KV17
Tomb KV17, located in Egypt's Valley of the Kings and also known by the names "Belzoni's tomb", "the Tomb of Apis", and "the Tomb of Psammis, son of Nechois", is the tomb of Pharaoh Seti I of the Nineteenth Dynasty. It is one of the best decorated tombs in the valley, but now is almost always closed to the public due to damage. As per November 2017 holders of a 1200 EGP entry ticket or of a Luxor Pass can visit this tomb. It was first discovered by Giovanni Battista Belzoni on 16 October 1817. When he first entered the tomb he found the wall paintings in excellent condition with the paint on the walls still looking fresh and some of the artists paints and brushes still on the floor.

The longest tomb in the valley, at 137.19 meters (450.10 feet), it contains very well preserved reliefs in all but two of its eleven chambers and side rooms. One of the back chambers is decorated with the Opening of the mouth ceremony, which stated that the mummy's eating and drinking organs were properly functioning. Believing in the need for these functions in the afterlife, this was a very important ritual. A very long tunnel (corridor K) leads away deep into the mountainside from beneath the location where the sarcophagus stood in the burial chamber. Recently, the excavation of this corridor was completed. It turned out that there was no 'secret burial chamber' or any other kind of chamber at the end. Work on the corridor was just abandoned upon the burial of Seti. In 2008, a geological survey was carried out in the mysterious Tunnel K. After his in situ investigation the Austrian engineer Christoph Lehmann puts forward the theses that during the excavation of KV 17 a heavy flash flood occurred, whereby approximately 1300 cubic meters of debris material were flushed into the tomb and filled up almost the whole structure of tunnel K. So the ancient builders were forced to abandon tunnel K and construct - shortened - the tomb in its present form.

The sarcophagus of Seti I, removed on behalf of the British consul Henry Salt, is located in the Sir John Soane's Museum in London since 1824. KV17 was damaged when Jean-François Champollion, translator of the Rosetta Stone, removed a wall panel of 2.26 x 1.05 m (7.41 x 3.44 ft) in a corridor with mirror-image scenes during his 1828–29 expedition. Other elements were removed by his companion Rossellini or the German expedition of 1845. The scenes are now in the collections of the Louvre, the museums of Florence and Berlin.

The tomb became known as the "Apis tomb" because when Giovanni Belzoni found the tomb a mummified bull was found in a side room off the burial hall.

A number of walls in the tomb have collapsed or cracked due to excavations in the late 1950s and early 1960s causing significant changes in the moisture levels in the surrounding rocks.

Facsimiles of two rooms from the tomb, the Hall of Beauties and Pillared Hall J, have been made by Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation.
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Egypt
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tomb
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Giovanni Battista Belzoni
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Opening of the mouth ceremony
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afterlife
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sarcophagus of Seti I
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London
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Jean-François Champollion
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Rosetta Stone
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Rossellini
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Louvre
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None
Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation
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KV17
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KV17
LOC
2017-11-01T00:00:00Z^^http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#dateTime
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country
location
occupant
time period
country
place of burial
position held