Who are Ramesses II and Nefertari?

Born on the 22 of February 1303 B.C., Ramesses II ruled for 66 years as the third king of the 19^th Dynasty, before he died in 1213 B.C.  Nefertari, Ramesses II’s favourite wife, was born in 1301 and reigned alongside him beginning in 1279.  Her date of death is unknown but seems to have occurred scarcely three years after Year Twenty One (McDonald 1996).

Both the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens are located in western Thebes.  The Egyptians placed their cemeteries to the west, believing the netherworld existed in the land of the setting sun (McDonald 1996).  Ramesses II’s tomb is located in the Valley of the Kings.  Although not the largest tomb, the surface area is vast and the tomb is considered to be one of the grandest ever constructed.   Nefertari’s tomb is tunnelled into the northern slope of the Valley of the Queens.  Within the tomb, “descending stairways, asymmetries of design, and the skewing of the tomb’s axis are all thought to allude to the torturous topography of the Egyptian netherworld” (McDonald 1996).  Similar to Ramesses II’s tomb, Nefertari’s is the most spectacular tomb of any queen.


Valley of the Kings


Valley of the Queens