The Valley of the Kings

Though the Pyramids were startling monuments to the glory of the pharaohs, they were eventually exposed as an easy target for grave robbers. The rulers of Egypt moved their capital to Thebes, near modern day Luxor, and with it changed their burial process. No less spectacular, they headed to the West Bank and in the majestic valleys therein they carved tombs deep into the rocks. They painted these extravagantly and buried with the pharaoh everything he might require for an afterlife fit for a king. Grave robbers still plundered the overwhelming majority of the tombs, but the successful excavation of Tutankhamun’s tomb in the 1920s provided a tantalising glimpse of what had been here. A handful of tombs are available to see at any one time now in the Valley of the Kings, and the experience is quite unmissable.