These are carry-overs from Middle Kingdom plans and, like all features of royal tombs from the Middle and New Kingdoms, architectural reflections of the path the deceased was thought to take from this life to the next. Only a few chambers in these early tombs were decorated. Many walls were not even smoothed or plastered. Usually, the decorated rooms included the well chamber and the burial chamber, but even they were often incompletely done. The decoration consisted largely of texts and scenes from the Imydwat, the “Book of That Which is in the Netherworld,” also called the “Book of the Secret Chamber.” It gives an hour-by-hour description of the nighttime journey of the sun through the Netherworld. This emphasis on the Imydwat did not diminish until the end of Dynasty 18.The tomb of Thutmes III lies in a narrow cut in the bedrock cliffs high above the floor of the Valley of the Kings. It is an unusual location (only KV 20, Hatshepsut’s tomb, is even vaguely similar) and an impressive one. In ancient times, access to the tomb was by means of a path at the top of the cliff or via a mudbrick staircase built up from the Valley floor to the edge of the cut. That staircase was removed after the king’s funeral and replaced only a few decades ago by a steel staircase rising over twenty meters above the Valley floor. (Climbing this openwork staircase is not recommended for the acrophobic.) From the top of the stairs, one walks 20 meters (60 feet) along a narrow, natural cleft in the bedrock to the tomb’s entrance. It is a dramatic approach and the view of the Valley of the Kings from here is impressive. Steps and a ramp cut into the bedrock run steeply downward from the tomb entrance, descending through unplastered, undecorated corridors to chamber E, a square room known as the well. It is about 7 meters (21 feet) deep. This is the first example of a well in a tomb in the Valley of the Kings, and Egyptologists have offered several explanations for its presence. One is that it was meant to thwart tomb robbers. Upon entering the tomb, thieves would encounter the deep well and see that the wall beyond it was sealed with stone and plaster. They would assume that the tomb was unfinished and contained nothing worth stealing and they would leave. If this is correct, the ruse never worked. Thieves seemed to know from the outset that tombs continued beyond the well chamber. Another theory is that the well was intended to trap floodwaters from torrential rainstorms and prevent water from reaching the burial chamber and damaging the mummy and funerary equipment. This explanation, too, isunconvincing A third explanation is that the shaft was the symbolic burial place of the god Osiris, the quintessential god of the afterlife. In some tombs, KV 35 for example, well shafts had chambers cut at their base, a feature that lends support to this theory and seems to invalidate the first two.

The WELL CHAMBER here has a decorated ceiling with yellow stars on a blue background and a khekherfrieze painted along the top of the walls. Beyond the well shaft, CHAMBER F is a quadrilateral room with two off-center, undecorated pillars. The walls are elaborately painted with the names of the 741 deities who appear in the Imydwat.
A steep staircase in the left front corner of the room leads through the floor into the burial chamber. The BURIAL CHAMBER is large, about 14.6 meters (46 feet) by 8.5 meters (28 feet), and has an oval plan. Its shape may have been intended to represent a cartouche in which royal names were written. The walls of the chamber are covered with scenes and texts from the Imydwat. They are drawn in black and red ink on a light yellow background, painted to mimic text on a roll of papyrus. The hieroglyphs and figures are done in a cursive style like that used on papyri, written with rapid, minimalist brush strokes that produce stick-like, almost comic-book-style scenes. Although simple, they are admirable examples of the artist’s talent.The Imydwat is divided into twelve hours, the first to fourth on the chamber’s front wall, fifth and sixth on the right wall, seventh and eighth on the left, ninth to twelfth on the rear. [For more detailed descriptions, see the tomb of Rameses VI. See also another version of the text in the tomb of Amenhetep II.] The first hour starts at the entrance to the netherworld, at the Gate Which Swallows All. It describes the netherworld’s inhabitants and continues the list of 741 deities given in chamber F. In the second and third hours, the netherworld’s fertile farmlands are described, and evil beings are overcome by knifewielding figures. The fourth hour takes us to the desert land of Ro-Setau, the Land of Sokar Who Is Upon His Sand, a place of snakes, barred doors, and darkness. Here and in the fifth hour, male and female figures tow the solar bark through blackness and thirst. In the sixth hour, the sun, in the form of a scarab beetle, reaches midnight in the depths of the netherworld. Ra and Osiris join together and the living king brings his dead ancestors back to life. In the seventh hour, the snake-god Apophis tries to blot out the sun, but he is defeated by Isis, Seth, and Serqet; Osiris triumphs over his enemies. In the eighth and ninth hours, Ra opens the doors of five caverns and provides clothing for the worthy dead. In the tenth, a rectangular pool is shown, filled with the floating bodies of those who have died by drowning. They are considered especially blessed, and although a normal funeral is not possible, Horus carries them safely into the netherworld. In the eleventh hour, preparations are made for sunrise. In the twelfth hour, twelve men and thirteen women pull the bark of the blessed dead into daylight, and the sun, shown as a beetle, joins Shu, the god of air, at the start of another day. Four small SIDE CHAMBERS lie off the burial chamber; each was used for the storage of funerary equipment.

Several faces of the two pillars in the burial chamber were decorated with scenes and texts from The Litany of Ra, a text that praises the sun god and associates him with the pharaoh. On the left side of the first pillar is a justly famous scene of Thutmes III being suckled by Isis, shown as a tree goddess. The economy of lines is impressive. The breast of Isis emerges from the branches of the sycomore tree (Ficus sycomorus) and she holds it toward the king. A larger second figure of the king stands at left, watching himself being suckled. This lovely scene has unfortunately suffered in recent years from thoughtless tourists and guides who have poked at the drawing.
The beautiful cartouche-shaped, quartzite sarcophagus still sits in the burial chamber. It is actually cut from yellow quartzite but was painted red to mimic red granite, a considerably more valuable stone. Its sides are decorated with figures of the king and various deities.

KV 34 was discovered in 1898 and cleared by Victor Loret, then director of theAntiquities Service. The tomb had been robbed in antiquity, a brutal attack on its contents made by thieves who tossed things about and smashed what they did not cart away. Apparently, the thieves carried many of the objects they found to KV 4, at the entrance to the Valley of the Kings, where they could sort through them at leisure. Clearing of KV 4 in 1978 revealed a number of pieces with Thutmes III’s name on them. The mummy of Thutmes III was taken from the tomb in antiquity and reburied in TT 320, the cache of royal mummies near Dayr al-Bahari.

From" The Illustrated Guide to Luxor" by kent R.Weeks ,published by the American University in Cairo Press. Copyright © 2005 White Star S.p.a