Which three tombs to choose on the general ticket

KV2 — Ramses IV, the one two sources call their favourite

Maximum length 88.66 m. Its walls carry 656 individual ancient graffiti left by Greek and Roman visitors, plus around fifty Coptic ones — the second-highest count in the valley, behind only KV9. Decoration includes the Book of Caverns and the Book of the Dead.

The detail that is hard to stop thinking about once you know it: an ancient plan of this tomb survives, drawn on papyrus, now in Turin, at 1:28 scale. Somebody measured and drew this tomb to scale, and the drawing outlived the dynasty. Two independent sources name KV2 their favourite tomb on the standard ticket, which is the closest thing to a consensus recommendation in the material we checked.

KV11 — Ramses III, the Harper’s Tomb

188 m long, the longest of the ten. It is known as the Harper’s Tomb for its paintings of two blind harpers, which a visitor account corroborates independently of the scholarly description.

Its best feature is an ancient mistake. Partway along, the axis of the tomb visibly shifts — the excavators had broken into the earlier KV10 and had to move over. You can see the correction in the shape of the corridor. Very little else in the valley lets you watch somebody realise they have made an error three thousand years ago.

KV6 — Ramses IX, open since antiquity

105 m, and it has never really been closed: it has stood open since antiquity, and Roman and Coptic visitors left graffiti on its walls. The corridor decoration is plainer than KV2 or KV11, which two sources agree on.

One source — and only one — describes it as having the gentlest slope from ground level of any tomb it covers. That is the single accessibility note anybody in our material offers, so it is here with its limitation attached rather than left out. If stairs and gradients are the deciding factor for someone in your group, this is the only lead there is, and it is worth confirming at the entrance rather than trusting a page.

KV8 — Merenptah, scale and a lid

A 160 m corridor, corroborated twice. Merenptah was buried inside a set of four nested stone sarcophagi; the third of them went to Tanis, and a granite sarcophagus lid still rests in the burial chamber, on a modern limestone base.

Two sources agree the wall painting here is degraded, so pick this one for the scale and the lid rather than for the colour. It is an honest trade: a very long walk to a very large object that is still where it was put.

KV16 — Ramses I, the quick third

Only 29 m, which is the whole argument for it. Two descending staircases, Book of Gates decoration, and a red quartzite sarcophagus still in place. Giovanni Belzoni found it in October 1817.

If your first two choices are KV11 at 188 m and KV2 at 88.66 m, you have walked a long way underground in the heat before your third. KV16 is a complete tomb with a sarcophagus in it, done in a fraction of the time. That is not a compromise, it is a sensible third.

KV14 — two pharaohs, and a claim to ignore

Over 112 m, and it holds two pharaohs, Tausert and Setnakht, in one tomb.

You will also read that KV14 is the largest tomb in the valley. It is not, and the numbers on this page are enough to see why: KV11 is 188 m and KV17 is 137.19 m, both longer, and the sources record KV5 as larger still. One popular guide carries the claim and it has been copied outward from there. Pick KV14 for the two-pharaohs oddity if you like; do not pick it because somebody told you it was the biggest.

Three that work

Two hours is a comfortable pace for three tombs and about an hour if you are rushing, neither of which includes the ticket queue, the tram or the drive — how much time you need. Whether the tombs on your shortlist are open at all on the day is a board at the entrance, not a schedule. Go at opening if you can: guides and experienced visitors put the crowds between 10 am and 2 pm, and Luxor’s mean daily maximum reaches 41.4 °C in July — when to come.

The fourth tomb, which is not one of your three

Worth ending here, because it changes the shortlist. KV9, Ramses V and VI, is a paid tomb at EGP 220 — EGP 110 for a student — and paying for it does not use up one of your three. Two independent sources call it the best value in the valley. It has a vaulted ceiling with a double elongated figure of the sky goddess Nut framing the Book of the Day and the Book of the Night, an almost complete Book of Caverns, and roughly 995 ancient visitor inscriptions dating from the 1st century BC to the 4th century AD.

That last figure is the one to hold next to KV2’s 656. If ancient graffiti is what you came for, the two best walls in the valley for it are one free choice and one EGP 220 ticket. The rest of the money is on the ticket price list, and the case against spending EGP 2,000 instead is on the Seti I page.

Neither KV9 nor Tutankhamun’s tomb at EGP 700 takes a slot from the three the general ticket gives you. Whatever you add, you still choose three off the board.

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