Tears of the Gods: Ancient and Modern Floods in the Valley of the Kings

You might think that callous tomb raiders, heavy-handed archaeologists or the hordes of tourists that have flocked to the Valley of the Kings in Egypt over the centuries might be the culprits responsible for most of the abundant damage inflicted upon the world’s most famous graveyard over the centuries. But in fact, it’s Mother Nature who most hold her hand up and accept responsibility for that.

Flash floods, caused by violent thunderstorms and occurring about every one or two centuries, have been the scourge of the Theban Hills as long as history can remember, and they’ve taken a heavy toll on its tombs. How did ancient Egyptians cope? And is there a risk that – if the heavens open so wide again soon – further damage might be caused yet?

When it Rains, it Pours

Steady rainfall during the Pleistocene period was what carved out from the limestone cliffs the geological feature that’s today known as the Valley of the Tombs. Downpours are also what has long threatened to wipe it off the map.

While year-round rainfall is very minimal there, recent studies have detected at least seven active flood stream beds all leading down into the central area of the valley (a few of which are used as pathways by tourists). It gives some indication as to the scale and depth of what remains a major threat to the world-famous archaeological site’s many open ancient tombs.

“You will get several inches of rain dropped in a matter of minutes,” said Kent Weeks, a professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo, describing a typical flash flood in 2004 to a London conference on protecting the Valley of the Kings. “The ground cannot absorb the water and so it washes down the hillside, hundreds of thousands of gallons of water bringing with it tons of sand and stone and rubble and debris. By the time it has been swept over the cliff into the valley proper, it is moving at 20mph an hour, perhaps 50cm deep, down the valley floor and of course washing into any low-lying tombs in its path.

“This is the way,” he added, “that over the past 3,000 years, most of the tombs in the valley have been damaged – by these kinds of floods.”

Tears of the Gods

From 200 BC until 1800 AD, flash floods were a regular, if infrequent, occurrence in the Valley of the Kings. They could be so severe as to practically turn its base into a small lake. One deluge at the end of the 18th Dynasty, around 1292 BC, buried many tombs altogether. The worst recent washout occurred in 1994, when several burial chambers became inundated with floods and debris, which cracked and fractured walls and pillars in places, as the shale underlying the structures expanded and swelled upon contact with water.

The ancient Egyptians didn’t just stand idly by and let the burial places of their most revered leaders get washed away – there is evidence of efforts to combat the flash floods in the valley. A large man-made drainage channel, running into a stone-walled runoff area where the “tears of the gods” were collected, was located in 2007 by an Egyptian archaeological team led by Dr Zahi Hawass. Protection measures were erected for individual tombs too – the grave of Thutmose III, for instance, had a high rock berm built above it as a diversion structure. Others weren’t so well prepared.

VIDEO: Dr Hawass descibes how the Egyptians battled against floods in the Valley of the Kings

( We've transcribed this video for you!)

 

Counting The Cost

The cost of failing to adequately protect tombs is all too evident in the Valley of the Kings. The low-lying KV7, the tomb of Ramesses the Great, has suffered particularly over the centuries – flooded multiple times, its decorations have been damaged beyond repair.

KV55, KV63 and KV62 – the legendary tomb of King Tut (which you can take a virtual walk though here) – are among the burial chambers that were at some point covered completely by flood debris.

Floods have literally altered the very shape of Valley of the Kings itself. The Amarna Royal Tombs Project – a large-scale effort to undertake a controlled stratigraphic excavation in the Valley of the Kings – investigated the valley floor using ground-penetrating radar between 1998 and 2002, and found that the surface has actually risen dramatically over the centuries. KV55, KV63 and KV62 are all dug into the wadi bedrock of the valley, five metres below the modern ground level. The rest on top is chalk, shale and stone, washed downhill over the course of thousands of years. The Amarna Royal Tombs Project concluded that this is causing flood damage to the Valley of the Kings’ burial chambers to become more and more acute, because it’s now easier for the water to drain through the tombs than the ground.

We Can Prevent It

“We can prevent it,” Professor Weeks went on to tell the London conference on protecting the Valley of the Kings in 2004. “We cannot prevent the rainfall,” he continued, “but by the judicious angling and sloping of footpaths we can direct those floods away from the tomb entrances and out of the valley before they do any damage.” The Theban Mapping Project – the ambitious 31-year undertaking, led by Weeks, to prepare a comprehensive archaeological database of Thebes, the Valley of the Kings and all of its 62 tombs – has made strong recommendations for new flood measures such as these to be implemented soon.

New flood measures have in fact been high on the agenda since the devastating downpour of 1994. In 2000, a study by the Valley of the Kings Research Group proposed raising walls and even installing steel doors on some tombs. In 2005, the American Research Project – another major study in the area – made proposals that included re-excavating the ancient drainage channel at the top of the valley.

Some steps have been taken, such as the erection of flood barriers at some key points. But even that might not be sufficient, according to a father-daughter team from Pennsylvania State University, geologist Richard Parizek and photographer Katarin Parizek. In 2006 they scoured the valley mapping “fracture traces” – surface features indicating areas of fragmented rock beneath the ground – before donating their findings to the Theban Mapping Project. “If you just channel water past the entrance of a tomb and don’t realize there are fracture zones nearby that connect with other tombs below, you could release the floodwater into what seems to be a safe zone only to have it seep down into the cracks,” Katarin Parizek told Geotimes in 2007.

It seems the problems severe rain presents to the Valley of the Kings’ modern protectors are no less perplexing that they were for the ancients.

Valley of the Kings picture (top) by Shelby Root; Valley of the Kings picture (bottom) by Mutnedjmet. All rights reserved.

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