Valley of the Kings belongs to the years before the Common Era — dated here to c. 1539 BCE at Western Thebes. The date is a scholarly centre of gravity, not a foundation-stone timestamp.
From Thutmose I onward, New Kingdom kings hid in the wadi instead of advertising themselves with pyramids.
How it was made
Corridors painted with the Amduat and Book of Gates turn geology into a map of the night sun. KV62 (Tutankhamun) is the intact exception.
Why it still counts as a wonder
It never needed a Greek list to be a wonder: the labour, the alignment, or the survival is enough.
It is a wonder of concealment: a royal city underground, later a wonder of discovery.
On dating
BCE in this series means years before the traditional birth of Christ, counted backward. A monument listed as c. 1539 BCE may have been founded earlier, rebuilt later, or famous only in one phase. Where ancient writers disagree — as they do for Babylon’s gardens — we say so.
This is story 18 of 100 in The Trend Ledger’s illustrated desk on world wonders raised before the Common Era.