What's a Wadi?

Early the next morning, with Ammut having stayed on his side of death and no one having been devoured, our group gathers in the lobby of the ship, ready for our last day in Luxor. Although the largest part of the city of Luxor lies on the East Bank of the Nile, today we have an appointment with the dead, on the West Bank. 

This is the location of the Valley of the Kings, the burial place of the New Kingdom pharaohs. Burial in pyramids—beckoning beacons for tomb robbers—having been abandoned in favour of less conspicuous real estate, the mummies of the pharaohs, from Tuthmoses the First onward, were laid to rest for eternity, surrounded by untold treasure, deep in the bedrock of the West Bank. 

 

The ancient Egyptians were very keen on the idea of duality, their version of Yin and Yang. The pharaoh was known as the Lord of the Two Lands, King of Upper and Lower Egypt. There was the Black Land and the Red Land, referring to the sediment-rich black soil deposited by the flood of the Nile over the red sand of the desert. 

East and West also held great significance. The cycle of the sun, rising in the East and setting in the West, was seen as the cycle of life. Born in the East, the sun travels across the sky to die in the West. Thus, the East bank became associated with the living, and the West bank, with the dead. Because of this, as explained by Egyptologist Dr. Bob Brier, the deceased were sometimes referred to as the Westerners. So, we’re going to spend the afternoon with the Westerners. Yee ha!

After leaving the ship, we cross the Nile by bus via a relatively new bridge—before its construction, the crossing had to be done by ferry—and drive along the West bank through lush farmland abounding with sugar cane, one of Egypt’s major crops. Fifteen minutes later, the verdant riverbank gives way to the desert. Just like that. One minute, everything’s green, and the next, everything’s all different shades of beige; a drastic change in a very short distance. 

We reach the Valley of the Kings and there’s nothing but mountains and valleys full of rock, dusty and barren. There’s no vegetation whatsoever, not even a fake palm tree. The whole area is entirely desolate, utterly beautiful, and unbelievably immense. I cannot begin to fathom how they discovered any of the pharaohs’ tombs. Every mound, every recess, every rocky protrusion looks like all the other mounds, recesses, and protrusions. If I were an Egyptologist eager to discover a tomb, I would have absolutely no idea where to plant my shovel and start digging. 

Looking for a tomb here is like looking for a needle in a haystack, or more appropriately, a rock in a wadi.

 

Neither did they, according to a popular story. Once upon a time, a local man—I don’t know his name, so let’s call him Yousef—was walking in the wadi, leading his horse (or donkey, depending on who’s telling the story) across the rocky terrain, on his way home from a long day of wadi-walking. Suddenly, one of the horse’s hooves fell through a hole in the ground and he got stuck. Yousef, trying to free the poor beast, dug around the hole and found the opening of a tomb. 

The funny thing is, no matter which tomb is being discussed, and with whom the discussion takes place, this is always the story that comes up as to its discovery. Apparently, Yousef and his tomb-diviner-horse-donkey-extraordinaire discovered most of the burials in the Valley of the Kings. Busy fellow!

I think the heat is getting to my neurons, I hear voices. Oh, it’s you, esteemed reader. You have a question? What’s a wadi? It’s a dry valley or gully, and during the rainy season, a stream runs through it, somewhat like a kidney after too many beers. The Valley of the Kings is a huge bunch of old wadis. I don’t know the origin of the word, but maybe when the French-speaking folk first came here, they just pointed at the gullies and asked, “Wadis dis? Wadis dat?” And the name stuck. 

Let’s get back to the matter at hand. The kings’ tombs, built by digging down into the bedrock, were sealed and hidden in an effort to protect them from pillage by thieves. What’s that? Yes, I know the phrase pillage by thieves is somewhat redundant. Of course, pillage would be done by thieves. It certainly wouldn’t be pillage by dermatologists, or pillage by sushi vendors. But, at least, it’s not as bad as if I’d said pillage by pillagers. Now that would be very bad. It would be a waste of words, really. Waste of ink, waste of paper. Waste of my time writing it, waste of your time reading it . . .

Anyway, let’s continue. Alluvial deposits, the debris carried by the above-mentioned streams, would sometimes cover the tomb’s entrance and help camouflage it even more. Sadly this wasn’t enough to foil the more robust robbers as most of the burial sites, by the time of their discovery, had already been totally looted by looters.

Most of them, but not all. The small tomb of a relatively obscure pharaoh dodged the plunder by plunderers and survived almost intact until its discovery in 1922. Thanks to Howard Carter, the burial chamber of the boy king Tutankhamun was revealed to the whole world in all its glory. Its royal inhabitant and priceless contents have become famous. So much so, that King Tut and his gold mask have become almost synonymous with Egypt.   

So far, over sixty tombs have been discovered in the Valley of the Kings with undoubtedly more awaiting discovery, and of those, perhaps some that escaped robbery by robbers. Okay, I’ll behave now.

For tourists, different burial sites are open at different times. It’s a tomb rotation of sorts, although there doesn’t seem to be any set schedule as to what’s open on any particular day. It’s almost like a lottery. You show up, and if you’re afraid of heights—or say, have a broken ankle—you just have to hope that the only tomb open that day is not the one that is solely accessible by scaling the sheer rock face with the help of a skimpy rope ladder. You think I’m kidding, but there is such a tomb, according to Yasmin, our fountain of knowledge.