The type of tomb which is characteristic of the Valley of the Kings is simple enough in its general idea, though its development is sometimes complex enough. An entrance gallery is driven into the rock sloping downwards, the passage-way being sometimes an inclined plane, sometimes a stairway. This corridor is sometimes interrupted by a deep pit, possibly meant to catch any water which might flow in through the doorway, but more probably to render the task of the robber more difficult. Beyond the pit, the passage is continued, and gives access to chambers and halls varying in number and size, until at last the sarcophagus chamber is reached. Of this general type there are all varieties, from the simplicity of such a tomb as that of Tutankhamen, with its short entrance passage, and its scanty provision of poorly decorated rooms, to the complexity of the tombs of Ramses III or Sety I, with their hundreds of feet of corridor and chamber, brilliantly decorated with the finest art which their time could produce. The decoration of the royal tombs, though often of high quality artistically, is generally of a sombre and gloomy character, differing in this from the brilliant pictures of life which are characteristic of the Old Kingdom tombs of the nobles at Saqqara, or even from some of the private tombs, such as those of Nekht and Rekhmara at Thebes. Generally speaking, the leading conception is that the dead king, accompanied by the sun-god or identified with him, sails in the bark of Ra through the Underworld, bringing light as he passes. On his voyage he is accompanied by all manner of spirits and genii, which ward off the enemies of the soul from the divine boat. The subjects of the illustrations are largely derived from two books of funerary ritual, _The Book of Him Who is in the Duat_ (Underworld), and _The Book of the Gates_, while portions of the _Book of the Dead_ are also illustrated. These wonderful tombs have always been more or less known in historic times. Strabo mentions that there were in his time forty tombs worthy of a visit, and we may be sure that the bulk of these had already been long rifled, or at least cleared of their contents to avoid the danger of desecration, before the Egyptian Empire ended its long course. The centuries between the visit of the old geographer and that of the scholars of the French Expedition had brought oblivion to the majority of the tombs, for the French explorers mention only eleven, the others having meanwhile got covered up and forgotten.