Tomb of Nefertari โ€” rock-cut architecture
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Tomb of Nefertari

  • 2 min read
  • 25.733ยฐ N 32.600ยฐ E

Interesting facts

  • A 2016 multidisciplinary study concluded that the pair of mummified knees found in the tomb most likely belonged to Nefertari herself.
  • The knees came from a woman of about 40 or older, roughly 1.65 to 1.68 metres tall, taller than most women of her time.
  • Chemical analysis showed the embalming materials on the knees match 13th-century BC mummification practice, consistent with Nefertari's lifetime.
  • Of roughly 480 square metres of painted walls, only about two-thirds survived by the time conservators began their work.
  • The entrance staircase is only about 1.65 metres wide and descends some eight metres to the main doorway.
  • Among the few objects the robbers left was a djed amulet, the symbol of stability, hidden in a niche behind a stone slab.

Why it is worth it

Ramesses II built temples across Egypt, but the most intimate work of art from his reign is underground. In a side valley on the west bank at Thebes, the tomb of his Great Royal Wife Nefertari, numbered QV66, preserves painted plaster so fresh that the colours seem barely dry. The king's devotion to her is recorded elsewhere too, in the temple of Hathor he dedicated to her at Abu Simbel, but here it is expressed in paint: wall after wall on which the queen appears with carefully drawn eyes, brows and cheeks, moving through the afterlife among the gods.

The tomb is cut into the rock of the Valley of the Queens, the ancient Ta-Set-Neferu, and is entered down a steep staircase. In the upper rooms Nefertari plays senet, appears as a ba, the soul in bird form, and is led by deities including Isis, Khepri, Hathor and Anubis; the texts are chapters of the Book of the Dead, among them the gates and guardians of the underworld she must pass. Deeper in lies the burial chamber, a hall of about 90 square metres with four square pillars, painted on every face. Above everything stretches a ceiling of deep blue scattered with golden stars.

The Italian archaeologist Ernesto Schiaparelli found the tomb in 1904. It had been robbed long before, and what remained was fragmentary: fragments of a pink granite sarcophagus, around thirty shabti figures, a pair of sandals, and parts of the queen's legs, now in the Egyptian Museum in Turin. The paintings themselves were in danger, with salts and moisture making the plaster flake, and the tomb was closed in 1950. Between 1986 and 1992 the Egyptian antiquities service and the Getty Conservation Institute stabilised the surfaces, to protect the paint from the humidity people bring with them.

Getting there

The Valley of the Queens is part of the Theban necropolis on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Luxor; the nearest village is Aลฃ ลขฤrif, about 4 km away. Luxor International Airport (LXR) is around 13 km away as the crow flies, though the route crosses the river.

Plan your visit

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Nearby places

On these lists

The Most Beautiful Places in Egypt 35The Greatest Archaeological Wonders in Egypt 15The Most Remarkable Rock-Cut Monuments 17The Greatest Archaeological Wonders 306

From the encyclopaedia

QV66 is the tomb of Nefertari, the Great Wife of Pharaoh Ramesses II, in Egypt's Valley of the Queens. It was discovered by Ernesto Schiaparelli in 1904. Nefertari, which means "The most beautiful (one) among them", was Ramesses II's favorite wife; he went out of his way to make this obvious, referring to her as "the one for whom the sun shines" in his writings, built the Temple of Hathor at Abu Simbel to idolize her as a deity, and commissioned portraiture wall paintings. In the Valley of the Queens, Nefertari's tomb once held the mummified body and representative symbolisms of her, consistent with most Egyptian tombs of the period. Now, everything has been looted except for two thirds of the 5,200 square feet of wall paintings. For what still remains, these wall paintings characterized Nefertari's character. Her face received particular attention to emphasize her beauty, especially the shape of her eyes, the blush of her cheeks, and her eyebrows. Some paintings were full of lines and color of red, blue, yellow, and green that portrayed exquisite directions to navigating through the afterlife to paradise.

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