From Here to Eternity
Photograph by Kenneth Garrett

Archaeologist Günter Dreyer surveys what five years of excavation have revealed: the 4,700-year-old tomb of Khasekhemwy, last ruler of the 2nd dynasty. In the distance a wadi, or canyon, in the desert plateau was probably regarded as an entrance to the realm of the dead. "Tombs were just through-stations on the way there," says Dreyer. In the corner of Khasekhemwy's tomb pit a ramp rises in the direction of the wadi, offering the deceased king a perpetual path to the hereafter.