The Valley of the Queens: Who Is Buried There and What a Ticket Buys

Queens, Princes and the Place of Beauty

The Egyptians called the valley Ta-Set-Neferu, the Place of Beauty, a name that can also mean the Place of the Royal Children. Burials here run from roughly 1560 BC to 1130 BC, The count stands at 110 documented tombs, with 91 in the main wadi and 19 in the side valleys.

The best known occupant is Nefertari, the Great Royal Wife of Ramesses II, whose tomb QV66 dates to about 1290 to 1224 BC. Under Ramesses III the valley received tombs for his wives, for royal sons, which was unusual. The Turin Papyrus mentions six tombs prepared under Ramesses VI. The first tomb of the Nineteenth Dynasty was likely QV38, that of Queen Satre, started under Ramesses I and finished under Seti I.

A sacred grotto of Hathor at the valley entrance may have been one reason the site was chosen, and the nearby workers' village of Deir el-Medina another. That village housed the tomb builders in about 68 houses at its final form, and its workers staged what may be the first recorded sit-down strike around 1170 BC, under Ramesses III, over late grain rations.

Side Valleys, Rock and Preservation

The main wadi is not the whole site. The valley also takes in the Valley of Prince Ahmose, the Valley of the Rope, the Valley of the Three Pits and the Valley of the Dolmen. Every burial in these side valleys dates to the Eighteenth Dynasty, the earlier stretch of the New Kingdom.

The ground itself works against the paintings. The valley sits on limestone, marl, clay, chalk and shale, and salt from halite in the ground, together with seeping groundwater, damages the tomb walls. That geology is a large part of why the painted tombs need constant monitoring, and why visitor controls now include walled paths, shelters at popular tombs such as QV66, plexiglass shields and wooden floors.

The valley was inscribed with Ancient Thebes as a World Heritage site in 1979. Ernesto Schiaparelli and Francesco Ballerini led the early excavations in the early 1900s. Some chambers are left alone entirely: the bat colonies in QV15, QV48 and QV78 are deliberately left undisturbed for ecological reasons.

The Find in 1904

Schiaparelli discovered the tomb of Nefertari in 1904, and his team found the staircase on his second campaign. The staircase is 1.65 metres wide and descends 8 metres to a doorway. The tomb was found open and looted, so the burial itself was largely gone.

What Schiaparelli recovered tells the story of that loss: only the queen's legs, her palm-fibre sandals, about thirty ushabti figures and fragments of the pink granite sarcophagus. The leg remains are now in the Museo Egizio in Turin. The walls, by contrast, largely survived, and they are what make the tomb famous.

The Paintings and the Getty Restoration

The tomb covers 520 square metres, a figure Earthtrekkers gives, and about two thirds of its 5,200 square feet of wall paintings survive. The antechamber is painted with Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead under a dark blue ceiling of golden five-pointed stars. One famous wall shows Nefertari playing senet. The burial chamber covers about 90 square metres, has an astronomical ceiling held up by four fully decorated pillars, and was called the golden hall. The walls name gods including Isis, Osiris, Anubis, Hathor, Neith, Serket and Thoth.

The paintings nearly did not make it. Water damage, bacterial growth, salt formation and even visitors' breath all took their toll. The tomb was closed to the public in 1950. The Getty Conservation Institute and Egypt's Antiquities Organisation began the project in 1986, the work itself ran from 1988 to April 1992, and the Getty still monitors the tomb regularly.

The Ticket, the Time Limit and Access Today

QV66 is not part of the general valley ticket. It needs a separate ticket, and the reported figures differ: 2,000 EGP per Wikipedia and Earthtrekkers, against LE2500 per Wikivoyage. Earthtrekkers gives a time limit of 10 minutes inside the tomb.

Access has a long record of change. After the Getty work the tomb reopened with 150 visitors at a time, then was restricted again in 2006 to private tours of up to 20 people paying US$3,000. Since then the status has changed more than once and sources disagree. Confirm the current situation before you plan a trip around QV66, and do not build a whole day on the assumption that you can enter.

QV44, the Tomb of Prince Khaemwaset

QV44 belonged to Prince Khaemwaset, a son of Ramesses III, and was discovered on 15 February 1903 during Schiaparelli's first campaign. The reliefs show Ramesses III before Ptah, Thoth, Anubis and Ra-Harakhty, and the side rooms show the Sons of Horus with Isis, Nephthys, Neith and Serqet. More than forty wooden sarcophagi of the 25th to 26th Dynasty were found inside, clear evidence that the tomb was reused and ransacked long after the prince's burial.

QV55, the Tomb of Prince Amun-her-khepeshef

QV55 belonged to Prince Amun-her-khepeshef, another son of Ramesses III, and was found by Schiaparelli in 1904. The antechamber shows the king with his son, once in the company of Isis and once of Hathor. A pink granite sarcophagus remains in the rear chamber, which is a rare survivor of the original burial equipment.

QV52, the Tomb of Queen Tyti

QV52 belongs to Queen Tyti, a wife of Ramesses III and mother of Ramesses IV. The tomb has a Latin cross plan, and its decoration shows the queen's journey through the Duat, the Egyptian underworld. It has a long modern history: it was accessible from the early nineteenth century, with Jean-Jacques Rifaud recorded as its first visitor, and it was excavated in 1903 and 1904.

Thirty-four granite sarcophagus fragments were found there.

How the Two Valleys Differ

The Valley of the Kings is the headline site, with special tickets for the big names such as Seti I and Tutankhamun, covered in detail on the Valley of the Kings tickets page and the Valley of the Kings map. The Valley of the Queens is described as quieter in the tour listings, and its one superstar, Nefertari's tomb, is priced and ticketed separately from everything else. The table sums up the differences using the figures in this guide.

If you want to see Tutankhamun's actual burial, read the Tutankhamun's tomb guide, and for the tomb of Seti I, see the tomb of Seti I page.

Tours That Cover Both Valleys

Several bookable tours combine the two valleys in one outing, and the full run of listings sits in the comparison table, so here is just the short version. The private West Bank day covering kings, queens and Hatshepsut costs $89.24 with entry tickets to the Valley of the Queens included. The shared half day with lunch costs $55 and takes in both valleys and the Colossi of Memnon, with entry fees as an add-on option. The private both-banks day with Tutankhamun's tomb costs $80 and adds the Valley of the Queens to a full East and West Bank circuit. Check what each ticket actually includes before booking, because entry fees are optional add-ons on two of the three.

If you are building your own day instead, the valley pairs naturally with the Temple of Hatshepsut, the Colossi of Memnon and Medinet Habu, and the Luxor hot air balloon flight is a separate booking. Travellers based in Hurghada can add it to a Luxor day trip from Hurghada, and for the whole picture of what a day here costs, compare Valley of the Kings tours before you commit.