THE ROYAL VALLEY
GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY AND ARCHAEOLOGY
The centerpiece of this presentation shows a view
of the Valley of the Kings facing the tomb of Ra Meses VI (KV-9) and the tomb
of Tut Ankh Amen (KV-62).
The view looks W by S as it was in 1923, a
year after its opening.
The valley floor was much lower when Tut Ankh
Amen died, being at least a meter below the workmen's huts removed in
1922. That was the depth dug below them
to expose the entrance to KV-62, Tut Ankh Amen's tomb. Late in the reign of Ra Messes II an historic
flood wreaked much change on this scene. Readers can understand the impact of
this by the markers on the illustrations (Figure 1. & Centerpiece).
Howard Carter had begun to work in the Kings' Valley for Theodore Davis, an
American lawyer and philanthropist, after 1890. He lost that job over a dispute
with influential tourists. However, he began to work for Lord Carnarvon in
1907. He spent the first years working for his new patron in areas outside of
the Valley, as Davis still had the concession to the Valley itself. In 1914,
Davis surrendered his concession, which then descended to Lord Carnarvon.
However, war work then interrupted the excavations, and the two only returned
to the Valley in 1917 when war dangers in the Middle East abated.
They spent the next years proceeding up the
valley from a starting point near the tomb of Ra Meses II. Eventually, they
cleared nearly everything to south of the entrance to the KV-9 and discovered
the remains of ancient workers' huts. Further clearance would have closed the
entrance to the Ra Meses VI tomb. Because it was a popular site for visitors,
they moved to other parts of the triangle they had been clearing.
Another season of clearances without major
results led to Lord Carnarvon considering stopping work. However, the season
ended and Carnarvon retreated to England. Carter followed some time after. In
that 1922 English summer, he persuaded his patron to continue for the next
season. In October, he began to advance up the Valley, hoping to close the Ra
Meses VI tomb only for a short time. So they dug past the ancient workers' huts
before beginning to clear them[1].
They were similar to those shown above the
KV-9 entrance. When Carter had recorded them and cleared them away, the crew
cleared the site to bedrock. This revealed the first step of the entrance to
the tomb of Tut Ankh Amen. Carter at once informed Lord Carnarvon, then in
England. While he waited for the arrival of his patron, Carter now could rebuild
the ramp to the entrance of the upper tomb, leaving the farther part of the pit
unfilled for the time being.
In Figure 2 & the Centerpiece, you can see
that unfilled part up the Valley reached by Carter's people in 1922 before he
ordered the workmen's huts over the entrance to KV-62 demolished. You can also
see how far they advanced into the uncleared area from earlier in the century.
We have thereby a vivid marker of how far he had proceeded into virgin valley
bottom. The camera foreshortens the view up the valley, yet it shows clearly
where his work and that of Davis, done earlier in the century coming down the
valley, ended. The distance separating these clearances is not large. The
labels on the centerpiece explain the situation clearly.
An interesting footnote in the persistence of
human behavior over time exists in the footpaths on the debris. They still
survive fifty years after. The reader can compare the two views of the entrance
to the Ra Meses VI tomb.
Howard Carter, Lord Carnarvon and Theodore
Davis, between 1890 and 1922, among them cleared the Valley to bedrock as noted
by the shadings on the chart (Figure 2. opposite) with this presentation. There
are few places not explored to bedrock except the 50 metres or so shown.
The location of KV-55, the Amarna cache, where
laid the remains of Smenkh Ka Ra until 1907, and the site of KV-62, Tut Ankh
Amen's tomb, are both below the level of debris left by the flood late in the
reign of Ra Meses II. Both locations argue that the third king of the trio must
therefore lie in that area and at the same depth below the debris as the
others. Since the clearances have not yielded the site, the one profitable
location is the gap seen.
Archaeologists have never excavated the gap,
but they have done some work there with underground imaging. The rock and soil
of most of Egypt is often difficult to penetrate with present techniques.
(Because the Nile runs between walls of rock, the dry air "wicks"
water up through the rock, leaving salts which effectively make the rock opaque
to "radar".)
A difficult but effective way is to use
seismic sounding or "sonar". A group led by Lambert Dolphin from The
Stanford Research Institute did several studies in the 1970's at Giza, Sakkara
and the Kings' Valley. Many of these were electromagnetic soundings. They did
fewer seismic studies because coupling the sounders to the rock proved difficult.
The group checked between two known tombs, KV-9 (Ra Meses VI) and KV-62 (Tut
Ankh Amen). Those checks show in Figure 3.[2]
You will also note in Figure 3. the team did soundings from within KV-62 (Tut
Ankh Amen) South and West. The reflections show the possibility of a three
metre wide void about 8 metres Southwest of the Southwest corner of the Annex
of KV-62 and running South Southwest by North Northwest. This void lies below the level of the
ceilings of the Annex of KV 62.
Note also the location on the
ground marked in Figure 4 by an (X).
The geology of the bedrock in
this area describes regular fissuring, where the rock beds fracture at
consistent intervals. The expected fissures are outside the noted echoes.
We propose a
novel imaging technique based on new technology for this work. The technology
will give highly accurate images of the contents of the space noted.
Moreover, in days the same technology can
yield a precise contour map of the now hidden original watercourse of the
Valley correct to the nearest centimeter.