The Tomb of Seti I, Valley of the Kings

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A guided tour

Welcome to the tomb of Seti I, one of the biggest and most beautifully decorated tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

Seti I was the father of the famous pharaoh Ramesses II and ruled Egypt during the Nineteenth Dynasty, around 3,300 years ago.

In the entrance to his tomb, a series of vultures leads us West and deeper into the tomb. Behind them amber stars line dark twilight-blue sky.

The tomb starts with the Litany of Ra or “Book of Adoring Ra in the West,” invoking the sun-god, Ra, in 75 different forms.

This descent into the tomb represented the Pharaoh’s journey into the Netherworld, following the path that Ra did each night.

Each of the columns contains a prayer to Ra at the top and a figure below. It begins like this:

Praise to you, Ra, the high power, Lord of the Caverns, with concealed forms, Who rests in the mysteries, When he changes into One made whole.

The goddess Ma’at spreads her wings over the passage downward and offers protection to the Pharaoh buried within.

Seti was the son of Ramesses I and father of the famous Ramesses II, whose tombs are nearby outside.

He wanted to restore Egypt to its former glory after years of turmoil under the pharaoh Akenaten.

Statue of Seti I. Circa 1294-1279 BCE. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Moving inward, the walls show scenes from the end of the Amduat, or Book of the Secret Chamber.

It tells the story of Ra traveling through the 12 divisions of the Netherworld, or 12 hours of the night, and his fight against the snake-god Apophis.

These scenes show the slanting path where Ra’s boat must be dragged. Three snakes face a cobra named Selket with an ankh in front of her.

Behind lies a three-headed snake with legs and wings. The inscriptions call him the “Great One, who lives at the entrance to the sacred road by the wind of his wings.”

On the opposite wall, seven goddesses welcome the sacred boat and Ra and pull him through the sands of the Netherworld.

They drag his boat over a pyramid-shaped mound–in the area that’s damaged, the dune would’ve been crowned by the head of Isis, saying “The body of Isis on the sands of the land of Sokar.”

At the end of the corridor, the tomb opens into a deep well filled with debris. These were built into the tombs to prevent flood waters from destroying the tomb.

In the desert outside the tomb, flash floods are rare but devastating when they occur.

The well changes to a brilliant blue background showing scenes of Seti gods and goddesses such as Hathor, Ptah, and Osiris.

If flood waters threatened the tomb, they would’ve filled this well first and the protected the deeper chambers.

The well opens out into this elaborate chamber with four pillars in the center. Scenes from the middle of the Book of the Gates are painted along its walls.

This scene starts from the right and follows toward the back of the room. The red rectangle is a Gate of the Netherworld, guarded by the snake throughout its center.

To the left, we see the boat of Ra again being dragged by the dwellers of the Netherworld. He is accompanied on his boat by Knowledge and Magic. A sacred snake protects him.

Above, divine beings with forked staffs have been swallowed by the evil serpent Apophis and wait to be freed.

Below the god of Netherworld rests on his spear beside an enormous snake whose body holds twelve mummies who are brought back to life as Ra passes.

You’ll find the number twelve repeated continually throughout these paintings, connected to the twelve hours of the night.

In the center here, twelve cloaked beings carry the mystery of Ra to the temple on the far wall. As the Netherworld is mysterious, their arms are covered.

Above, divine beings seize the Evil Snake. Ra calls out to the beings who the snake has already eaten and instructs them to eat their way out of the snake while he is restrained.

Twelve heads emerge from the snake as the beings that the snake ate emerge from the belly of the snake.

In front of them, divine beings hold a double-braided rope coming from the mouth of a mummy on the left.

The mummy continually eats the rope and then the rope comes back out from its mouth, and as each coil comes out, an hour of the night comes into being, represented by a star.

Another theme in the Netherworld is that just like the physical body needs to be reborn, time itself needs to be reborn.

Below, is one of the darkest scenes–though the doorway is cut through the middle of it. Twelve guardians lean in over a circular pit of flames containing a cobra on the thickness of the doorway.

On either side, a mummy looks on and the flames light their faces. The souls that have wronged the god Osiris burn in torment.

This chamber was never finished, but contains only the unpainted line drawings of the Amduat that extend the flaming depths from the previous wall.

The sacred boat of Ra sails behind twelve divine beings that carry the coils of the great Snake that encircles the entire earth.

Below in the faintly red fiery pits are the punishments of the damned. A snake breathes fire onto the multitudes and goddesses holding knives guard the pits.

On the adjacent wall, divine beings and three mummified animals bring offerings to the gods in the Netherworld.

To the right are humans who have drowned in Nun and couldn’t have a proper burial, but Ra blesses them in the afterlife the same.

Moving back to the start of the main chamber, along the next wall is another Gate representing another hour of the night and journey through the Netherworld.

In front of this gate are two serpents sacred to Ra who breathe fire. Nine mummies of the gods and goddesses appear in the gateway.

Inside, we see Ra’s sacred boat being dragged through the sand. And below him, the four races of the Earth, as the ancient Egyptians understood them, are depicted–the Nubians, Asiatics, Libyans, and Egyptians.

People from foreign lands also went to the Netherworld, and Ra greets them there, saying “You are the tears of my luminous eye.”

In the early days of creation, the ancient Egyptians believed that Ra, the sun god, created humanity from his tears.

According to myth, when Ra looked at creation, in a mixture of love and sorrow, he wept, and his tears fell to the earth and transformed into the first humans.

Statue of Amun-Ra. Karnak Temple. National Museum of Egyptian Civilization, Cairo, Egypt.

From here, the scenes change tone. In the top scene, divine beings carry a measuring rope to measure out field plots for the Blessed Dead in the Netherworld.

Below, nine mummies hold a serpent in their arms called the Slithering One so that Ra can pass by them.

In the lowest section, divine beings carry a snake with sun-circles and the hieroglyph for “Lifetime” above each coil. Their name is “They who carry the Lifetime in the West.”

This council determines the lifetimes of souls and commands Ra’s enemies to the Palace of Destruction.

When Ra arrives to the end of this hour of the night, the gods and goddesses meet him in this doorway.

They say, “Come to us, Foremost of the Horizon, great god who has opened the Mysteries.”

Inside the doorway is the judgment hall of Osiris, but you can see here that Ra guides the Pharaoh Seti to meet Osiris on his throne.

The king is judged and deemed worthy by Osiris, and Ra’s light is renewed, so they can continue on their journey.

Beneath these, the tomb continues in its final descent to the chamber where the king was buried.

This stairway down was originally a covered floor, and the chambers below were totally hidden.

In the final corridors, we find the Opening of the Mouth ritual, where the mouth of the pharaoh’s mummy was opened after burial so that he could breathe in the next life.

First the king sits on his throne with an offering table and meal before him, and two priests attend to him to start the ritual.

The ritual began as a way to bring a statue to life, and gradually it extended to mummies as well.

The pharaoh may have been buried with a statue in the likeness of him, such as this statue of Ramesses I, his father–which his father was buried with.

Statue of Ramesses I, father of Seti I, from his nearby tomb in the Valley of the Kings. British Museum, London.

On these walls, the mummy of the Pharaoh is depicted as similar standing statue.

You can see the priests performing the ceremonies and bringing the mummy of the king offerings.

The text continues on the facing wall, where the mummy of the king is washed and dressed and presented with more offerings.

The priests continue performing their ritual in the next chamber, leading up to the Opening of the Mouth of the mummy of the king so that he could breathe in the afterlife.

As we approach the final burial chamber, the king meets the gods and goddesses and is welcomed among them.

When the tomb was entered by explorers in the 19th Century, they remarked how vibrant the original colors that had lasted 3,000 years were.

To record the colors, they poured wax directly against the paintings, and when the wax dried, unfortunately much of the color was pulled away.

For as beautiful as the walls are today, the original colors on the wax copies are preserved in the British Museum.

In the entry to the final chamber, the background changes to gold to depict the first scenes in the Book of the Gates.

As we made our way down, we’ve walked from the end of the books to their beginning, which started at the final resting place of the king.

This wall begins at the top with the blessed, who have lived good, just lives, and are rewarded in the Netherworld.

Below, the sacred boat of Ra meets the divine beings at the entrance.

Beneath him, the souls of the damned, who have done evil in their lives, walk with their arms bound behind them.

Their souls are condemned by Ra to unbeing and thrown into the abyss.

The book continues inside this doorway in a small room for one of the most important scenes.

Twelve goddesses that are the twelve Hours of the night approach the primordial waters, where the Time-snake Hereret dwells.

The Time-snake gives birth to twelve snakes, and each Hour eats one of the baby snakes, and then goes back to dwell in her Gate of the Netherworld.

In this scene, just as the body is renewed, time itself is renewed for Ra’s next journey the following day.

Outside, on the facing wall, the sacred boat is shown above the evil snake Apophis that we’ve seen earlier.

Atum fends him off, protecting the sacred boat and leaning on his spear.

The sacred boat is then dragged through this mysterious vessel called the Ship of the Earth, with bulls at either end.

As the boat enters, the earth shakes and the bulls bellow at Ra passes them.

This small chapel cuts into the scene. It contains a small but important text called the Book of the Heavenly Cow.

Inside the Heavenly Cow meets us. Ages ago, the ruler of humanity, Ra, had grown old, and humans had gone wayward. Chaos ruled.

The elder god Ra rode this Cow into heaven and sent the lioness goddess Sehkment to punish those who had grown evil.

The rage of the goddess was brutal, and Ra created the Netherworld to hold the souls of the multitudes dead.

After the destruction, Ra established peace, symbolized here by the Cow, and the gods beneath support her belly and legs–and new order in the cosmos.

Throughout the hall, the pillars depict the pharaoh meeting the gods and goddess and being welcomed and blessed by them.

These lead to the main lower chamber where the Pharaoh was laid to his final rest.

This is the first tomb they created with a vaulted ceiling and astral charts painted above.

The ceiling shows charts of stars and constellations, most of which haven’t been identified in our sky, but you can make out Orion, Sirius, and the Big Dipper.

Below, along these walls is the start of the Amduat, where Ra enters the gate of the horizon to start his journey through the Netherworld.

In another boat, Osiris honors a giant scarab beetle representing the god Khepri, foreshadowing his rebirth in the sunrise at the end of the night.

In the next scene, the boats of the blessed and the gods and goddesses line the Nile river and fertile fields of the Netherworld.

This wall was partially destroyed by robbers searching for more hidden chambers and treasures.

To the right, Ra meets more gods and divine beings in their own boats on the Nile and fertile pastures surrounding.

The pharaoh was buried in the center of the chamber in his sarcophagus and nested coffins.

His sarcophagus was made of translucent alabaster so that light may have shown from the inside.

The Sarcophagus of Seti I. Sir John Soane Museum, London.

The sarcophagus also contains a full inscription of the Book of the Gates, echoing the tomb walls and ensuring that the king joined with Ra on his journey for rebirth.

The Sarcophagus of Seti I. Sir John Soane Museum, London.

Beneath the sarcophagus, an extremely long chamber descends beneath the tomb here. Its full depths still haven’t been properly excavated or published.

According to the Theban Mapping Project website, “In 2001, a project to geophysically explore the corridor was approved by the Supreme Council of Antiquities. No results have yet been published.”

One egyptologist theorizes that the long descending passage was dug to try to reach the level of the natural water table.

Ra is reborn every morning from the watery abyss of Nun, so the king may have been able to follow and be resurrected with him.

That concludes the tour of the tomb of Seti I. There’s more of the book of Amduat in the remaining chamber, so click Free Explore or continue to explore other tombs in the Valley of the Kings.