Day 14 Return, once again, to the West Bank

This morning, Scott and I decided to return to the West Bank to finish up some of the sites we didn’t see last week. Our first stop was to the Valley of the Kings, mainly to see King Tutankhamen’s tomb and mummy. I feel very happy that we didn’t go into his tomb last week because his mummy would not have been there. Today we got to see the actually mummy in the tomb. It was under a plexiglass cover and only his head and feet were visible. He was dark black, small and shriveled. It was pretty exciting to be one of the first people to see him. We also visited the tomb of Ramses V/VI, Seti II and Tawosret/Sethnakhte. Tawosret’s tomb was being built for her but Sethnakhte took it for his own. The tomb of Ramses V/VI was by far the best tomb we visited. It was very large and the colors and drawings were spectacular. If you get a chance to visit the website of the Theban Mapping Project make sure you look at this one!


On the way out of the Valley of the Kings, we drove by the house that Howard Carter lived in while he was excavating the tomb of King Tutankhamen. I took a picture of it for you to see.

After the Valley of the Kings, we moved on to Medinat Habu. This mortuary temple was built by Ramses III to celebrate his victories over the Nubians, Libyans, and Syrians. The previous 4 rulers could not defend Egypt from these enemies. Also, during the 20th dynasty, the people of Thebes (Luxor) lived inside the Temple while they were under attack. We could see how the entire structure was surrounded by mud bricks. This temple isn’t visited much by tourists. I’m not sure why. When the Christians came to Egypt, this was one of the temples they took over. Because they thought some of the wall writings were paganistic, they plastered over them. This plaster actually helped preserve the walls so this temple is in remarkable shape. Ramses III also had the foresight to carve his cartouches and some of the writings very deep into the walls so that they would be difficult to rub or scratch out.





We had lunch back at the hotel (pizzas) and had to say goodbye to our friends, John and Leslie. They couldn’t stay longer with us and are now on their way back home. We will be lonely without them.

Before dinner, we went to the Mummification Museum. They don’t allow pictures either. It was a very small museum and they had a few human mummies as well as a crocodile mummy, a duck mummy and cat mummies.

After the museum, we went back to the hotel to shower and then had a nice dinner in a restaurant on the Nile River.