The Tomb of Pharaoh Sethos (Seti) I. (KV 17)

The tomb of Sethos I. was discovered on 16th October 1817 by Giovanni Battista Belzoni. Sethos' tomb is the "longest, deepest and most completely finished of all the tombs in the valley."

The pictures from left to right: 1) Plan of the tomb KV 17 2) Sethos I presents offerings to Re-Horakhty 3) The pharaoh before the god Atum 4) The goddes Nut (Sethos' sarkophagus)

"In its decoration, too, the tomb of Sethos I marks an apex of development. It represents the first royal tomb to be decorated thoughout all its passages and chambers, and was lavished with extremely fine paintings and reliefs comparable in quality to those of the king's cenotaph at Abydos. [...] For the first time, the Litany of Re appears on the walls of the first two passages, with scenes form the Amduat also in the second passage and at lower points in the tomb. Previously, these works had appeared only in the burial chambers of the royal tombs, and are evidently now given new symbolic emphasis. The well haft of Sethos I follows the established pattern of scenes showing the king before various gods, but the pillared hall is decorated with scenes from the Book of Gates and with another innovation, the Osiris shrine, which marks the transition into lower reaches of most Ramessid tombs. The lower pasages depict scenes from the 'opening of the mouth' ceremony, and the antechamber has various divine scenes similar to those found in Horemheb. In addition to the Book of Gates and Amduat scenes, the burial hamber contains the first occurence of an astronomical ceiling, with specific constellations of the night sky depicted along with the various decans or calendar units."

"Belzoni makes mention of several items of burial furniture still present in the tomb at the time of his initial entry, including 'the carcass of a bull ..., embalmed by asphaltum' in room Je, and (in this same room?) 'an immense quantity of small ... figures of mummies' - shabtis - in wood and faience."
"Belzoni's most important find the the magnificent anthropoid sarcophagus of calcite, now in the Soane Museum in London, which is lavishly incised with scenes and texts from the Book of Gates picked out in powdered blue frit."
The mummy was removed in antiquity and was - well-preserved - discovered among the bodies recovered by Emile Brugsch from the Deir el-Bahri royal cache (DB 320) in the year 1981.

There are various "Afterlife Books", the major works are (in chronological order): Amduat, Litany of Re, Book of Gates, Book of the Dead, Book of Caverns, Book of the Heavens and Book of the Earth.

All fotos can be enlarged, please click on them!

Remarks: This information and the pictures are from: Reeves, Nicholas/Wilkinson, Richard H.: The Complete Valley of the Kings. Tombs and Treasures of Egypt's Greatest Pharaos. London 1997, p. 136 - 139. The plan of the tomb is taken from my private collection.