Мысыр патшасы I Сетінің обасы және оның құпия дәліздері

Tomb of Pharaoh Seti I in the Valley of the Kings, Egypt

Tomb KV17, located in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, is the tomb of Pharaoh Seti I of the Nineteenth Dynasty. It is also known by the names "Belzoni's tomb", "the Tomb of Apis", and "the Tomb of Psammis, son of Nechois". It is one of the most decorated tombs in the valley, and is one of the largest and deepest tombs in the Valley of the Kings. It was uncovered by Italian archaeologist and explorer Giovanni Battista Belzoni on 16 October 1817.

Previously considered the longest tomb in the valley until the discovery of the Tomb of the Sons of Ramesses II, at 137.19 meters (450.10 feet), it contains well preserved reliefs in all but two of its seventeen chambers and side rooms. A portion of the tomb is still being excavated, known as Corridor K. Corridor K leads away, into the mountainside, from beneath the location where the sarcophagus stood in the burial chamber. The tunnel has not been properly excavated, as much of the tunnel has been filled with debris. Probing projects into the tunnel started around 2001; according to the Theban Mapping Project, "A project to geophysically explore the corridor was approved by the Supreme Council of Antiquities". No results have been made public from this excavation, as of March 12, 2023. The design of the tomb follows a "joggled axis" style of architecture; the tomb entry's descending line is interrupted by a "wiggle" that changes to a sharper angle of descent when entering the tomb following the first chamber. The entry to the tomb consists of four hallways (A–D), each leading further underground; they have a number of murals depicting traditional religious imagery along with illustrations of Seti I before Ra. Deeper into the tomb, rooms F, Fa, J, Jb, Jc and Jd have intricately carved support pillars with well preserved decorations. It is also one of the first discovered tombs to have a vaulted burial chamber, His coffin (perhaps the inner or secondary coffin) was heavily damaged, as was his mummy. It has been postulated that priests of numerous dynasties attempted restorations of both his tomb and his coffin, but his mummy was finally moved in the Year 11 of Shoshenq I to cache DB320. The outer coffin was going to be sold by Belzoni to the British Museum in 1817, but it was sold for $2000 USD to a British architect later that year, which now rests in the Sir John Soan's Museum London.

The entry corridors (Corridors B–D) are heavily decorated with symbols of the Pharaoh, like those of Ma'at and a list of Set's royal names and epithets. Further into the tomb are numerous depictions of King Seti with numerous Gods. Chamber F depicts images of Seti with Hathor, Horus and Neith, on 16 October 1817. Upon entering the tomb, Belzoni 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 tomb became known as the "Apis tomb" upon the discovery of a mummified Apis Bull found in a side room off the burial hall when Belzoni uncovered the tomb. Much of the structural damage to the tomb before the 1950s and 1960s was caused by Belzoni. Belzoni, in an effort to bring back pieces of Egyptian art, damaged much of the work within the tomb. He made "squeezes", a form of copying artwork by pressing wet wax, plaster and sometimes paper against the reliefs; when they dried, the color was pulled away, and a negative impression was made of the carvings, but it also damaged many of the reliefs and carvings. Beyond the use of "squeezes", Belzoni also hacked off large pieces of relief to send back to Europe, along with clearing rubble that held back flash floodwaters; the tomb subsequently flooded, damaging large portions of the structure and damaged the reliefs in the entryway. The outer layer of 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. 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 by Karl Richard Lepsius in the German expedition of 1845. The scenes are now in the collections of the Louvre in Paris, the Egyptian Museum in Florence, and the Neues Museum in Berlin. 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. There have been a number of recent 21st century attempts at preservation, both through image mapping projects like the Theban Mapping Project and the Maidan Project, and through intense laser scanning of the reliefs on the walls of the tomb by the Factum Foundation leading to much of the images within the tomb available to the public. A 3 D scan of the temple was made available in 2002, allowing viewers to 'walk' through the tomb through a series of 3d photos. Restoration has been a nearly constant effort, as the tomb remains closed due to damage. Facsimiles of two rooms from the tomb, the Hall of Beauties and Pillared Hall J, were made by the Factum Foundation for Digital Technology in Conservation in 2017.

Due to excavation and the damages of improperly regulated tourism, visitations may or may not be possible, as archaeology efforts in the 1950s and 1960s have made parts of the tomb unstable. However, as of 2023, the Tomb is open for visitations. The price of entry into the tomb, as stated by the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, is EGP 1800 for adult foreigners and students, but for Egyptians the ticket price is EGP 500 for adults and EGP 250 for students.