The Tomb of Siptah KV47

The Tomb of SIPTAH
 KV47

Tomb number KV47 is a tomb dedicated to Siptah a young teenage man who came to the throne during the 19th dynasty because his older brother, Seti-Merenptah, died prior to the death of their father Seti II. His stepmother, Tausret, along with her Chancellor "kingmaker" Bay actually controlled Egypt during the Siptah’s short life. Siptah seems to have died in the 6th year of his reign, after which his stepmother took full royal titles.

Strangely this flood damaged and unfinished tomb is one of my favorite tombs in the Valley of the Kings, and you may wonder why as there are many tombs in far better condition. All I can offer in my defense of this tomb is that on my own journey through this tomb, I actually felt that it had transported me to experience the real feelings and emotions of eternity in a way no other tomb has managed to do.

When I first entered the tomb it felt to me like many other tombs, with long square gently sloping decorated walls, and it was only further into the underworld that I realized the power of this tomb. As I walked through the entrance into the tomb I saw the goddess Ma'at, kneeling with her wings stretching to embrace and greet the arrival of the king, I walked down this long corridor that is enlivened with a wonderfully vibrant ceiling of vultures in flight, this is the goddess Nekhbet in her role as the protector of the king, in her talons she holds the shen ring which offers protection for all eternity and as she flies through the heavenly stars she  protects the cartouche and name of the king for all time with the wings of her flight.

On the walls I saw Siptah on a vibrant yellow background; here the king is shown together with Re-Horakhty who holds a staff with the key of life to offer the king the breath of life for eternity. The litany of Re is written on the walls, this is a long list of all the names of Re which is then followed by a description and a praise of him. Re descends into the netherworld, renews life, cares for the blessed and punishes the damned. The God Anubis is shown preparing the king for his burial in the shelter and protection of the sisters of the goddess Isis.

I walk through three long corridors that descend gradually deeper into the bowels of the earth.Suddenly everything changes as the corridor opens up  into a pillared square hall that has a steep flight of stairs from its entrance that descend sharply towards a large rather gothic styled arched tunnel which seems an unusual deviant from the normally square Egyptian tunnels and corridors and offers me an unusual feeling of my own Christian religion and strange expectations. I walk through this badly damaged arched tunnel which leads directly into the anti-chamber and then the large burial chamber which seems more like a large cavern, with a rock ceiling unfinished and cut with jagged shards of rock that undulates and arches like a giant wave rising over the end of the massive red granite sarcophagus of Siptah, that has been designed into a shape of a cartouche and lies in the middle of the room. The body of the king is carved in high relief which rises on top of the lid of his sarcophagus; He is flanked by figures of Isis and Nephthys and surrounded by a crocodile, a snake and a pair of cobras with human heads and arms. I sat down in this huge room, as not many people visit here because it is high up at the far end of the valley of the kings, most tours only allow enough time for visiting the closest tombs, and so I sat alone on a broken pillar stump by the side of the sarcophagus, and here I became aware of the meaning of silence, and as I sit there the silence seemed to increase, and consume me,  as hard as I try all I can hear is the slight movement of my hand writing these words on the page of my notebook, the silence begins to suffocate me, and all that I become aware of is the blood passing through my own veins, and the beat of my heart, gradually  my body becomes quiet and accepts the peace offered, my ears  have stretched to their limit to grasp any form of a sound, and now I could imagine the vast overpowering volume of silence and extremes of eternity, the silence of the heavens and stars, I felt that I  had touched the essence of time and space and the weight of  eternity and the galaxy above in this burial chamber that in its roughest form of jagged rock imitated a cycle of nature with its ceiling like the sea that comes to the shore eternally like and giant crashing wave, takes the soul away leaving behind on the shore the damaged no longer required carcass of the mortal body of Siptah with his deformed club foot, his  spirit ascends and takes flight across the galaxy until it rests amongst the stars, and then it grows, and becomes another thought in the mind of a mortal man once more.

I stood up totally calm, refreshed renewed and wiped clean, and I headed for the entrance of the tomb once more, I climbed the steep staircase which led to a corridor and shaft of visible white and turquoise light that beckoning me forwards, and as I reached the entrance and walked out into the warmth of daylight a hawk screeched overhead and flew over the top high into the sky above the craggy walls enclosing this cul-de-sac in the Valley of the kings.