My first two visits to the Valley of the Kings cannot be forgotten. I made my first visit when I was about 17 years old. I was a student at the Faculty of Arts in Alexandria in the Greco-Roman Department. The school organized a field trip to the Valley of the Kings. Most of the students were busy running around or joking, but I was fascinated with this valley that always reveals many secrets. At that time, I never thought that I would ever excavate there.

My future unknown, I felt drawn to this valley, a feeling that, even today, I cannot explain. At that time, the last discovery had been the unearthing of the tomb of Tutankhamun on November 4th, 1922. When I visited the valley in 1965, 62 tombs were known, 26 of them belonging to kings and the rest to non-royal individuals. This was possible because the king could decree that anyone could be buried in the valley. The secrets of king Tut’s tomb were amazing because the tomb was found intact while others such as Amenhotep II and the tomb of Yuya and Thuyu were found only semi-intact.

The Valley of the Kings has only revealed one new discovery since the tomb of King Tut – 84 years later, Otto Schaden found KV63 in front of the young pharaoh’s tomb. Our excavation, however, is proving to be not only the first Egyptian expedition ever to work in the valley, but also one of the most scientifically important. When we started our excavation, we could feel from the beginning that the area was promising.

We discovered a cut in the mountain, followed by stairs ending in a hole in the ground. It looks like the entrance to a tomb, and it is exactly similar to the entrance of KV63. We recorded many inscriptions nearby, some of which were already known and others of which were found for the first time. One tells us that a man named Userhat built a tomb for his father, the vizier Amennakht. Our work among the cliffs was very interesting. We found huge blocks, and it took us a long time to move them. After that, we found a manmade wall, below which was a shaft with stairs going down. This seems to be the entrance to yet another tomb. We also found many workmen’s huts – we know that the workmen used to live in the valley while they were cutting and decorating the tombs of the pharaohs. In one area, we found a round limestone base, with a hole in the middle where food and drink for the workmen would have been placed.

Remember that even if we do not find that one of these two entrances leads to the tomb of Ramesses VIII, we know that many great royals, including Thutmose II and Nefertiti, along with the queens of Dynasty 18, were buried in the valley, but their tombs are also still unknown.

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