Exploration of the Valley of the Kings standing for King's Valley, (although the maps show 28 entrances, some of which were unexplored). These paintings and maps were later published in 'The Topography of Thebes and General Survey of Egypt', in 1830. At the same time James Burton explored the valley. His works included making KV17 safer from flooding, although, he is better known for entering KV5. Champollion himself visited the valley along with Ippolito Rosellini and Nestor L'Hôte, in the Franco-Tuscan Expedition of 1829. The expedition spent two months studying the open tombs, visiting about 16 of them in total. They copied the inscriptions and identified the
Valley of the Kings Ramesses II returned to an early style, with a bent axis, probably due to the quality of the rock being excavated (following the Esna shale). Between 1998 and 2002 the Amarna Royal Tombs Project investigated the valley floor using ground-penetrating radar and found that, below the modern surface, the Valley's cliffs descend beneath the scree in a series of abrupt, natural "shelves", arranged one below the other, descending several metres down to the bedrock in the valley floor. The area of the Theban hills is subject to infrequent violent thunderstorms, causing flash floods in the valley. Recent studies have shown