KV2 may be the single most visited ancient monument in Luxor’s long history of being visited. Over 650 inscriptions in Greek, Latin, and Coptic cover its walls — left by travelers across more than two millennia, from ancient Greek tourists to early Christian monks who lived inside it. Jean-François Champollion — the man who deciphered hieroglyphs — camped here when working in the Valley. Richard Lepsius, the German Egyptologist who first systematically mapped Egyptian antiquities, documented it in detail. This is a tomb with its own tourism history.
That history matters for understanding what KV2 is. The tomb is accessible, well-lit relative to other Valley tombs, has straight wide corridors, and has been in continuous use as a tourist destination since antiquity. It’s also a genuinely good tomb for its astronomical ceiling and the unusual Book of Nut program — one of the only complete versions of this text in the Valley.
Who Was Ramesses IV?
Ramesses IV ruled from approximately 1155 to 1149 BCE, the son of Ramesses III — the last great pharaoh of the New Kingdom and the king assassinated in the Harem Conspiracy. Ramesses IV was the fifth son and not the obvious heir; the deaths of older brothers opened the succession to him.
He ruled for six years and pursued ambitious building programs to compensate for his short timeline: he expanded the Deir el-Medina workforce to over 120 artisans (among the largest numbers ever employed there), sent expeditions to the Sinai and Eastern Desert for copper and turquoise, and commissioned multiple temple projects. KV2 was the culmination of these efforts — a tomb that had to be completed quickly, and was.
Architecture and Layout
KV2 is approximately 88 meters long with a straight, wide-corridor design that makes it physically accessible relative to many other Valley tombs. The route from entrance to burial chamber involves no sharp turns, no extremely steep descents, and corridors wide enough for two people to pass.
Corridor sections B–D: gently sloping hallways lined with funerary texts — the Litany of Ra, the Book of Caverns, and protective spells from the Book of the Dead.
Chamber E (antechamber): the ceilings here are painted with star patterns representing the heavens through which the pharaoh travels.
Burial Chamber J: the largest room, with a vaulted astronomical ceiling and the broken pieces of the red granite sarcophagus — approximately 3.5 meters long, now fragmentary but still impressive in scale.
Corridor K and side rooms: smaller spaces originally intended for funerary equipment.
The Astronomical Ceiling
The burial chamber’s ceiling is the visual centerpiece of KV2: a deep blue field populated with constellations, celestial deities, and the solar barque carrying the sun through its nightly journey. For ancient Egyptians, this wasn’t decoration — it was a functional cosmic map ensuring Ramesses IV’s eternal rebirth with Ra. For how Egyptians used the sky for direction and timekeeping, see Ancient Egyptian Astronomy.
The ceiling’s color and clarity make it one of the more photogenic features in the Valley for visitors with appropriate equipment — though a photography permit is required.
The Book of Nut
One of KV2’s most distinctive textual programs is the Book of Nut, a cosmological text depicting the sky goddess Nut arching across the heavens, swallowing the sun each evening and giving birth to it each morning. Complete versions of this text are rare in royal tombs; KV2’s version is one of the most intact. It gives the tomb a cosmological dimension that connects directly to the astronomical ceiling above it — the ceiling is, in a sense, an illustration of the Book of Nut playing out in visual form.
The Graffiti Record
The 650+ inscriptions covering KV2’s walls are one of the most extensive records of ancient and medieval tourism anywhere in Egypt. Written in Greek, Latin, and Coptic over a span from roughly the 1st century BCE to the early Christian period, they range from simple confirmations of the visit (“I, Dioskorides, was here and admired”) to longer literary compositions. They provide evidence of exactly who was visiting, from where, and what they thought of what they saw.
For modern visitors, knowing they’re standing in a space where Greek and Roman tourists stood in the 1st century BCE — leaving their own records of the experience — adds a particular quality to the visit.
The Mummy’s Journey
Ramesses IV’s mummy was moved from KV2 in antiquity. It was eventually placed in the KV35 cache (the tomb of Amenhotep II) by priests working to protect royal remains from looters — the same cache that held 16 other royal mummies when it was discovered by Victor Loret in 1898. Ramesses IV’s mummy is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. For the wider funerary context, see Funerals in Ancient Egypt.
Visiting KV2
KV2 is typically included in the standard Valley of the Kings ticket rotation — confirm current open-tomb status at the ticket office, as which tombs are in general rotation changes.
| Entry | Standard Valley of the Kings ticket (EGP 750 adult / EGP 375 student — covers three tombs) |
|---|---|
| Hours | 6:00 AM – 5:00 PM |
| Time needed | 20–30 minutes |
| Accessibility | Straight, wide corridors — one of the most physically accessible royal tombs in the Valley |
Combining visits: KV9 (Ramesses V/VI) — the most spectacular astronomical ceiling in the Valley, adjacent — and KV11 (Ramesses III), which provides useful context for Ramesses IV as his son, are the natural companions. For current ticket categories and site hours, see Luxor Entrance Fees.