Rameses II. died about thirteen centuries before the Christian era. It is certain that this illustrious monarch was originally buried in the stately tomb of the magnificent subterranean sepulchre by royal order hewn out of the limestone cliffs in the Valley of the Tombs of the Kings. In the same valley his grandfather and father were laid to rest; so that these three mighty kings "all lay in glory, each in his own house." This burial-place of the Pharaohs of the XVIIIth and XIXth dynasties is in a deep gorge behind the western hills of the Theban plain. "The valley is the very ideal of desolation. Bare rocks, without a particle of vegetation, overhanging and enclosing in a still narrower and narrower embrace a valley as rocky and bare as themselves--no human habitation visible--the stir of the city wholly excluded. Such is, such always must have been, the awful aspect of the resting-place of the Theban kings. The sepulchres of this valley are of extraordinary grandeur. You enter a sculptured portal in the face of these wild cliffs, and find yourself in a long and lofty gallery, opening or narrowing, as the case may be, into successive halls and chambers, all of which are covered with white stucco, and this white stucco, brilliant with colours, fresh as they were thousands of years ago. The sepulchres are in fact gorgeous palaces, hewn out of the rock, and painted with all the decorations that could have been seen in palaces." One of the most gorgeous of these sepulchral palaces was that prepared in this valley by Rameses II., and after the burial of the king the portals were walled up, and the mummified body laid to rest in the vaulted hall till the morn of the Resurrection. From a hieratic inscription found on the mummy-case of Rameses, it appears that official Inspectors of Tombs visited this royal tomb in the sixth year of Her-Hor, the founder of the priestly line of kings; so that for at least two centuries the mummy of Rameses the Great lay undisturbed in the original tomb prepared for its reception. From several papyri still extant, it appears that the neighbourhood of Thebes at this period, and for many years previously, was in a state of social insecurity. Lawlessness, rapine and tomb-breaking, filled the whole district with alarm. The "Abbott Papyrus" states that royal sepulchres were broken open, cleared of mummies, jewels, and all their contents. In the "Amherst Papyrus," a lawless tomb-breaker, in relating how he broke into a royal sepulchre, makes the following confession:--"The tomb was surrounded by masonry, and covered in by roofing-stones. We demolished it, and found the king and queen reposing therein. We found the august king with his divine axe beside him, and his amulets and ornaments of gold about his neck. His head was covered with gold, and his august person was entirely covered with gold. His coffins were overlaid with gold and silver, within and without, and incrusted with all kinds of precious stones.