Unleash Your Inner Indiana Jones

Want to feel like you’re Indiana Jones exploring an ancient Egyptian tomb, but don’t want to leave your couch to do it? Egypt’s Ministries of Tourism and Antiquities has your back.

Thanks to a virtual tour, you can unleash your inner Indy and have an archaeological adventure discovering the tomb of Ramesses VI, while remaining in the comfort and safety of your own home.

The virtual tour is hosted by Matterport, a website offering 3D modeling with the help of Egypt’s tourism group.

This tomb can usually be visited in person, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, the tour has been taken online for the foreseeable future. Even so, no details were spared. You can zoom in, look up, down, and around, and take as much time you need to check out all of the ancient art. If you prefer, you can also click “play” and watch the 3D tour like a movie.

You can explore Ramesses’ tomb that's set in the heart of the Valley of the Kings in Luxor and entirely modeled in 3D. You can walk a long corridor with walls and ceilings covered in hieroglyphs all the way to the pharaoh’s sarcophagus, for a one-of-its-kind tour that will let you travel to Egypt with just a few clicks of your mouse.

Ramesses VI Nebmaatre-Meryamun was the fifth pharaoh of the Twentieth Dynasty of Egypt. He ruled between the mid- to late-12th century BCE for eight years  and upon his death was laid to rest in a tomb that archaeologists call KV9. Ramesses VI didn’t build this tomb for himself, though; he just reused the tomb of his nephew, Ramesses V, who had ruled before him.

After placing his nephew in another tomb, he moved in, but made some renovations first, including enlarging it and redecorating the interior. The layout is similar to others of the era, with a series of long corridors leading to the final burial chamber, and thanks to the virtual tour, you can take in all of the space's grandness. 

The first corridor is painted with images of Ramesses VI mingling with Osiris and Ra-Harakhti, two gods associated with the underworld and afterlife. These images represented Ramesses V initially, but Ramesses VI had them repainted when he took over the tomb. The other halls show scenes from different funerary texts that talk about the passage of the soul into the underworld before terminating into the burial chamber where you see the broken sarcophagus.

You can explore the tomb of King Ramesses IV here. Fedora and whip optional.