The royal tombs of ancient Egypt include some of the most stupendous monuments of all time, containing some of the greatest treasures to survive from the ancient world. This book is a history of the burial places of the rulers of Egypt from the very dawn of history down to the country's absorption into the Roman Empire, three millennia later. During this time, the tombs ranged from mudbrick-lined pits in the desert, through pyramid-topped labyrinths to superbly decorated galleries penetrating deep into the rock of the Valley of the Kings. The first book to embrace in detail the entire range of royal tombs, the present volume covers the full extent of royal funerary monuments, which comprised not only the actual burial place, but also the place where the worlds of the living and the dead came together in the temples built to provide for the dead pharaoh's soul.