The Valley of the Kings is an Amazing location where 62 Pharaohs are buried. This royal cemetery is located on Luxor’s west bank, down the only entrance, a long narrow winding path.
This was a secret place, where sentries guarded the entrance, as well as the tops of the hills to discourage tomb robbers.
The earliest known tomb of the New Kingdom, within the Valley of the Kings, is that of Tuthmoses I, who started to use the valley as a royal burial site. It is located in a desolate part of the valley, which is supposed to add greater protection as it was small enough to be closely guarded. The superior stone quality gave the ancient Egyptians the chance to cut many tombs close to each other.
Most of the tombs were found already plundered! A few like the tomb of Tutankhamen (KV 62) or that of Yuya and Tuya (KV 46), contained thousands of precious artifacts. Some tombs have been an accessible antiquity, as Greek and Latin graffiti will attest. Some were used as dwellings, or as churches during the Greco-Roman and Byzantine Periods. Most of them have been discovered in the past two hundred years.Since 1922, and Howard Carter’s discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamen (KV 62), there had been no new tombs discovered in the valley until, on February 9, 2006, the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt announced the discovery of a new tomb. Designated the number KV63, it was discovered through a joint effort between the University of Memphis (USA) and the Supreme Council of Antiquities of Egypt. This is one of the smaller tombs that has been found, consisting of a vertical shaft with an adjacent chamber at the bottom. Some artifacts are known to have been found, but as this is an ongoing project, the details are yet to be released.
