12/18/2009
On day four, we got to visit The Valley of the Kings. At The Valley of the Kings they have found over 62 different pharaohs tombs. Archeologists know there are more than this buried here too. One of the fascinating things with these tombs was that the king’s sarcophagus was usually just as large as or larger than the entrance doorway and they were all in two piece of granite, the main part of the sarcophagus and the lid that covered them. How they got the sarcophagus down to the burial tomb is a mystery. Another interesting thing we learned is how the scribes were able to see while they their carving and painting their hieroglyphics on to the walls. They would use silver plated mirrors and set them up all along the tomb so that the sunlight would reflect off of them onto the walls. I thought this was quite interesting because of all the work they would have had to do to get this light all the way down into these tombs. It is fascinating and mind blowing because the tombs were so far down into the ground and had one or two turns in them. They had these turns in them because there were two different kinds of tombs, there were the L shapes or the T shape structures. Howard Carter found many of these while he was searching for King Tut’s tomb. One of the tombs he came across while looking for King Tut’s tomb was King Thutmosis the IV’s. King Thutmosis the IV’s tomb was from the 18th dynasty and he ruled from1413 to 1405 B.C. His tomb was discovered by Howard Carter in 1903. This was the 43 temple found in The Valley of the Kings. It is famous for all the hieroglyphics in it. His sarcophagus was made out of red sandstone and it was decorated with figures of the protecting gods and goddesses on the sides. This tomb was an L shape and it was really steep and far down into the ground. The next temple we saw was Siptah’s tomb. It was from the 19th dynasty and he ruled from 1224 to 1214 B.C. His tomb was a T-shape structure. We came to the conclusion that the 19th dynasty workers learned that you do not have to make the tomb so steep or deep down into the ground because this tomb was not as far or as steep. Its passages were highly decorated with gods and goddess and had Siptah before them
Posted at 11:48 AM by Derek Harris