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Priest of Amen Herihor, and his descendants, gradually brought the south under control. To the High Priests fell the responsibility of restoring and maintaining the plundered tombs in the Valley of the Kings. This was a time-consuming, expensive and ultimately fruitless task: it must have been very clear to everyone that as soon as the burials were made good the robberies would start again. So, the necropolis officials decided on a bold change of tactics. If the promise of hidden treasure was attracting thieves to the tombs, the well-publicised removal of that treasure should surely remove all temptation. And, as an added bonus, valuables collected from the tombs could be used to swell the sadly depleted state coffers.
    The royal tombs were officially opened and emptied of their contents. The kings and their closest relations were taken from their sarcophagi and moved to undertakers’ workshops within the Valley. Here they were stripped of their original bandages and jewellery, re-wrapped, labelled, and placed in plain wooden coffins. The mummies – no longer a temptation to anyone – were then stored in chambers dotted about the necropolis. From time to time these collections were inspected, moved and amalgamated, until there were two major royal caches: one housed in the family tomb of the High Priest Pinodjem II at Deir el-Bahri (DB 320) and one stored in the tomb of Amenhotep II (KV 35).

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    DISCOVERY
    There are also in this city [Thebes] , they say, remarkable tombs of the early kings … Now the priests said that in their records they find forty-seven tombs of kings; but down to the time of Ptolemy son of Lagus [Ptolemy I] , they say, only fifteen remained, most of which had been destroyed at the time we visited…
    â€“ Diodorus Siculus 1
    As the dynastic age ended and Egypt’s official religion moved from paganism to Christianity, then from Christianity to Islam, the tombs in the Valley of the Kings remained open and unprotected. Some were simply lost; others developed a second life as chapels or houses, or were once again used as tombs. It was dimly remembered that the Valley had once been a royal cemetery; this was reflected in its name, Biban el-Moluk or ‘Valley of the Doors of the Kings’. But no one knew how many tombs there were and, as all knowledge of the hieroglyphic script had been lost, no one knew who had been buried in them.

    When, in 1707, Father Claude Sicard, a determined Jesuit missionary, travelled to the small and insignificant town of Luxor, he became the first European to recognise and record the true nature of the Valley and its tombs:
    These sepulchres of Thebes are tunnelled into the rock and are of astonishing depth. Halls, rooms, all are painted from top to bottom. The variety of colours, which are almost as fresh as the day they were painted, gives an admirable effect. There are as many hieroglyphs as there are animals and objects represented, which makes us suppose that we have there the story of the lives, virtues, acts, combats and victories of the princes who are buried there, but it is impossible for us to decipher them for the present. 2
    Others soon followed. In 1743 the Reverend Richard Pococke’s Description of the East and Some Other Countries fascinated his readers while providing a highly inaccurate plan of the tombs that would baffle archaeologists for many years to come:
    The vale where these grottos are, may be about one hundred yards wide. There are signs of about eighteen of them. However, it is to be remarked that Diodorus says seventeen of them only remained till the time of the Ptolemies; and I found the entrances to about that number, most of which he says were destroyed in his time, and now there are only nine that can be entered into. The hills on each side are steep rocks, and the whole place is covered with rough stones that seem to have rolled from them; the grottos are cut into the rock in a most beautiful manner in long rooms