Latest / Ramses the Great: Egypt's Most Powerful Pharaoh — Fexingo History / Ramses the Great's Tomb KV7: The First Royal Tomb in the Valley of the Kings
Transcript
- Lucas: So Luna, we've done ninety-nine episodes on Ramses the Great, and I realized we've never actually talked about his own tomb. I mean, the guy built the Ramesseum, Abu Simbel, Per-Ramesses... but where does the king himself end up buried? Luna: I guess I always assumed it was in the Valley of the Kings, like the other pharaohs. Lucas: That's true—he was the first pharaoh to build his tomb there. KV7, his tomb, is actually one of the largest in the valley. But it's surprisingly little-known. Most tourists walk right past it because it's closed to the public. It's been flooded, looted, and damaged over the millennia. Luna: Wait, first? I thought the Valley of the Kings was already in use before Ramses. Lucas: Good catch. Actually, Thutmose I, around 1500 BCE, was the first to build a tomb in the valley—not Ramses. But what Ramses did was shift the royal necropolis away from the old capital, Thebes—Waset in Egyptian—and establish a new tradition. Earlier 18th Dynasty pharaohs like Hatshepsut and Thutmose III had their tombs in the Valley of the Kings, but Ramses moved his there as well, and after him, almost every New Kingdom pharaoh did the same. So in a way, he cemented the valley as the royal burial ground. Luna: So what makes KV7 so special? Lucas: Well, for starters, it's enormous. The total length is about 168 meters—that's longer than a football field. The tomb descends through multiple corridors and chambers, all decorated with scenes from the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns, and the Litany of Re. It's basically a guidebook for the afterlife. But the thing that fascinates me most is that Ramses deliberately chose a site that was unorthodox. The entrance is not aligned with the traditional axis, and the plan is asymmetrical. Some scholars think it was because he wanted to incorporate an earlier, smaller tomb—KV5, which might have belonged to his sons. Luna: So he built his tomb on top of his kids' tomb? Lucas: Possibly. KV5 was discovered in the 1980s and turned out to be a huge multi-chambered tomb for many of Ramses's sons. It's directly adjacent to KV7. So the whole complex is like a family necropolis. But KV7 itself has a troubled history. Almost immediately after Ramses was buried, the tomb was robbed. The priests of the 21st Dynasty actually had to move his mummy to the Deir el-Bahri cache, where it was found in 1881, along with other royals. The tomb itself was left open and became a shelter for later people. Rain floods in the valley—rare but destructive—caused severe damage. The plaster and paint were washed away in many places. Luna: I've seen pictures of KV7 online. It looks so bare compared to Tutankhamun's. Lucas: Exactly. Tut's tomb is tiny and packed with treasures. KV7 is huge and stripped bare. Most of the stone sarcophagus is gone—the lid was stolen in antiquity and never recovered. Only fragments remain. But what's left of the wall decorations is still impressive. In the 1990s, a team from the University of Basel started a conservation project. They've been cleaning, stabilizing, and documenting every inch. They even found traces of original paint that had been hidden under grime. It's a slow process, but they're learning a lot about Ramses's burial rites. Luna: So what was actually found inside the tomb when it was first excavated? Lucas: That's the tragic part. The tomb was officially excavated in the 19th century by people like Champollion and later by Lepsius, but by then it had been thoroughly looted. They found bits of pottery, fragments of wooden statues, parts of the canopic chest, and some faience shabtis. But no major treasures. However, one surprising thing was the discovery of a small cache of mummies in a side chamber—not royal, but probably priests or officials from later periods. It shows the tomb was reused. Luna: That's fascinating. So Ramses, the greatest builder, ends up with a tomb that's essentially a ruin. Lucas: Yeah, it's ironic. But it also reflects a broader reality: even the most powerful rulers can't control what happens after they're gone. I mean, look at his mummy. It was moved twice, unwrapped by scholars, and now sits in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. His tomb is a tourist attraction that no one can enter. Yet the conservation work is giving it new life. Maybe in a few years, parts of it will be open to the public again. Luna: I hope so. It sounds like there's so much left to learn from that one tomb. Lucas: Absolutely. And you know, speaking of learning, if you've been stepping into history with us episode by episode, we've covered everything from Ramses's horses to his peace treaty. This show exists because listeners like you support it. If you'd like to help keep it going ad-free and help us dig into more topics like this, you can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, just a small way to say you value the conversations. Luna: Yeah, it really does make a difference. Every bit helps us keep researching and telling these stories. Lucas: So back to the tomb—one of the most intriguing mysteries is the missing sarcophagus lid. We know the sarcophagus was made of granite, but the lid was likely reused or destroyed. Some scholars think it might have been taken by later pharaohs or even broken up for building material. There's a fragment in the British Museum that could be from it, but no one's sure. The search continues. Luna: So even 3,000 years later, we're still trying to piece together what happened. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the beautiful thing about archaeology. Every new find, every re-examination of old records, can change our understanding. For now, KV7 stands as a monument not just to Ramses's power, but to the passage of time itself. Luna: It's a fitting subject for our 100th episode, I think.