Beginning of Essay
The decoration applied to the walls and ceilings of the royal tombs provided far more than a colourful patina, for the artists were in effect making an eternal world for the deceased king. The exigencies of tombs curtailed and hurried burials may have thwarted thi ....

Middle of Essay
.... before they were painted, or incised the individual hieroglyphs and figures depending on whether raised or sunk relief was chosen. The former, more costly, method was used throughout several of the 19th-dynasty tombs, but usually only in the entrances of later monuments. In the next stage, painters carefully filled in the reliefs and their backgrounds, applying their pigments by reflected sunlight near the entrances, and by the light of oil lamps deeper within the tombs. No more than six colours were commonly used in the Valley of the Kings – black, red, blue, yellow, green and white – but these were occasionally blended to create gradatio ....