The richest place on Earth ?

Unimaginable treasures were entombed with the pharaohs in the Valley of the Kings. Sadly, these riches tempted thieves who were driven by a greed that outweighed any fear of retribution from their divine rulers or the gods. Even the builders and guardians of the tombs could not always be trusted, and most of the sacred resting places were soon plundered. The discovery by Howard Carter in 1922 of the almost undisturbed tomb of Tutankhamun (who died around 1325 BCE) revealed the riches of the New Kingdom royal burials in the Valley of the Kings. But Tutankhamun was a young and obscure pharaoh. His fabulous treasures can only hint at those looted from the tombs of great kings like Ramesses II.

The coffin in which Tutankhamun was entombed was made from 110 kilograms of gold. The image of the pharaoh holds a crook and flail that symbolized royal power in ancient Egypt. The treasures of Tutankhamun are now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.

Guides to the beyond

Illustration from the Litany of Re, a religious text, in the tomb of Tuthmosis III. This work shows the many different forms of the sun god Re and celebrates his union with the dead pharaoh.

The complex religious beliefs of the New Kingdom pharaohs included a conviction that after death they would become one with both Osiris, the god of the underworld, and the great sun god Re. But first, the pharaoh expected to face many perils in the underworld. Tombs in the Valley of the Kings were decorated with figures and texts from funerary literature. Some of these magical and religious works offered spells or were intended as guides to the dangers of the underworld.

One of these guides, or books of the underworld, was the Amduat. It described the perilous journey that the sun god Re made in his solar boat through the underworld each night. The pharaoh believed that after his burial to the west of Thebes, where the sun was seen to set, he would unite with the sun god and then be reborn as one with Re in the eastern sky at dawn.

Scene from the Amduat (meaning 'that which is in the underworld') in the tomb of Tuthmosis III, one of the earliest in the Valley of the Kings.

Scene from the Amduat in the tomb of Ramesses III. The sun god Re in ram-headed form is accompanied by other gods in his solar boat as he traverses the underworld at night and confronts its dangers.

Seeking immortality

The people of ancient Egypt believed that the body had to be mummified to preserve it for the life that was to follow death on earth. For a New Kingdom pharaoh, the mummification process is thought to have taken seventy days. The brain was usually extracted through the nose and discarded. The heart was left in the body. The liver, lungs, stomach and intestines were stored in four canopic jars that were left in the tomb. The body was dried with natron before being packed with materials such as resin and linen. Finally, it was wrapped and adorned with protective amulets.

An image from the Book of the Dead on a wall in the tomb of Twosret and Setnakhte. Anubis, the jackal-headed guardian deity of the dead, prepares a mummy. Four canopic jars await internal organs.

In the kingdom of Osiris

The people of ancient Egypt struggled to protect the bodies of their kings. After the pyramids of the Old and Middle Kingdoms were plundered, most Egyptian pharaohs of dynasties 18 to 20 of the New Kingdom (who ruled around 1570 - 1070 BCE) were buried in tombs cut into the solid rock of the Valley of the Kings.

An image of a ram-headed bird representing part of the soul of the great sun god Re, in the burial chamber of Queen Twosret.

The Egyptian workers toiled in the heat of the barren valley to dig staircases, corridors and chambers deep into the rock. The walls were decorated with scenes of outstanding beauty that depicted the gods, perils and glory that awaited in the netherworld. Finally, the New Kingdom pharaohs were entombed along with precious objects needed to maintain their status in the divine afterlife.

Inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu

Inside the Great Pyramid of Khufu From an entrance just above the base of the Great Pyramid, a cramped Ascending Passage climbs for 36 meters up through the solid stone core to a towering Grand Gallery. This climbs another 46 meters to reach the King's Chamber and an empty sarcophagus in the heart of this colossal pyramid. The enormous weight that bears down on the King's Chamber is dissipated by a series of ingenious stress-relieving chambers and massive granite beams built above it.

The Ascending Passage The Grand Gallery

The King's Chamber in the heart of the Great Pyramid holds an empty stone sarcophagus.

The sarcophagus in the King's Chamber was fashioned from a single piece of red granite. The stark chamber was walled by huge blocks of the same stone. We will never know whether Khufu or anyone else was really entombed here. Despite efforts of the ancient Egyptians to seal the sacred chamber, it was probably violated and robbed even before the end of the Old Kingdom.

Marvels of size and precision

The pyramids of Menkaure, Khafre and Khufu tower into the sky over the Giza plateau. Khufu's Great Pyramid, the most distant in this picture, is the highest. When we stand before these Old Kingdom monuments, it can be hard to comprehend their huge size or their great age.

The Sphinx and Great Pyramid of Khufu. The mysterious Great Sphinx, with human head and lion's body, is a colossal sculpture cut from the Giza bedrock. It appears to preside over the Giza necropolis.

Marvels of size and precision The Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza is the largest of the pyramids of ancient Egypt. Khufu (Cheops to the Greeks) ruled about 2589-2566 BCE when the Old Kingdom of Egypt was nearing a peak of prosperity and culture. His pyramid is astonishing for both its size and mathematical precision. It is often said that the Great Pyramid of Khufu contains 2.3 million stone blocks, although some now question this figure. The four sides of the pyramid are accurately oriented to the cardinal points of the compass. The base is a near perfect square with sides 230 meters long and a difference between them of only a few centimeters. The pyramid was originally encased in smooth, white limestone that must have gleamed in the harsh Egyptian sun. Unfortunately, this was plundered long ago to provide building materials for Cairo. This colossal structure was originally 146 meters high until it lost this outer casing and its capstone.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza is regarded as the most massive building ever erected in the world - a remarkable statistic for a construction feat achieved 4500 years ago!

How were the pyramids built? It seems likely that the Pyramids of Giza were not built by slaves but by paid laborers motivated by a faith in the divinity and immortality of their kings. Exactly how the pyramids were built is unclear. It is likely that a sloping embankment was built up to or around the pyramid. The huge blocks may then have been hauled on sledges with the aid of rollers, papyrus ropes and levers. Although most stone was quarried locally at Giza, some had to be transported to the site along the Nile.

Egypt Culture and Traditions

THE ENIGMATIC PYRAMIDS The Pyramids of Giza are the most famous monuments of ancient Egypt. These massive stone structures were built around 4500 years ago on a rocky desert plateau close to the Nile. But the intriguing Egyptian pyramids were more than just tombs for kings. The mysteries surrounding their symbolism, design and purpose have inspired passionate debate. It is likely that many of these mysteries will never be solved...

The rise and fall of the pyramid era The pyramids epitomize ancient Egypt, yet the biggest were constructed during a short span of time early in a civilization that was to last almost three millennia. The first large Egyptian pyramid was the Step Pyramid at Saqqara, built during the third dynasty of the Old Kingdom to protect the body of the king Djoser who died around 2649 BCE. It was this feat that heralded the short but remarkable age of the gigantic stone pyramids of ancient Egypt. The greatest achievements of the pyramid builders were the Pyramids of Giza, built near the capital city of Memphis for the fourth dynasty kings Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure who ruled through 2589-2504 BCE. But pyramid building soon waned as the power and prosperity of the kings of Egypt weakened with the end of the Old Kingdom.

The first large pyramid in Egypt was the Step Pyramid for the king Djoser. Essentially six stacked mastabas (tomb structures) of decreasing size, it was a major achievement and is the world's oldest known monumental stone structure. It was built at Saqqara, about 15 kilometers from Giza. The ultimate triumph for the Old Kingdom Egyptians. The mighty pyramids of Menkaure, Khafre and Khufu at Giza.