valley of the kings

[Amun-Ra]

why did they stop building pyramids?

[obNOXious]

They ran out of lego:)

[Lil O'lady]

Nobody's right sure, but on a timescale of about 500 - 800 years the practice changed like so: pyramidscomprised a mortuary temple built next to a big pile of rock with a burial shaft under it. The fashion evolved into building a mortuary temple to honour the deceased with a burial shaft underneath it, and then into the practice of building separate mortuary temples on the nile floodplain with a hiddenshaft-tomb in the cliffs of the hinterland.
For my own part, I think the penny sort of dropped. You make a huge monument, stuff it with gold and jewels, and tell people they must never touch it. Hmmm. I bet most of it spent less than 24 hours with dead pharaoh before being recycled down the souk. None of the treasure survived inside huge structures such as the Great Pyramid and it is no coincidence that Tutankhamen's tomb survived intact because it was hidden away and forgotten.

[Lil O'lady]

Regarding youor question, there aren't any pyramids in the valley of the kings. You can see shaft-tombs here that have been rediscovered over the last few hundred years, and also nearby is the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut and towards the river Nile the remains of the valley mortuary temple of Amenophis III.

[jno]

Most of the underground tombs have been looted as much as the pyramids; Tutankhamun's seems to have survived by pure chance. In fact it said on a recent TV prgramme that it seems to have been looted too - during the second world war, when not many guards were available; someone nicked his penis, presumably for some sort of love potion. Photos taken when his mummy was discovered in the 20s show he had one then; now he doesn't, though it seems this has only just been noticed.

[taichiperson]

To answer the original question, the Egyptian civilisation that built the pyramids went into decline. You would have to google the reasons as my knowledge is a bit foggy - drought or the failure of the flooding of the Nile delta being one.

[spudqueen]

I don't think there is any evidence that any of the Egyptian pyramids were ever used as tombs. In the Great Pyramid of Giza there are two stone 'tombs', but it is not known if there ever was a burial in them. Indeed, I believe that we do not yet know the true purpose of the pyramids.