The discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun was mostly due to chance.  Howard Carter was looking around the Valley of the Kings and stumbled onto this tomb by accident. It remained hidden for centuries because, after it was entered three times by thieves shortly after it was cut, the guards of the cemetery sealed the tomb completely so no one else could enter.

It was another lucky chance that when the tomb of Ramses VI was carved around 200 years later, rocks fell down and covered the entrance of KV 62, which was right next to it.  Therefore, we have these workmen of the Ramesside Period to thank for the preservation of Tutankhamun’s tomb.

Tutankhamun ruled for only ten years, yet had an amazing cache of treasures in his tomb.  Can you imagine, if the tomb of Ramses II, who ruled for over 66 years, had been found intact?  It would be beyond the imagination. However, of the 63 known tombs in the Valley of the Kings, only the tomb of King Tut was found intact, and the tomb of Yuya and Thuya was semi-intact.  This indicates that robbery of the royal tombs was a common problem in ancient Thebes.  We also have records of tomb robbery from ancient papyri.

At one time, the mayor of the east bank found evidence that the mayor of the west bank was robbing the tombs.  He wrote a report about the case, but the investigators found nothing wrong.  The mayor of the east bank would not give up that easily.  He took his case directly to the king, so that he could form an honest committee who would take a complete inventory of the tombs.  They opened every tomb and made an account of each to determine what was missing and what remained.  This is the first record of tomb robbery, and it is found in a papyrus that is one of a group known as the Tomb Robbery Papyri.  These records can show what happened to the tombs after they were built, and how they were cared for later in time.  They show that at the end of the New Kingdom, people were running all over the Valley, and tomb robbing was a big problem, although action was being taken to stop it.

There are many important tombs that we have not found yet, such as the tombs of Nefertiti and Amenhotep I.  Perhaps these also escaped the detection of ancient tomb robbers and we will be able to repeat the success Howard Carter had in finding the tomb of Tutankhamun.