opened, and the first announcement, the first item was removed from the tomb on December 27. On February 16,1923, the chamber was opened. On February 12,1924, the lid of the sarcophagus was raised. In April, Carter argued with the Antiquities Service and left the excavation for the United States, work started in the treasury on October 24,1926, and between October 30 and December 15,1927, the annex was emptied and examined
9.
Tutankhamun
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Tutankhamun was an Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty, during the period of Egyptian history known as the New Kingdom or sometimes the New Empire Period. He has, since his discovery, been referred to as King Tut. His original name, Tutankhaten, means Living Image of Aten, in hieroglyphs, the name Tutankhamun was typically written Amen-tut-ankh, because of a scribal custom that placed a divine name at the beginning of a phrase to show appropriate reverence. The 1922 discovery by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon of Tutankhamuns nearly intact tomb received worldwide press coverage and it sparked a renewed public interest in ancient Egypt, for which Tutankhamuns mask, now in the Egyptian Museum, remains the popular symbol. Exhibits of artifacts from his tomb have toured the world, in February 2010, the results of DNA tests confirmed that he was the son of Akhenaten. His mother was Akhenatens sister and wife, whose name is unknown, the mysterious deaths of a few of those who excavated Tutankhamuns tomb has been popularly attributed to the curse of the pharaohs. Tutankhamun was the son of Akhenaten and one of Akhenatens sisters, as a prince, he was known as Tutankhaten. He ascended to the throne in 1333 BC, at the age of nine or ten and his wet nurse was a woman called Maia, known from her tomb at Saqqara. His teacher was most likely Sennedjem, when he became king, he married his half-sister, Ankhesenpaaten, who later changed her name to Ankhesenamun. They had two daughters, both stillborn, computed tomography studies released in 2011 revealed that one daughter died at 5–6 months of pregnancy and the other at 9 months of pregnancy. No evidence was found in either mummy of congenital anomalies or an apparent cause of death, given his age, the king probably had very powerful advisers, presumably including General Horemheb and Grand Vizier Ay. Horemheb records that the king appointed him lord of the land as hereditary prince to maintain law and he also noted his ability to calm the young king when his temper flared. In his third year, under the influence of his advisors. He ended the worship of the god Aten and restored the god Amun to supremacy, the ban on the cult of Amun was lifted and traditional privileges were restored to its priesthood. The capital was moved back to Thebes and the city of Akhetaten abandoned and this is when he changed his name to Tutankhamun, Living image of Amun, reinforcing the restoration of Amun. As part of his restoration, the king initiated building projects, in particular at Karnak in Thebes, many monuments were erected, and an inscription on his tomb door declares the king had spent his life in fashioning the images of the gods. The traditional festivals were now celebrated again, including those related to the Apis Bull, Horemakhet and his restoration stela says, The temples of the gods and goddesses. Their shrines were deserted and overgrown and their sanctuaries were as non-existent and their courts were used as roads
10.
Lapis lazuli
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Lapis lazuli, or lapis for short, is a deep blue, semi-precious stone prized since antiquity for its intense color. As early as the 7th millennium BC, lapis lazuli was mined in the Sar-i Sang mines, in Shortugai, Lapis was highly valued by the Indus Valley Civilisation. Lapis beads have been found at burials in Mehrgarh, the Caucasus. It was used in the mask of Tutankhamun. At the end of the Middle Ages, lapis lazuli began to be exported to Europe, where it was ground into powder and made into ultramarine, today, mines in northeast Afghanistan and Pakistan are still the major source of lapis lazuli. Important amounts are produced from mines west of Lake Baikal in Russia. Smaller quantities are mined in Italy, Mongolia, the United States, the name Lapis lazuli came to be associated with its color. The English word azure, French azur, Italian azzurro, Polish lazur, Romanian azur and azuriu, Portuguese and Spanish azul, the most important mineral component of lapis lazuli is lazurite, a feldspathoid silicate mineral with the formula 861-2. Most lapis lazuli also contains calcite, sodalite, and pyrite, some samples of lapis lazuli contain augite, diopside, enstatite, mica, hauynite, hornblende, nosean, and sulfur-rich löllingite geyerite. Lapis lazuli usually occurs in marble as a result of contact metamorphism. The intense blue color is due to the presence of the radical anion in the crystal. An electronic excitation of one electron from the highest doubly filled molecular orbital into the lowest singly occupied orbital results in an intense absorption line at λmax ~617 nm. Lapis lazuli is found in limestone in the Kokcha River valley of Badakhshan province in northeastern Afghanistan, Afghanistan was the source of lapis for the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations, as well as the later Greeks and Romans. Ancient Egyptians obtained this material through trade from Afghanistan, during the height of the Indus Valley Civilisation about 2000 BC, the Harappan colony now known as Shortugai was established near the lapis mines. In addition to the Afghan deposits, lapis is also extracted in the Andes and it is mined in smaller amounts in Angola, Argentina, Burma, Pakistan, Canada, Italy, India, and in the United States in California and Colorado. Lapis takes an excellent polish and can be made into jewelry, carvings, boxes, mosaics, ornaments, small statues, during the Renaissance, Lapis was ground and processed to make the pigment ultramarine for use in frescoes and oil painting. Its usage as a pigment in oil paint largely ended in the early 19th century when a chemically identical synthetic variety became available, Lapis lazuli is commercially synthesized or simulated by the Gilson process, which is used to make artificial ultramarine and hydrous zinc phosphates. It may also be substituted by spinel or sodalite, or by dyed jasper or howlite, Lapis lazuli has been mined in Afghanistan and exported to the Mediterranean world and South Asia since the Neolithic age
11.
Sarcophagus
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A sarcophagus is a box-like funeral receptacle for a corpse, most commonly carved in stone, and usually displayed above ground, though it may also be buried. The word sarcophagus comes from the Greek σάρξ sarx meaning flesh, since lithos is Greek for stone, lithos sarcophagos means, flesh-eating stone. The word also came to refer to a kind of limestone that was thought to decompose the flesh of corpses trapped within it. Sarcophagi were most often designed to remain above ground, in Ancient Egypt, a sarcophagus acted like an outer shell. They are made of clay in shades of brown to pink. Added to the basin-like main sarcophagus is a broad, rectangular frame, often covered with a white slip and then painted. The huge Lycian Tomb of Payava, now in the British Museum, is a tomb monument of about 360 BC designed for an open-air placing. However, there are many important Early Christian sarcophagi from the 3rd to 4th centuries, most Roman examples were designed to be placed against a wall and are decorated on three of the sides only. More plain sarcophagi were placed in crypts, of which the most famous include the Habsburg Imperial Crypt in Vienna. The term tends to be often used to describe Medieval, Renaissance. They continued to be popular into the 1950s, at time the popularity of flat memorials made them obsolete. Nonetheless, a 1952 catalog from the industry still included 8 pages of them, broken down into Georgian and Classical detail, a Gothic and Renaissance adaptation. Shown on the right are sarcophagi from the late 19th century located in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the one in the back, the Warner Monument created by Alexander Milne Calder, features the spirit or soul of the deceased being released. In Sulawesi, Indonesia, waruga are a form of sarcophagus. Mont Allen, Sarcophagus, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome, edited by Michael Gagarin, R. R. R. Smith, Sculptured for Eternity, Treasures of Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Art from Istanbul Archaeological Museum. Ewald, Living with Myths, The Imagery of Roman Sarcophagi, egyptian sarcophagi sarcaphagi in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Sarcophagus
12.
Valley of the Kings
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The valley stands on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes, within the heart of the Theban Necropolis. The wadi consists of two valleys, East Valley and West Valley, with the 2005 discovery of a new chamber. And the 2008 discovery of two further tomb entrances, the valley is known to contain 63 tombs and chambers and it was the principal burial place of the major royal figures of the Egyptian New Kingdom, as well as a number of privileged nobles. The royal tombs are decorated with scenes from Egyptian mythology and give clues as to the beliefs, almost all of the tombs seem to have been opened and robbed in antiquity, but they still give an idea of the opulence and power of the Pharaohs. This area has been a focus of archaeological and egyptological exploration since the end of the eighteenth century, in modern times the valley has become famous for the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, and is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. In 1979, it became a World Heritage Site, along with the rest of the Theban Necropolis, exploration, excavation and conservation continues in the valley, and a new tourist centre has recently been opened. The types of soil where the Valley of the Kings is located are a sandwich of dense limestone and other sedimentary rock. During the Pleistocene the valley was carved out of the plateau by steady rains, there is currently little year-round rain in this part of Egypt, but there are occasional flash floods that hit the valley, dumping tons of debris into the open tombs. The quality of the rock in the Valley is inconsistent, ranging from finely-grained to coarse stone, the occasional layer of shale also caused construction and conservation difficulties, as this rock expands in the presence of water, forcing apart the stone surrounding it. It is thought that some tombs were altered in shape and size depending on the types of rock the builders encountered, builders took advantage of available geological features when constructing the tombs. Some tombs were quarried out of existing limestone clefts, others behind slopes of scree, the problems of tomb construction can be seen with tombs of Ramesses III and his father Setnakhte. Setnakhte started to excavate KV11 but broke into the tomb of Amenmesse, so construction was abandoned and he usurped the tomb of Twosret. When looking for a tomb, Ramesses III extended the partly-excavated tomb started by his father, the tomb of Ramesses II returned to an early style, with a bent axis, probably due to the quality of the rock being excavated. The area of the Theban hills is subject to infrequent violent thunder storms, recent studies have shown that there are at least seven active flood stream beds leading down into the central area of the valley. This central area appears to have been flooded at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the tombs KV63, KV62, and KV55 are dug into the actual wadi bedrock rather than the debris, showing that the level of the valley was five meters below its present level. This was the area that was the subject of the Amarna Royal Tombs Project ground scanning radar investigation, the Theban Hills are dominated by the peak of al-Qurn, known to the Ancient Egyptians as ta dehent, or The Peak. It has an appearance, and it is probable that this echoed the pyramids of the Old Kingdom. Its isolated position also resulted in reduced access, and special police were able to guard the necropolis
