Seti I: The Mighty Pharaoh Who Built the World’s Longest and Deepest Tomb

Religion was a profound part of ancient Egyptians’ lives as individuals and collectively as a nation. They believed in the afterlife and that they would live for eternity following their earthly journey once they went through the final judgement. That is why they were hugely concerned about building tombs and filling them with everything they thought the deceased might need to live a good life on the other side.

In this matter, what we like to call the art of tomb building witnessed noticeable development in ancient Egypt. At first, pharaohs used to build pyramids as their burial places. Such architecture evolved significantly until the Great Pyramids of Giza highlighted it—we explored this broadly in a recent story.

But just like the high-waisted bell-bottom trousers, maxi dresses, pageboy, and afro hairstyles that were popular in the 1970s but later went extinct, the trend of pyramid building in Lower Egypt ended at some point and was later replaced by the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens in Upper Egypt.

In those valleys, tombs were rather rock-cut, wholly hidden in the mountains or underground to provide more privacy and conservation, which it did for thousands of years. Yet, when a massive wave of Egyptomania took the world by storm during the 18th century, a vast excavation activity started, leading to an enormous stream of amazing discoveries.

One of the earliest and most magnificent is that of King Seti I. This tomb best represents the innovation and brilliance ancient Egyptians attained back then. In this article, we will look into Seti I’s reign and go underground to explore his mighty tomb, which is nothing like any other, before or after.

Seti I

Seti I was one of the greatest pharaohs of ancient Egypt. He was the son and successor of King Ramesses I, who established the 19th Dynasty, the second of the New Kingdom of Egypt (1550 BC to 1069 BC). Seti I was also the father of Ramesses II, who is considered almost unanimously the greatest Pharaoh of all time.

Coming to power in 1290 BC, Seti I had a relatively long reign of 20 years, allowing him to fulfil many of his ambitions. His many military campaigns and tremendous building activity highlighted most of those. Exploring those, in particular, would take as long as climate change needs to be reversed. So, we will limit it here to several significant achievements.

Fighting the Hittites

Seti I was a great military leader, and his top priority was expanding Egypt’s borders. So, he led military campaigns to and succeeded in dominating Canaan—this is now Palestine, Jordan, and southern Syria and Lebanon. At the time, the Hittites also had activity in the region. Those were ancient Anatolian people who established the Hattusa Empire in North and Central Anatolia, modern-day Turkey.

The Hittites were highly aggressive. They took over many of the Egyptian territories and generally represented a massive threat to Egypt’s stability. So, Seti, I got into wars with them to weaken their grip. Although he could not completely destroy them, his son Ramesses II did. Seti I defeated the Hittites many times, stopped their march toward Egypt, and regained control over some of the lost territories.

The Great Wall of Hypostyle

Seti I made significant architectural developments regarding building activities and was one of the most prolific pharaohs. He built forts at the borders to protect Egypt and opened new quarries in Aswan from which stones were taken to build temples, shrines, statues and obelisks.

Maybe one of the most famous and impressive monuments that Seti I built was the Great Wall of Hypostyle in al-Karnak Temple.

This is an enclosed 5,000-square-metre wall, the largest in the world, comprising 16 rows of 134 massive columns on which a roof used to rest. The columns were made of sandstone in the shape of papyrus stalks, a plant from which ancient Egyptians made paper.

The columns of the two middle rows are as tall as 24 metres and are topped with enormous open papyrus capitals. The side columns, on the other hand, are 12 metres tall and have closed papyrus capitals. Inscriptions on the columns of the northern wing of the wall were completed during Seti I’s reign. They describe scenes from his military expeditions and battles with the Hittites.

The inscriptions on the southern wing, however, were completed by Seti I’s son, King Ramesses II. They also describe his wars and subsequent victory over the Hittites and the peace treaty he signed with them, the first of its kind in the entire world.

Temple of Seti I

Another outstanding monument that King Seti I built was the Great Temple of Abydos. Abydos was a sacred city where many pharaohs were buried, which later made it one of the most highly important archaeological sites and eventually a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The Great Temple of Abydos was an important religious site since it was primarily dedicated to the gods. It was built from limestone and surrounded by a gigantic enclosure wall. The temple had a remarkable L-shaped design, including a large 12-column hypostyle hall like that in the al-Karnak Temple, and it comprised many courtyards and chambers.

At the entrance, there is a stairway ramp that used to lead to a pylon that had thawed to the temple’s interior. While the stairway is still in good condition, the pylon was destroyed.

What is so impressive about this temple is the beautiful inscriptions, decorations, and reliefs on the walls, which depict the achievements of the Pharaoh and scenes from the most important periods of his life, as well as others from ancient Egyptian mythology.

In his temple, Seti I built the Gallery of the Kings to honour his predecessors, who helped create the great civilisation of Egypt. This is a wall list of all the names of the previous pharaohs Seti I recognised as powerful and significant.

Such a wall is valuable to Egyptologists since it informs them of many things about the earlier periods of Egyptian history. They even equate its importance with the Palette of Narmer or the Rosetta Stone.

Tomb of Seti I

King Seti I was a man of his word, and he ensured his tomb would be as great as the other monuments he had constructed. Seti I’s tomb turned out to be so magnificent that it broke many records.

First, it is the deepest tomb in the Valley of the Kings. It was dug diagonally underground and has a total length of 137 metres, which makes it the longest tomb in the entire Valley. That is more than the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

The tomb is also one of the largest in the Valley, with an area of 649 square metres. It comprises seven corridors and ten chambers, each on a different level and connected by gates and stairways.

In addition, Seti I’s tomb is one of the best-decorated ones ever discovered. Not even a tiny space on the walls or ceilings was left undecorated. Everywhere, there are inscriptions, reliefs, and paintings dazzling in the most vivid colours, preserved for thousands of years until the tomb was discovered in the early 19th century.

Structure

So, what exactly is this tomb-like?

Well, a quick description of the tomb can mention that the tomb’s 17 chambers and corridors are distributed over 137 metres; corridors have different lengths, and chambers have different areas. We can also say that some rooms have pillars and others do not, but all encompass thousands of inscriptions, paintings, and decorations. 

This would pretty much do the job; however, it does not give any sense of how complicated the tomb’s structure really is.

So here is how complicated the structure of the tomb is.

Tourists first encounter an opening in the mountain. Behind it are a few steps followed by a bench that leads to the official entrance of the tomb. These steps were added after the tomb was discovered to ease entry.

The bench is then followed by an undecorated stairway of 26 steps descending at a relatively small angle known as Entryway A. Through Gate B, which is found at the end of Entryway A, one can move to the long inclined Corridor B.

Corridor B is then connected to Corridor D through another set of steps called Stairwell C. From its other side, Corridor D leads to a small, deep chamber called Well Chamber E. 

After Well Chamber E, a few descending steps lead to Pillared Chamber F, which, as the name suggests, has four pillars.

Interestingly, this room has three gates. The first leads to it from Well Chamber E. The second is on the opposite side and leads through a few descending steps to the two-pillar Side Chamber Fa. Then, there is an opening on the floor of Pillared Chamber F, to which some steps called Descend F are attached.

Descend F then takes visitors to Corridor G and Corridor H, leading to Chamber I. This small room precedes the most important chamber of this entire structure, Burial Chamber J.

Burial Chamber J is where the Pharaoh was supposedly buried. It is the largest chamber in the tomb, with six pillars and five Side Chambers: Ja, Jb, Jc, Jd, and Je. These chambers have different sizes. One, Je, has four pillars, and another, Jb, has two, while the other three do not have any pillars but are the same small size.

The four-pillared Side Chamber Je is connected to the final Corridor K.

Decorations

Fifteen of the 17 sections of the tomb are decorated with thousands of raised-relief hieroglyphic funerary texts, prayers, and spells taken from ancient religious books intended to protect and guide the dead King to the afterlife. There are also many cartouches holding the Pharaoh’s many different names.

Additionally, there are so many beautifully, vividly coloured paintings, either of the Seti I with the gods or depicting scenes from religious books, such as showing priests performing religious rituals.

The entire tomb’s ceiling is also decorated. Some parts have paintings of the gods, and others are just deep blue with gold stars representing the night sky, like the ceiling of Queen Nefertari’s tomb.

Discovery

The tomb was discovered by Italian Egyptologist Giovanni Batista Belzoni precisely on 16 October 1817. Once he opened the door and stepped in, he immediately realised he was before something no one had encountered.

As Belzoni descended the corridors and stairways, he felt hypnotised by the thought of discovering the unknown, just like Alice chased the pink-eyed white rabbit down his hole out of curiosity and mesmerisation. Belzoni found walls with perfect raised reliefs, pillars with paintings in excellent condition, looking so fresh and vivid as if they were done the day before, and thousands of symbols he had no idea what they meant.

At that time, French Linguist Champollion was still at his office staring day and night at the Rosetta Stone, feeling all enchanted, mesmerised and confused but still determined to find a way to know what the symbols on the Stone referred to. It was not until 1822 that he deciphered the hieroglyphics, and for the first time, the world could know what all the ancient Egyptian writings meant.

That being said, it is not mentioned anywhere that the tomb held any treasures, which may indicate it was opened and robbed before. Even though the King’s sarcophagus was there, it was empty. The King’s mummy, however, was later discovered in the Royal Mummy cache. This is a gigantic tomb in Deir el-Bahari, five kilometres from the Valley of the Kings. Egyptologists highly believe the Pharaoh’s mummy was later moved there to hide it from thieves and intruders. 

Damage

Yet, we cannot say it would have been much better if the tomb had remained undiscovered.

Since it was discovered in 1817 and until the early 1950s, the tomb was exposed to robbery and damage first by the person who found it, Belzoni himself, and later by others who excavated it.

Despite him being an Egyptologist and all who theoretically should have the most profound appreciation for Egyptian Civilisation, it seems like Belzoni had shown no respect to the King or his sacred tomb. Instead of celebrating and preserving the architectural masterpiece he discovered, he destroyed and robbed it.

At first, Belzoni wanted to copy the artwork on the tomb walls. So he applied a technique called squeezes, using plaster, wet wax, and paper, pressed them against the paintings, and let them dry to create a negative impression of them. While somewhat succeeding, he damaged the paintings as their colours were removed.

In addition, Belzoni illegally cut big relief pieces and sent them to Europe. He also flooded the tomb when he removed the rubble that had blocked floodwaters for thousands of years, damaging the reliefs of Entryway A.

Belzoni’s nasty behaviour sadly encouraged other explorers to follow suit. British Egyptologist Henry Salt ordered the removal of the sarcophagus of Seti I, the King’s very sacred stone coffin, to display it in Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. Even Champollion, Italian Egyptologist Rossellini and German Egyptologist Karl Richard Lepsius removed huge wall panels and many elements from the tomb to display in the Louvre, the Egyptian Museum in Florence and the Neues Museum in Berlin.

In the 1950s, excavations also damaged the tomb, causing some walls to crack and others to collapse completely. This eventually made some tomb chambers unstable and, therefore, risky to enter. Visits also damaged the tomb, as tourism was not well controlled or regulated, so the tombs were open and closed most of the time during the second half of the 20th century.

It was not until the early 21st century that the tomb got proper attention and underwent restoration and preservation using the latest technology. This made the Egyptian Authorities reopen the tomb for visits, but at a pretty high price. A foreign tourist ticket is worth EGP 1000, while Egyptians pay EGP 500 or EGP 250 if they are students.

The Valley of the Kings is a rich necropolis where so many magnificent royal tombs welcome thousands of visitors daily. Yet, opposite it, on the eastern bank of the Nile, is Luxor, where the enchanting architectural achievements of all those royals are located and whose visit is a one-in-a-lifetime, never-to-miss experience.