Valley of the King's, Queens, Nobles and Workers (Luxor ~ Egypt)

December 2019

When looking at where to stay in Luxor the big choice is on the eastern side (hustle and bustle) or western side (quiet) of the Nile. We took a punt and opted for the eastern side on the description that Luxor was nicer than Cairo (which wouldn't be hard). Pleasantly surprised as Luxor is much quiter and our hotel had a roof top restaurant that overlooked the the Luxor Temple, Avenue of Sphinxes and the Nile.

We had three days of sightseeing planned here. The West Bank attractions, Valley of the King's and then Valley of the Queens. The East Bank attractions Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple.

We have found that entrance fees to the sights are relatively expensive so when in Cairo we picked up a Cairo pass (100 USD each) that gave us free access to all the Cairo sights, plus it meant that you could get the Luxor pass at half price (down to 100 USD each) - an attractive option as two of the tombs we wanted to see the entrance fees were 100 NZD each (no that is not a typo).

Plus it made life a lot easier as the way things are set up is that you have to buy all of the tickets at the office at the entrance. So if you change your mind and don't want to see a sight then tough - ticket is not refundable, or you do want to see an extra sight then you have to trudge a kilometre or so back to the entrance.

Getting the Luxor pass was annoying to say the least got hit up for exorbitant money changing rate and fee/bakeesh for photocopying. Sad to say corruption is a way of life here.

First stop was Karnak - a vast temple complex. The original temple was a relatively modest rhomboidish (ie wider and taller at the front) building. As each King/Queen came to power a new rhomboidish was built in front of the previous one and occasionally all references to their predecessor were erased. The effect of this is that the last part of the temple built was simply massive. And of course all surfaces are engraved and large portion of them painted.

Apparently the columns are meant to represent papyrus and the sheer number of them are astounding.

Connecting Karnak Temple to the Luxor Temple is the Avenue of Sphinxes. Sadly these have not weathered well and the avenue is currently inaccessible to the public but still v cool nonetheless.

The Luxor Temple is in the heart of Luxor and has survived the millenia quite well as it was covered in sand for much of it. So much sand in fact that a Mosque was built on top of it. The Mosque is still present and the bulk of the sand removed.

The Valley of the King's is of course where Carter discovered, amongst others, the Tomb of Tutankhamun. The valley is a fairly desolate place and the tombs all followed a general pattern of long descending passageways, various chambers and the tomb itself. In some cases, where the King who was to be interred was a bit paranoid about tomb robbers, the entrance was well hidden (or halfway up a cliff face), the passageways had switchbacks, fake endings and hidden stairways. The artwork in these tombs is quite amazing.

By the sounds of it King Thutmes was a bit more paranoid than most king's. For a start the entrance to his tome was about 20m up the side of a cliff face.

Tutankhamun's tomb is a surprisingly small tomb which we found out was because he died unexpectedly and the big poncy tomb he should of had wasn't ready, so they interred him in a tomb meant for someone else.

Whilst over that side of the valley we visited the House, now a small museum, that Carter lived in whilst exploring. Reproductions of some of his sketches are present and show the dedication he had to recording everything in Tutankhamun's Tomb. He took three years to catalogue the items in the tomb - this included meticulous sketch of every item and it's location. Pity the museum guards as in the week prior to us visiting only two other tourists turned up.

The Valley of the Queens should really be called the Valley of the Queens, Nobles and Workers. Given the distance between the various sites in the valley we opted to hire bikes for the day, but have to say the first and last kilometre of cycling in the village was a bit nerve wracking. Egyptians are not the best of drivers. Think a large part of this is due to religion as if something bad happens, like taking out a cyclist, it's because Allah willed it - Inshalah.

Leading up to the Valley are a series of massive monuments.

The tombs of the Queens are quite different from that of the King's in that they have nowhere near as big with far shorter passageways. But still very ornate.

A shortish distance away are the Tombs of the Nobles. Again quite ornate but smaller than the tombs of the queens.

And lastly is the Medina - the village where the workers lived and above it a lot of tombs for, I assume, highly regarded family members. These tombs were decorated with scenes from the Book of the Dead rather than the whole thing (as it wasn't permitted). The tombs are quite small and passageways are really crawl ways.