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In an age when life expectancy could not have been much more than 40, it must have seemed to his subjects that Ramesses would never die. But finally, at 92, the pharaoh went to join his ancestors -- and some of his sons -- in the great royal necropolis, or city of the dead, in the Valley of the Kings. His internal organs were removed and placed in vessels known as canopic jars, and the body was embalmed and gently wrapped in cloth. Archaeologists found that the embalmers had even stuffed peppercorns into the monarch's nostrils to keep his aquiline nose from being flattened by the wrappings.
Ramesses was then placed in a sarcophagus and interred, along with everything he would need to travel through the afterlife: the Book of the Dead, containing spells that would give the pharaoh access to the netherworld; tiny statuettes known as ushabti, which would come alive to help the dead king perform labors for the gods; offerings of food and wine; jewelry and even furniture to make the afterlife more comfortable. It's likely, say scholars, that Ramesses II's tomb was originally far richer and more elaborate than King Tut's.
Unlike several other tombs in the valley, Ramesses' has never been fully excavated. A French team is clearing it now, and the entire tomb could be ready for visitors within five years, but it is not expected to offer archaeologists any surprises. Tomb 5, though, is a completely different story. "It's unique," asserts Weeks. "We've never found a multiple burial of a pharaoh's children. And for most pharaohs, we have no idea at all what happened to their children." Archaeologists either have to assume that Ramesses II buried his children in a unique way, Weeks says, or they have to consider the possibility that they've overlooked a major type of royal tomb. "It's very obvious," he says, "that there are whole areas that have to be looked at more closely, and not just in Luxor."
Before that happens, though, there is still an enormous amount of work to do in Tomb 5. Archaeologists still haven't resolved many basic questions -- when the tomb was built, for example, and over what period of time it was used. Some answers could pop up as the excavations progress. Says Kitchen: "Let's hope the tomb yields a whole lot of new bodies. Then the medicos can get to work on them and find out what these princes were like, whether they had toothaches, how long they lived."
And what happened to Ramesses' dozens of daughters? Were they buried in a similar mausoleum, perhaps in the Valley of the Queens, a few miles to the southwest? That is where many pharaohs' wives and princesses and some princes are buried. "Why not?" asks the Oriental Institute Museum's Teeter. "The daughters of pharaohs were certainly important. The Valley of the Queens hasn't been as thoroughly explored as the Valley of the Kings, so there could be a lot of surprises there."