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Ancient Egyptian tomb

QV66 is the tomb of Nefertari, the Great Wife of Pharaoh Ramesses II, in Egypt's Valley of the Queens. It was discovered by Ernesto Schiaparelli (the director of the Egyptian Museum in Turin) in 1904. It is called the Sistine Chapel of Ancient Egypt. Nefertari, which means "beautiful companion", was Ramesses II's favorite wife; he went out of his way to make this obvious, referring to her as "the one for whom the sun shines" in his writings, built the Temple of Hathor to idolize her as a deity, and commissioned portraiture wall paintings. In the Valley of the Queens, Nefertari's tomb once held the mummified body and representative symbolisms of her, consistent with most Egyptian tombs of the period. Now, everything had been looted except for two thirds of the 5,200 square feet of wall paintings. For what still remains, these wall paintings characterized Nefertari's character. Her face received particular attention to emphasize her beauty, especially the shape of her eyes, the blush of her cheeks, and her eyebrows. Some paintings were full of lines and color of red, blue, yellow, and green that portrayed exquisite directions to navigating through the afterlife to paradise.

A flight of steps cut out of the rock gives access to the antechamber, which is decorated with paintings based on Chapter 17 of the Book of the Dead. This astronomical ceiling represents the heavens and is painted in dark blue, with a myriad of golden five pointed stars. The east wall of the antechamber is interrupted by a large opening flanked by representation of Osiris at left and Anubis at right; this in turn leads to the side chamber, decorated with offering scenes, preceded by a vestibule in which the paintings portray Nefertari being presented to the gods who welcome her. On the north wall of the antechamber is the stairway that goes down to the burial chamber. The paintings are found on almost every available surface in the tomb, including thousands of stars painted on the ceiling of the burial chamber on a blue background to represent the sky. After the discovery of the tomb, scientists found deterioration in many paintings caused by water damage, bacterial growth, salt formation, and recently, the humidity of visitors' breath. There are two factors that damaged the tomb at a rapid rate: Capillary absorption of trapped flood waters into the tombs walls and direct entry of flood waters. Flood water causes immediate damage to the tomb, while absorbed waters cause morphological changes that contribute to the deterioration of paint and plaster. Upon completion of the restoration work, Egyptian authorities decided to severely restrict public access to the tomb in order to preserve the delicate paintings found within. Five years later, Egypt's Prime Minister, Hisham Zazao, declared the tomb to be reopened to visitors, 150 visitors at a time. In 2006, the tomb was restricted to visitors once again, except for private tours of a maximum of 20 people purchasing a license for US$3000. As of December 2023, holders of a 2000 EGP entry ticket or a premium Luxor pass can visit this tomb. To this day, the Getty Conservation Institute regularly monitors the tomb. As of March 5, 2024 it has been closed for urgent renovations.