Egypt Field Report – Dec 1, 2022 The Valley of The Queens

After seeing the Luxor Temple this morning I took the boat across the Nile and rode to the Valley of the Queens. Just to orient you, let me explain the layout of the western part of Egypt opposite Luxor. First off, Luxor is the modern name of the ancient capital Thebes. It grew into an important religious center and each pharaoh wanted to leave their mark on the city by erecting something. Across the way, they were buried in what is now known as “The Valley of the Kings.” If you look across the Nile at this area you’ll see a line of orange tan cliffs. I think it’s called an escarpment. The idea being that the ground rises up abruptly. It’s not so much rock as it is hard packed soil, clay, and stone. There are places where water has carved valleys. It doesn’t rain much, but when it does it floods. These carved valleys are referred to as wadies. It is bright, hot, and desolate here. As tombs were discovered they were numbered in the order they were discovered. In the King’s Valley that would be KV1, KV2, KV3, … 

Just to the south of The Kings Valley is another wadi and it houses tombs of women. Hence the designation Queens Valley and numbering of QV1, QV2, etc.

If you were to move to your right, going north, past the Valley of the Kings you would come to Hatshepsut’s Temple. This stuff is all within spitting distance of each other. Okay, you’d have to be able to spit a distance of a mile or two, but still. It’s not far.

The Queens Valley is not nearly as busy as The Kings. It has far fewer tombs. When I was there, three regular tombs were open and one “extra ticket” tomb, The Tomb of Nefertari. If you’re going to go to The Valley of the Queens you need to buy the extra ticket, because it is the main thing to see.

When I got to the tomb there was a couple that was going in before me and no one else. I let them have some time, because I wanted to have my own private time without them gawking about. A guy outside, who wasn’t the ticket taker but seemed to have some authority told me that I only had ten minute in the tomb. A sign backed up that statement. I readied my 360 and dove in.

There was a guard at the first room and he, like most of the fellows in these positions, showed me the important stuff, and then had his hand out for “bashish” – a tip. “A little something for the effort,” as a fellow in New Jersey might say. I had gotten used to this by now and whenever I got approached I began calculating how much it was going to cost me. I figured this time 50 EGP, about $2.00. 

I descended to the next level and then to the funerary room, another guide, more bashish. This time he took my photo, pointed to where  wanted me to stand, snapped the pic, That’s 50 EGP easy. Now, here – another 50. Come here look. 50 more. Stand there. Snap. Okay we’re at 200. More to see. Great.I gave him the 200.

It’s a fabulous tomb. Great colors. Richly done. Well, worth the entry price and the bashish.

As I came out the authoritative guy pointed to his phone. He had a stopwatch running. I had been in for 19 minutes and 37 seconds. I’m not sure what the point was. He got distracted by other tourists and I beat a hasty exit up the path to the other tombs.