In general, the lower part of the walls was painted with a black strip on which another strip of yellow and red was placed. Made by decorating workers in the nearby Valley of the Kings, the paintings in the tomb are brilliantly colored and of exceptional quality. What makes Nefertari’s tomb the most beautiful in the Valley of the Queens is its wall decoration. The entrance is made by a staircase of 18 steps, which leads to the first level of the sepulcher, made up of a quadrangular antechamber and an annex.įrom the antechamber, a second flight of stairs descends to the burial chamber proper, which has three annexes and in the center of which the queen’s sarcophagus was placed, although Schiaparelli only found some fragments of the lid.Ī small niche had been dug in one wall to deposit the canopic box containing Nefertari’s mummified viscera. It is the typical one of the tombs of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt. That is why he ordered the construction of an arched adobe portal to protect the entrance to the tomb, he placed iron doors in the other tombs in the valley and proceeded to number them. In 1906 Schiaparelli discovered the inviolate tomb of Kha, the supervisor of the Deir el-Medina workers, and his wife Merit.īut undoubtedly the most spectacular discovery was the tomb of Queen Nefertari, the largest and most beautiful in the Valley of the Queens, in 1904.Ī grave robber indicated the location to Schiaparelli, who as soon as he entered it he realized that the grave had been looted a few years after the burial. The work carried out by the Italian team obtained very good results. However, in-depth investigations would only begin at the beginning of the 20th century, when the Egyptian Museum in Turin sent an archaeological mission led by Ernesto Schiaparelli to ancient Thebes. It was then that Jean-François Champollion gave it the name of the Valley of the Queens. The first to visit it was Robert Hay in 1826 and only two years later John Gardner Wilkinson made the first classification of the graves. The place was forgotten until it was rediscovered by the first explorers of the 19th century. The necropolis continued to be active during the 21st dynasty, when characters who were not of royal blood were buried there. The tombs, which are hypogea, were dug inside this uterus to facilitate the rebirth of the deceased. It is situated near the top of the Theban mountain and was an area associated with the cow goddess Hathor, since the cave there was assimilated to the uterus of the Celestial Cow. The choice of this place as a royal necropolis was not fortuitous. This cemetery began to be used during the 18th dynasty of the New Kingdom to build burial tombs for upper-class private figures.īut during the 19th dynasty, with the burial of the queen Sitre, wife of Ramses I, the place became the site of the tombs of the queens who held the title of Great Royal Wife as well as the princes. Nefertari was buried in a necropolis tomb known among the Egyptians as Ta-Set-Neferu, ” the place of the most beautiful “, located on the mountain next to the religious capital of Upper Egypt, Thebes, and which we know as the Valley of the Queens. In 1255 BC, Queen Nefertari Meritmut, Great Royal Wife of Pharaoh Ramses II, of the 19th dynasty, left this world to go to the Fields of Iaru. Her beautiful paintings showed the different stages of the queen’s journey to the kingdom of Osiris. 2-10, Cairo, 1936-1960 id.In 1904, archaeologist Ernesto Schiaparelli discovered the splendid tomb of Ramses II’s favorite wife in the Valley of the Queens. Reisner, The Development of the Egyptian tomb down to the Accession of Cheops, Cambridge (Mass.), 1936 id., Giza I.
L’architecture des appartements funéraires royaux à la lumière des Textes des Pyramides », in Études Lauer, p. Mathieu, «La signification du serdab dans la pyramide d’Ounas. Allen, “ Reading a Pyramid”, in Hommages Leclant 1, p. Espace et temps de gestation », BIFAO 94, 1994, p. Beaux, «La douat dans les Textes des Pyramides.
On analysis of the meaning of the duat and the substructure in the Pyramid Texts see N. I am also thankful to Kim Taylor and Miroslav Barta (Czech expedition at Abusir). For constructive discussion on a draft of this article, I am very grateful to both Dr.
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