Lights, Camera, Action!

For many years, taking photographs inside the tombs in Egypt was either not allowed or required a separate photography permit. Although up to three times more than the price of the site ticket itself, the individual photo permits were not excessively expensive – in the region of £12-£15 per site, depending on the exchange rate at the time – but the total cost could become excessive, and it was necessary to choose subjects carefully when planning a trip. This all changed in July 2022, when the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (MOTA) unexpectedly announced that ‘Taking photographs using all kinds of traditional cameras, digital cameras, and video cameras will be permitted free of charge. No permit needs to be obtained beforehand.’ Thankfully, this included taking photographs inside the tombs. During the past ten years, there have been a few non-royal tombs of the Theban elite (often referred to as the ‘Tombs of the Nobles’) opened to the public for the first time, so I felt that the time was right for me to make a dedicated visit to Luxor’s West Bank to photograph as many as I could. In November 2023, I checked into the historic Marsam Hotel, which, just a few hundred metres to the west of the Colossi of Memnon, meant that I could very easily visit the Tombs of the Nobles.

I spent the whole of my first day visiting two sets of recently opened tombs in an area of the Theban necropolis known as Dra‘ Abu el-Naga. I purchased tickets from the West Bank ticket office, which is conveniently located a five-minute walk from the hotel. Dra‘ Abu el-Naga itself is located near the roundabout by the Carter House, and can easily be reached from the ticket office on foot, bicycle, or by local microbus. Taking the local microbus is great fun. Make sure that you are standing on the correct side of the road for the direction that you are intending to take, hold out your hand when a bus approaches, hop in and find a seat, pass a few LE1 coins or a small LE note to the driver via your fellow passengers, and any change will be passed back the same way. Hold on tight, as the sliding side door is often open! Call out when you want to get off.

Northern Dra‘ Abu el-Naga

The first set of tombs I visited are in the northern part of Dra‘ Abu el-Naga and are marked as ‘Roy and Shiroy’ on both the ticket office price list and on the ticket. There have been three tombs to view there for several years, but they have very recently been joined by another two (TT11 and TT12). Most non-royal elite tombs in Luxor have the abbreviation TT (for Theban Tomb) prefixed before a number – a classification system originally devised for early publications by Arthur Weigall and Alan Gardiner – and it helps to know the numbers when visiting the sweeping hillside on which the tombs are located. The tombs are all locked, and at some of the lesser-visited sites you need to find the guardian to bring the key. Some of the guardians know the tombs by the name of the deceased, while others refer to them by their number. At Dra‘ Abu el-Naga, TT13 Shuroy, TT148 Amenemopet, and TT255 Roy have all been open for some time, and they form a neat grouping at the very northern end of the necropolis. TT11 Djehuty and TT12 Hery officially opened to the public on 9 February 2023, following 20 years of dedicated conservation work by the Spanish National Research Council’s ‘Proyecto Djehuty’ mission, in cooperation with MOTA.