Tomb of Ramesses VI (KV9)

Why is the Ramesses VI ceiling so famous?

The burial chamber ceiling shows the whole journey of the sun in one image: the sky goddess Nut, painted twice back to back, arches across the room, swallowing the sun at dusk and giving birth to it at dawn. One figure carries the Book of the Day, with the sun's boat sailing across her body through the daylight hours; the other carries the Book of the Night, its hours of darkness separated into registers.

The deep blue ground and gold-yellow bodies make this the most photographed ceiling in Egypt. The ancient Egyptians saw the sky as a body, not a dome, and this is the clearest picture of that idea anywhere. Our guide to Egyptian astronomy explains how they tracked the stars and hours.

On the burial chamber walls is the Book of the Earth, showing the sun's passage through the underworld, with the earth god Aker as a double sphinx.

What do you see before the burial chamber?

KV9 runs straight into the hill for about 117 metres, and every corridor is decorated, combining two afterlife books that appear together nowhere else in the valley: the Book of Gates on one side and the Book of Caves on the other. Above them, the corridor ceilings carry astronomical texts and figures, so the whole tomb reads as a map of the sun's night journey.

The colours are strong and the walls are crowded with figures, including bound and beheaded enemies of the sun god in the Book of Caves. Halfway down is a pillared hall, and in the burial chamber lie broken fragments of the king's granite sarcophagus, smashed by robbers. A large fragment of its lid, carved with the king's face, is in the British Museum.

The tomb was begun for Ramesses V and taken over and extended by Ramesses VI. Ramesses VI's mummy was found among the royal mummies hidden in the tomb of Amenhotep II (KV35) in 1898, badly damaged by ancient robbers.

What is the connection with Tutankhamun?

KV9's entrance is just above and beside Tutankhamun's tomb (KV62), and the huts of the workmen who cut it were built over KV62's entrance, hiding it for some 3,000 years. Tutankhamun had been buried nearly two centuries earlier, and the debris and huts left by Ramesses VI's builders buried the stairway so deeply that later robbers never found it.

Howard Carter worked down through those huts in his last season in November 1922, and found the first step of KV62 just below them. In that sense, Ramesses VI's builders were partly responsible for the best-preserved royal burial ever found. From the KV9 entrance you can look across to the low opening of Tutankhamun's tomb a few metres away.

Graffiti from ancient tourists

KV9 has been open since antiquity, and its walls carry around a thousand graffiti left by Greek and Roman visitors, more than any other tomb in the valley. Classical travellers believed it was the tomb of Memnon, the legendary king also linked to the Colossi of Memnon, and it became a stop on the ancient tourist trail.

Look near the entrance corridors for scratched Greek names and comments, some recording how impressed the writer was. Later Coptic visitors added their own. It is a reminder that tourism in Luxor is more than 2,000 years old.

The graffiti also explain the tomb's condition. Because KV9 stood open for so long, the lower parts of some walls are worn and smoke-stained, while the ceilings, out of reach, survived far better. That is one reason the astronomical ceilings are the tomb's glory.

Is the Ramesses VI ticket worth it?

Yes: for most visitors it is the best value of the three separately ticketed tombs, combining spectacular decoration with an easy walk and a lower price than Seti I. If you can only afford one extra, choose between KV9 for the ceiling and Seti I (KV17) for the carving; both outshine Tutankhamun's tomb for decoration.

• Access: a gentle ramp with a wooden walkway and handrails, and no steep stairs, so it suits visitors who find the deeper tombs difficult.
• Timing: it is one of the most popular tombs, so go to it early in your visit. The standard advice on arrival time and heat is in our Valley of the Kings guide.
• Tickets: bought at the valley visitor centre or online at the time of writing; check prices on egymonuments.gov.eg.
• Look up: the ceiling is the point. A lightweight wide-angle phone lens or setting helps capture it without flash.