Egypt had been on my bucket list for awhile, so when Glenna suggested that should be our next trip, I was ready. We took two weeks out of her busy schedule in March, a month that was tolerable for me, heat-wise.
On Sunday we flew from Columbia to Atlanta, Atlanta to Istanbul and Istanbul to Cairo. The trip is grueling; coming back it was more than 24 hours. But somehow you make it because of the reward in the middle. By the way, we ate dinner at One Flew South in Terminal E at ATL. Rabbit risotto and ramen with collards and pork belly in a turkey broth. Defnitely worth going back.
On our flight from Atlanta to Istanbul there were 24 wheelchair passengers! Lots of kids also. But it turned out fine. I got a decent amount of sleep as Sunday turned into Monday after the screaming kid from the departure lounge calmed down. The flight went quickly. We were soon seeing the minarets of Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque as we approached Istanbul. We had enough time there to sample some Turkish delight, get some flaky logs filled with cheese and meat, and labmacan, a pizza-like pastry with meat and lettuce and tomatoes. We left at sunset with all the lights coming on. We soon arrived in Cairo and taxied longer than I’m sure I ever have. We got through customs quickly, buying our visa and getting some Egyptian pounds.
The hotel shuttle was supposed to pick us up. We saw it whiz by once but couldn’t run fast enough to catch it. We knew that you have to bargain for everything in Egypt, particularly for taxis. They think, as they do so many places in the world, that Americans are easy marks. Glenna got one driver down to $5. Then his tire was flat. He found the other guy we'd been bargaining with who didn’t want to come down that far, but we gave him $5--for a ride that was literally around the corner.
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The Nile from the plane
(Note: A fair number of pictures in this
blog post are Glenna's.) |
The hotel for our first night was pretty nice. There was a wedding in the courtyard which I watched for a few minutes. It was already late and we had a very early start, so we relaxed a bit and then turned in.
Tuesday morning after four hours sleep we headed back to the airport for our flight to Aswan. Our bags went through magnetometers three times, but it all went pretty quickly. There was a general sense of shabbiness but nothing like what we have seen elsewhere. I was hoping we would get our first glimpse of the Pyramids which are just a bit southwest of central Cairo; we didn’t, though we did see the Nile snake its way south. (It actually snakes north from near Aswan to Alexandria and the Mediterranean. The ancient name for the south is Upper Egypt, and the north is Lower Egypt.)
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| Lobby of Basma Hotel |
In Aswan we had a big to-do about the price of the taxi with several drivers. We finally agreed to go with one who said he would accept what our hotel said was a fair fare. It turned out to be a pretty long drive, so we paid up.
We stayed at a very nice hotel (Basma Hotel) on top of a hill; from our room we had a glorious view of the pool below and the Nile, sand dunes and Aswan beyond.
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| View from our room |
Our first stop was for lunch at Makani on the Corniche (the cliff above the Nile) where we were the only customers. They advertised themselves as having healthy African food—chicken wrap and chicken thighs with rice for us. It was pretty good though I wasn’t very hungry. I was just hot.
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| Murals in Makani restaurant |
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| On the motroboat |
One of the sites we really wanted to visit was the Nubian Village. Glenna negotiated a ride upstream to the village in a little motor boat with a cover which kept me out of the blistering sun. This part of the Nile is not far from the origin and is quite narrow and also dotted with islands which made some of the channels just big enough for our little boat. Bigger tour boats can't travel this part of the Nile. It was beautiful. We saw lots of herons and other birds and lots of vegetation on the islands which, at one place, honestly made me think of Moses in the bulrushes.
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| Feluccas on the Nile in Aswan |
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| Egyptian kingfishers near their nest along the Nile |
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| These are those bulrushes that made me think of Moses. |
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| Narrow passage through the Nile |
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| I just liked the these reeds reflected in the Nile |
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| Heron watching |
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| Aga Khan Mausoleum |
The Agan Khan Mausoleum was high on a dune on the west bank; on the other side were large hotels and some homes of famous people. Farther down on the west bank was an oasis with a caravan of resting camels. It was a very pleasant ride.
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| Camels at the oasis |
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| Camels resting under the scrawny trees |
The Nubian Village was very colorful. One house is more beautifully decorated than the next. And, of course, there were street vendors all over; the hawking was constant as we knew it would be.
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| Decorated Nubian house |
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| Peacock house |
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| A little bit of everything on this one |
We stopped at one stall where a man was weaving pretty scarves. We succumbed eventually, later being angry with ourselves for thinking we had paid way too much and much later finding that we did okay (my mistake in the exchange rate). We had a bit of a skirmish with our boat driver who wanted us to tour a Nubian house for a stiff payment and we didn’t want to go. With his few words of English and Glenna’s bit of Arabic, he seemed to be saying that we had to pay an admission of LE50 to see the village which didn't make sense to us. Oh well, it was a fun excursion.
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| Street market |
Back in Aswan we walked back up the steep hill to the Nubian Museum which we were thinking of visiting. I was pooped from the climb and Glenna wasn’t enthusiastic, so we didn’t go in. Later I regretted that decision. One part includes an iconic unfinished obelisk on its side in the ancient quarry from which it came; it was referred to later by more than one guide. We continued up the hill to our hotel and relaxed a bit, me in the room and Glenna by the pool.
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| Sunset on the Nile |
Refreshed, we headed back down the hill. We thought we would do sunset at the famous Sofitel Hotel Legend Old Cataract, visited by many famous people including Agatha Christie. There was a cover charge to sit in the bar area where we could have seen the sunset, and in my still confusion about the exchange rate, it seemed exorbitant. So we passed and watched the not-so-pretty sunset anyway from the Corniche.
After it went down, we started walking across the street from the Corniche and came upon the souk (market) which we always like to do anyway. This one is rated second only to Cairo, and it was very long. Glenna got necklaces, and we got some snacks for our cruise.
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| Minaret from an opening in the souk |
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| Glenna walking in the souk |
After we had walked a loooong way, I was tired and hungry. We were delighted to find that Egypt also has auto rickshaws, so we took one back to where we had had lunch. We had read about El Dokka Restaurant on Essa Island, so we looked for the boat to take us out there. A hotel owns the entire island. The restaurant is one where lots of tour boats come for lunch as it turns out. The food was only okay. But Glenna got her lentil soup which she continued to order throughout the trip. Back on the mainland, we found a taxi back to the hotel because I couldn’t face the thought of that steep climb up there.
Wednesday was the day we started our three-day Nile cruise. We first had a good breakfast on the lovely terrace above the pool. I wanted to check on our hotel bill which seemed too high. That’s when I discovered my mistake about the exchange rate. Months ago when I listed the rate in my journal, I had written 1 LE = 17.5¢ instead of $1 = 17.5 LE (which makes 1 LE only 5.7¢--and LE means pounds Egyptian). Quite a difference. So all those things we thought were so expensive the day before were actually cheap. Ugh (for all the back and forths with vendors and for missing the Old Cataract hotel).
Our tour company, Djed Egypt Travel, picked us up after breakfast for the half hour drive downstream to our boat. We had the Nile on one side and a woodsy area on the other containing many falling down or unfinished structures. From their state we could see how they are made. They stack papyrus reeds from the Nile bank and put mud around them. When the mud dries, they have a very serviceable wall.
Our cruise was on a traditional Nile sailboat called a dahabiya; ours was named The Orient. It held 10 passengers in 5 cabins. We met the others: a couple from Virginia named Pam and Jim and a family from Texas, dad Rob, mom Gabriela and their four teens-twenties, Isabel, Alicia, Joseph and Elena. After our welcome drink (hibiscus juice—it was a different kind every time we got back on) from the crew, we explored. The bedrooms were on the bottom floor (ours was plenty big). Above that was the common area, partly covered with canvas and partly open to the sun. There was lots of comfortable seating and a table big enough to hold all of us and our guide Mahmoud for meals. The Nile here was much wider, making me very glad we had taken our boat trip to the Nubian village the day before.
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| Deck of our dahabiya The Orient |
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| Glenna reading... |
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| ...and not |
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| One of our meals |
Our meals on the boat were just awesome. Everything was always fresh. The chef sometimes went ashore when we did to get vegetables, fruits and meats. We had some sort of pasta several times; I wasn’t sure if they think we like pasta or Egyptians like it too.
After lunch we docked at Kom Ombo in time to beat the cruise ships of which there were many but none seemed to have many people on board—a vestige of the violence Egypt has experienced in recent years in certain areas and the fact that tourists are still staying away. Glenna and I are not deterred unless the State Department says we can't go. And, in fact, we never felt unsafe.
It was a bit of a hike to get to the temple at Kom Ombo from where we had moored, and it was very hot. So it was hard for me to keep up. Kom Ombo means gold mound. It is the name of the area and of the temple there. Temples were built to worship the gods or to commemorate the pharaohs who were the religious and political leaders. This one is unusual among ancient Egyptian temples in that it is dedicated to two gods, on the left the falcon god Horus and on the right the crocodile god Sobek, in a perfectly symmetrical building. These animals are symbols of the gods; it’s not that the Egyptians believed that a crocodile was a god.
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| Remains of Kom Ombo |
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| Side view of Kom Ombo |
Egyptian temples follow pretty much the same pattern everywhere and in all periods. What you see first is the pylon, the massive wall of stone with a door cut into the middle. Inside is the courtyard with pillars along three sides. This area was transitional between the outside world and the sanctified inner regions and could be entered by ordinary folk on festival days. Beyond that is the hypostyle hall, a room filled with rows of pillars. It was open only to priests and pharaohs for ritual purposes. At the end is the sanctuary where the altar or statue of the god resides; only the High Priest and the pharaoh could enter. An enclosure wall surrounds three sides of the temple and is attached to the pylon. In front of the pylon there were often colossal statues of the pharaoh it was honoring and/or obelisks. There also was often an avenue of sphinxes leading to the temple. Most temple precincts contained a sacred lake from which the priests got water to perform rituals.
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Plan of the temple: 1) pylon, 2) courtyard, 3) hypstyle hall, 4) sanctuary,
5) enclosure wall, 6) colossal statues, 7) obelisks, 8) avenue of sphinxes |
The carvings at Kom Ombo, either etched into the stone or in relief, were absolutely amazing, especially given how much exposure they have gotten to the elements in the many centuries since they were built. Our guide pointed out several significant carvings: Lower and Upper Egypt crowning the pharaoh which signified a united Egypt, woman giving birth in the squat position (the best position, our guide said), medical instruments (because this place was known as a center for such learning), the Egyptian calendars in hieroglyphics (astoundingly, they said the sun year was 365 1/4 days), and a marker on the outside back wall to divide the temple exactly in two.
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| Upper Egypt (falcon) and Lower Egypt (crocodile) crowning the pharaoh of United Egypt |
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| Pillars in the Hypostyle Hall |
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| Colorful ceiling |
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| Woman giving birth in squat position |
Kom Ombo was constructed during the Ptolemaic dynasty, 180-47 BC—which is late in ancient Egyptian history. We actually did the trip backward, historically speaking. The pyramids in the north were built in the time of the Old Kingdom. Later the capital moved farther south along the Nile to Thebes during the Middle Kingdom and continued into the New Kingdom.
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| Man on a donkey--seen from the boat |
On the way back we visited the Crocodile Museum containing numerous mummified crocodiles and even an egg. The rest of the afternoon was ours to loll around on the boat. We docked at one point and got to get out and go in the Nile. No one actually swam, but we all waded. One of the staff members had a model felucca (much smaller boat with only one sail used for local travel) which sailed pretty well.
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Wading in the Nile--with The Orient
and our tug behind |
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| Sailing the little felucca |
One of the benefits of going in a smaller boat is that we could dock most anywhere rather than having to go to a port as the cruise ships did. We docked for the night just before dinner where we got to know our fellow passengers and then turned in early. The electricity went off at 10:30 to conserve our fuel.
I had a pretty miserable night, waking up 10 times (yes, I was aware enough to count) to the sound of the waves lapping against our boat. Even though we were on a sailboat, we only actually sailed for a bit on the third day. The winds are too unreliable to guarantee a three-day trip and to be at the sites at the right time. So we were really pulled by a tug. After breakfast on Thursday, we piled into out tug and traveled back upriver to the cliff tombs at Gebel el-Silsila which we had spotted on our cruise yesterday.
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| Tombs at Gebel el-Silsila from our dahabiya |
In later times important people were buried in tombs rather than in their temples (as in the pyramids). With some exceptions, temples were on the east side of the Nile and tombs on the west (so east was for the living and west for the dead). The tombs at Gebel el-Silsila were cut into the hillside along the Nile.
We first visited a series of chapels which were not for royalty and thus were not finely carved but which were still nice. Farther along were the finer tombs. We saw Arabic, Greek and Western graffiti as well as some pigment crosses, obviously left by later visitors.
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| Entrance to one of the tombs |
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| Decorated ceiling of tomb |
Everyone has heard of hieroglyphics. There are actually three other scripts used in ancient Egypt: hieratic, demotic and Coptic. We saw an example of hieratic in these tombs. Hieroglyphs are very pictoral. Hieratic, developed about the same time as hierogpyphic, is much less pictoral which made it more practical for keeping records and writing letters. Demotic, which came later, was also used for record keeping and is less pictoral even than hieratic; it was one of the three scripts etched into the Rosetta Stone (together with Greek and hieroglyphic). Coptic is a variant of Greek (and thus a much later script, developing after the Greeks conquered Egypt) with some demotic thrown in; the term Coptic is the Greek word for Egyptian.
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| Hieratic script on tomb wall |
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| Graffiti left by the Greeks |
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| Graffiti left much later! |
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| Multiple images of the entombed |
At the end of the Gebel el-Silsila cliffside was a quarry. This site was the principal quarry for the sandstone used in almost all of the famous Egyptian temples. Mahmoud explained how they cut the stones and transported them down to the Nile with ropes. The cutting was made along faults or by inserting nail-like objects several places in the sandstone and applying pressure all at once. The resulting crack naturally goes from nail to nail.
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| Beautiful reeds along the Nile at Gebel el-Silsila |
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| Holes cut in the sandstone to facilitate mvement |
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| Part of the quarry |
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| Juice on our return |
After we returned to the boat (and got our juice), we got a cooking demonstration in the tiny kitchen from the chef who showed us how he makes fried cauliflower with a batter of water, flour, salt, pepper, cumin and coriander. We had it for lunch along with plenty other vegetables.
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| Our chef |
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| Cauliflower cooking |
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The finished product--everything
was always beautifully presented |
After lunch we got on the tug again to go to Edfu. Along the way we saw groves of banana, mango and date trees. In Edfu, we transferred to a horse and buggy for a ride through town to the Temple of Horus.
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| Taking the horse and buggy to Temple of Horus at Edfu |
The town looked very much like an Indian town except for the Arabic signs—dirty, shabby and unkempt. But the temple was outstanding. It is one of the most complete temples left. All the parts were there—pylon, courtyard, hypostyle hall and sanctuary though some of the carvings had been damaged much later by Christians. The temple dates from 268 BC, but the village dates from 2000 years before that. One of the interesting side rooms in the temple was the perfume room. On the wall carved in hieroglyphics were the recipes of numerous perfumes.
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| Pylon of the Temple of Horus at Edfu |
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Horus with double crown of Egypt (tall pointy one--which was red--for Lower Egypt
and roundish one--which was white--for Upper Egypt |
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| Courtyard with pylon behind |
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Two common pillar capitals--the lotus
and the papyrus blooms |
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| Carvings damaged by later Copts (Christians) |
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| Funerary boat in the sanctuary |
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If you look carefully at this ceiling, you can see the feet of Nut (the goddess of the sky)
on the lower right and the (greenish) arm and fingers of the hand on the lower left. Her body is wrapped around the ceiling, something we saw elsewhere also. |
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| A nice wall of hierogphyics |
Mahmoud told us the story that relates to this temple. The gods Set and Osiris were brothers, and Osiris was designated the next king of Egypt by his father (Geb, god of earth; his wife was Nut, goddess of the sky). Set was jealous and killed Osiris. His body was cut into 14 pieces and dispersed. Oriris’ wife Isis went on a mission to find the pieces and put them back together so that she could have a child. She did and Horus was born. When he came of age he challenged his uncle Set for the throne. They had a boat race with stone boats. Horus cheated with a wooden boat sheathed in plaster. Set’s boat, of course, sank and the other gods laughed at him but still questioned who should be the ruler. They consulted Osiris who said that Horus was the rightful ruler because he had not come to the throne by murder. Set made himself into a hippo in order to attack Horus, but he was stopped from killing him. After his death Osiris was made head of the underworld from which position he decided whether each person would go to heaven or hell. This is the version of the Osiris myth told to us by Mahmoud. If you read Egyptian history, you will find variations. We got lots of these stories along the way. I found them all fascinating and an insight into the ancient Egyptian mindset.
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| Death of the hippo (Set) |
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| Horus depicted as a falcon |
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| Funerary boat to the underworld |
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| Boat full of alfalfa leaves for the cattle |
When we returned to the place where our dahabiya was docked (they would just pound a stake into the sand and tie a rope from the boat around the stake), we walked along the shore to a farm village. There were cows and goats and very noisy dogs and a tiny kitten whom Glenna fell in love with. Except for one dog, all the animals were penned up or tethered. We also saw lemon trees and mango trees. It was nice to see a slice of Egyptian rural life.
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| Kids waving to us from the shore |
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| The Orient tethered to a stake |
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| Mango tree close up |
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| Tethered donkey |
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| Goats in a pen |
Friday morning we arrived in the town of Nekheb. We walked through the town with the kids following us trying to sell us trinkets. This is a common phenomenon in many countries—employing the children to sell to tourists.
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| Houses in the town of Nekheb |
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| Kids in the town waiting for us to come back |
Out of town we crossed a railroad track and then a good-sized highway and climbed the many steps up to more tombs on the hillside. This area is known as El Kab.
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| El Kab from the road |
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| Closer view of El Kab tombs |
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| Carving on the exterior of one of the tombs |
The tombs were beautiful. We weren’t supposed to take pictures inside, but Glenna managed to sneak a few. The wall decorations in the tombs follow a pattern—the couple going to the underworld and getting anointed. They also show scenes from everyday life—servants harvesting crops and making wine, the couple giving parties. One of the tombs had an entire wall covered with absolutely stunning, beautifully painted hieroglyphics. Even the ceilings are decorated in the tombs. The bodies were buried at the bottom of a shaft reached from the main tomb room. The El Kab area is notable because there are so many tombs, probably because the conditions were just right.
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| Interior of a tomb with decorated ceiling and walls |
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| Wall of one of the tombs with an image of the honoree and a wall of hieroglyphics |
As we walked back through the town and to the boat, the Friday call to prayer was just starting. Our crew all went to Friday prayers while we relaxed on the boat. The message was broadcast also. We, of course, had no idea what the imam was saying; Glenna may have gotten bits and pieces.
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| Crocodile on Glenna's bed! |
I wrote in my journal that lunch was wonderful—falafel, feta and tomatoes in yogurt, French fries, fresh tuna salad, and tahini and honey for dipping pancakes. Whenever we had something fried, it was delicious. They really know how to fry. Maybe it's the oil.
In the afternoon we got to experience a bit of sailing, if really slowly. The sail was so pretty unfurled. And it was so interesting to watch the sailor take down the huge sail (there are two sails on a dahabiya, a large one on the front and a smaller one on the back) and tether it. He shinnied up the mast and had to pull really hard to tighten the sail against the mast.
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| Sailing! |
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| The two of us posing on deck |
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Reaching for the rope
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| Tying down the sail |
That afternoon Glenna and I played a card game of Exploding Kittens with the family; they were real gamers. We had moored near the town of Esna this night. And since it was Friday there was much merry-making and noise for a long while. As last night, it got quite cold on deck, so we all went to our cabins.
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| The ten of us at our last dinner together |
Sound of the Friday reveling and video of The Orient above.
Saturday we sadly had to leave the boat. It was an awesome three days; Glenna later listed it as her favorite experience of the trip. The drive from Esna to Luxor was longish but interesting to see. Our driver was very nice and funny. The others were dropped off along the way, and Glenna and I continued on to the Valley of the Kings with Mahmoud whom we had contracted to guide us there. He had left us the night before to get in a few hours with his family (there was a new baby). In tourist season they really don’t see much of their families. And we also learned that they are really highly educated as a condition of service as a guide. They have degrees, at least one, in Egyptology.
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| Colorful building on our route |
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| Garden patch along the Nile |
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| Truck full of reeds |
The West Bank of Luxor is a series of limestone hills into which ancient peoples cut their tombs. The tombs are long and narrow with small storerooms off the main path; I don’t think I pictured them that way. There are many, many tombs on the West Bank (and surely more to be uncovered), but four in each valley are open any day and the ticket you buy is for three. You can pay a bunch extra and go in Tut’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings, but we didn’t. You will see later that we saw lots of artifacts from his tomb in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. In the Valley of the Kings Mahmoud told me that I could pick a difficult one (about 200 steps down and then back up) with beautiful wall decorations or a less spectacular easier one. I chose the harder one.
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| This is a great map showing the lushness around the Nile and the nothingness farther away. The tombs are all in the hills in the grayish areas. |
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Behind those trees is the Howard Carter house. He is
the one who discovered King Tut's tomb. |
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| Typical view of the hills containing the tombs |
The first tomb was that of Rameses III (Rameses II is the most famous one); I liked it best. The walls on the right all the way down were covered with gorgeous hieroglyphics, beautifully colored (they were etched in the rock, and the indentions were what was painted). The other side had beautiful figural paintings. Some of the ceilings were really nice too.
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| Wall of hieroglyphics |
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| Closeup of that wall |
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| Rameses III |
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| Ceiling of hieroglyphics and stars |
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Lower Egypt on the left and
Upper Egypt on the right |
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| Long view of the tomb of Rameses III |
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| Ra, the sun god |
The second tomb, for Merneptah, had the long incline. It was like the first one, just not quite as spectacular. In this one we got to go into the room at the end holding the sarcophagi, one granite and one quartzite. Originally one was inside the other. We tried to get a picture of the person-shaped inner coffin, but the guard was very strict and Glenna wasn’t willing to risk a reprimand or worse.
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| Image of workers building the tomb |
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| Long view of tomb including ceiling of stars |
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| Glenna against the hieroglyophics |
The third tomb was for Rameses IV. It had an enormous sarcophagus and a highly decorated room containing it. Again we saw the sky goddess Nut draped around the entire ceiling of the inner room. We also saw some graffiti. Those Copts were at it again.
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| The sacrophagus and part of the ceiling |
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| Beautiful wall decorations of tomb room |
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| Another view of the wall decorations in the tomb room |
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The triangular hill topper which is the
landmark of the Valley of the Kings |
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| Ceiling of noble's tomb |
Our next stop was the Tombs of the Nobles which were much less spectacular that those of the kings. Here the walls were painted rather than carved, but the paintings were really detailed. They always depict preparation of the body, offerings to Osiris (remember him—the king of the underworld who decides where you will go?), a parade of mourners, etc. They were easy to decipher because the pictures were very good. In the second tomb there was an opening to a 200-years older tomb. They probably ran into it when they were digging this one.
After the Nobles, we visited Medinat Habu, the spectacular (Glenna’s favorite) Mortuary Temple of Rameses III (whose tomb I described above). It was huge. There were two courtyards and two hypostyle halls. In various places heads had been smashed by later Christians. The inner rooms were gone, the stones having been carried away to build a monastery. Some of the pillars had also been felled after the first break (they were put up in sections—more later). We had previously seen pillars with capitals of papyrus leaves. Here the whole pillar represented a group of papyrus plants tied together in the middle. Many of the carvings were quite deep, indicating that this was an important place.
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| Glenna and Mahmoud walking toward the pylon |
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| Looking through the pylon door |
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| Damaged statues of Rameses III |
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| Deep hieroglyphic carvings on the wall |
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| Pretty paintings on the ceiling between pillars |
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| Papyrus pillar (note the curved shape) |
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| Tops of the papyrun pillars |
On the way back to the East Bank (which is flat), we stopped to see the Colossi of Memnon, depictions of Amenhotep III whose temple behind it is now gone.
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| Colossus of Memnon |
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The two of us with the colossi behind
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We were dropped at our hotel, Nefertiti, which we liked right away. There was an outdoor restaurant where we ate twice and a nice lobby. Our room was on the second (third American) floor, and that walk was hard for me, particularly when carrying bags. We just dropped our things in the room and went down for a late lunch—another delicious one.
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Pretty window in the
stairwell at hotel |
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| Nice hall ceiling |
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| Delicious lunch at our hotel |
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With another hibiscus tea
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After searching around for awhile for an ATM and getting a glimpse of the Temple of Luxor, we found a carriage which took us to the Mummification Museum. On the map it looked as if we could walk there because it wasn’t far from our hotel, but the Avenue of the Sphinxes, which will eventually go all the way from the Luxor Temple to Karnak Temple as it once did, is being excavated (was buried over the centuries as was most of Luxor Temple), making the walk quite a long one. The museum was small but very interesting; the exhibits showed how mummification was accomplished, and there were various mummified objects. Very nicely done (and unfortunately no pictures allowed).
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| Entrance to the Mummification Museum |
During mummification, the body was rinsed with wine and water from the Nile for purification. Then the brain was removed by inserting a hook in a hole near the nose and pulling the tissue out; it was too soft to mummify. It was discarded as they didn’t at that time know the significance of the brain. Then a cut was made in the left side of the body and the organs (liver, lungs, stomach and intestines) removed and put in canopic jars which were buried with the mummy (we saw these pictured numerous times and saw some jars in the Egyptian Museum). The inside of the body was rubbed with lotions and oils, and the body was packed with linen and straw to keep the human shape. The eyes, ears, nose and mouth were stuffed, and then the body was soaked in salt for 40 days to dry it out and prevent rot. It was then wrapped in hundreds of yards of linen strips which were held in place by a kind of glue called mummia. The heart was mummified separately from the body and then put back in place before wrapping since it was felt that the heart was the center of intelligence and personality and was needed for the afterlife. The last step was to put the life-like mask on the face so that the soul could recognize the body and then place it in a coffin. After the mummification process was finished, the funeral could take place. The procession of mourners accompanied the mummy to the final resting place. The Book of the Dead (instructions for reaching eternal life), the Canopic jars and other belongings were placed in the tomb with the dead. After the tomb was sealed, the heart was weighed against the feather of truth. If it balanced the feather, eternal life was granted because it was judged that you had led a good life. If not, you were doomed and your heart fed to a monster.
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| Son of our driver tending the horse and carriage |
Our carriage driver had waited for us and took us back to the hotel, this time going around Luxor Temple.
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| Riding around Luxor Temple |
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| Good view of the papyrus columns |
We had some hibiscus tea and ginger lemon in the rooftop restaurant and then set out to explore the souk. This one wasn’t as long as the one in Aswan, but it was pretty nice though we got very little.
We ate there in the market, pretty good but waaaay too much. We didn’t even touch a few dishes. Glenna had fun feeding fish to a kitty who was later chased off by another cat; I’ve never seen cats run so fast. We also witnessed a serious prolonged argument, loud voices and a lot of pushing and shoving
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| Amun-Ra |
Sunday was another full day in Luxor. Thebes was the Greek name for this part of Egypt. The Muslims, when they came starting in the 10th century, renamed the area Luxor because they thought the temples they found were palaces (luxurious). We started with a visit to Karnak (my favorite temple). Our guide (from Djed Travel again) was good and contradicted a few things that Mahmoud had said. I suppose there is some uncertainty about things that happened so long ago. Karnak is the Temple of Amun-Ra (sun god) whose wife is Mut and whose son is Khonsu (moon god). They are called a cultic triad, not uncommon in those times. Their statues were all over Karnak.
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| Model of the huge Karnak Temple |
You enter the temple through a procession of Sphinxes with rams’ heads (for fertility). This is the beginning of the Avenue of the Sphinxes that I mentioned earlier. The heads of the sphinxes near Luxor are human (for wisdom).
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| Entrance to Karnak through the Avenue of the Sphinxes |
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| Sphinxes with the face of a ram for fertility |
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The sacred pool
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Karnak is huge, the largest religious building ever built. For example, the hypostyle hall has 134 columns at two levels. The columns in the middle are taller and topped with open papyrus flowers. The smaller columns, on the outsides were topped with closed flowers. The inner sanctum still contained the altar which was black in parts where women over the two millennia since its construction had touched it and left oils on the stone. Offerings to the gods were food (fruits, breads, cooked meats), drink (milk, water, wine and beer—signified by four vessels, often pictured) and flowers (lotus and papyrus). The sacred pool is still here in this temple.
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| Obelisk |
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| Closeup of obelisk |
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| Carving of Amun-Ra |
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| Amun-Ra and Mut |
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Two levels of pillars in hypostyle hall and the upper window above the shorter
pillars that let in light |
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| Pillars in hypostyle hall |
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| Egyptian school girls on a tour of Karnak |
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| The two of us after leaving Karnak |
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| The god Amun-Ra (dead) and Rameses II (living) |
We learned so much this day. One thing was that hieroglyphics are read left to right if the figure nearby is facing left and right to left if it is facing right. Another fact that I found fascinating was how you tell whether the god you are observing is pictured dead or alive. A live figure has left foot forward (an aggressive posture), arms at his side and a straight beard. A dead figure has his feet together, arms crossed over his chest and a curled beard.
Stars are a common site on ceilings of tombs and temples; they are five-pointed to represent the stance of man (think the famous drawing by Leonardo da Vinci). Stars on a ceiling represent guardian spirits. Another symbol we associate with Egypt is the scarab which is the symbol of morning (and thus immortality). Sun represents the afternoon and the ram represents sunset. The djed symbol (a long vertical line crossed by four shorter horizontal lines) is the symbol of stability (Osiris’ spine)—and also the logo of our tour company. The symbol I have always liked is the ankh which is the symbol for life.
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| Stars on the ceiling in the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut |
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| Scarab symbol with the sun over it at Mummification Museum |
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| Djed symbol to the left of the bird at El Kab |
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| Ankh symbols at Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut |
After tramping all over the extensive grounds of Karnak (many side buildings were added over the centuries), we headed for Luxor Temple. As I mentioned Luxor was once buried up to 20 feet. Both a church and a mosque were built on it. The mosque is still on the “second floor”.
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| Uncovered sphinxes at the Luxor Temple end |
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| Sphinxes with the face of a man (for wisdom) |
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Statue added when
the Romans came
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| Mosque on top of Luxor Temple |
There were massive statues of Ramses II (the most important one, remember, who ruled for 67 years) in front of the pylon and others inside.
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| Massive statues of Rameses II in front of the pylon |
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| Detail of that carving |
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Incredible pristine carving
on back of Rameses throne |
Also inside are statues of King Tut and his wife—she has a protective arm around his shoulders—because he finished the Amenhotep part (the front). Interestingly, there are the remainders of a Last Supper painted on the walls where the Coptic church was. Another figure here was Alexander the Great paying homage to the local gods, a very wise thing he did wherever he went.
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Tut's wife's arm around
his shoulders |
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Group of Egyptian ladies visiting the temple. Glenna
estimated that 80% of Egyptian women wore either
a head scarf (hijab) or a burka (covering the face also). |
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| Painting of the Last Supper on the wall in the area the Copts used for their services |
And then we were done. We honestly felt that in these two half days of touring we hadn‘t gotten what we paid for (two full days). When Glenna mentioned that to our guide, he called the local manager of the company who came over to talk to us at the hotel. They agreed to give us a car and driver for the afternoon, though no guide. That was fine with us. We wanted to visit the Valley of the Queens and felt that we knew enough about what we would see inside the tombs that a guide wasn’t necessary.
But before we went there we had a wonderful lunch at Sofra, also owned by the owner of Djed Egypt Travel and Nile Dahabiya Boats (whom we had seen in the morning when he and the local manager came to our hotel to meet us!). Sofra is in a beautiful large home which was once owned by a friend of the owner’s mother. He got the opportunity to buy the house and decided to open a restaurant. Oddly he controls all this business from his home in the Netherlands though he is a Luxor native. We ate in the open first floor (second floor to us) which was breezy and full of color, antiques and plants. Just wonderful. We had the Egyptian version of samosas and two pots; Glenna’s shrimp pot was her favorite dish of the trip.
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| Sofra dining room |
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| Glenna at Sofra |
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| Whole truck of tomatoes on its way to Cairo |
In the Valley of the Queens we once again had a ticket to see three tombs. The first and second were simply spectacular. The detail in the clothes (a more feminine interest probably) was amazing. Many of them had a transparent top layer, making me think that this probably represented a shroud. By now, we recognized many of the symbols we saw. Glenna snuck a fair number of pictures (honestly, a camera without a flash is not going to hurt the art). The third tomb was quite damaged and so not as fun to see. We didn’t go in the Nefertiri tomb which is supposed to be the most beautiful; it also had a steep extra price.
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| Finally a queen even if she is with her husband |
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| Typical inner tomb where the lid is the shape of the person |
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| More gorgeous hieroglyphics |
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| More beautiful detail |
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| Beautiful detail in the clothes |
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| Wall painting from third tomb--not as nice |
Our last stop was the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, the second female pharaoh. Note the name which indicates that this was a temple used for her funeral (more later for the pyramids). It was so different from anything we had seen. There was some good restored color and it had been hewn out of the hillside which was impressive, but it wasn't one of my favorites.
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| Temple of Hatshepsut hewn out of the hillside |
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| Hatshepsut as a pharaoh (thus masculine looking) |
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| Painting of warriors |
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| Glenna on the shuttle that took us up to the temple |
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| Dinner on the rooftop |
Back at out hotel we rested a little. Glenna had a bit of a headache and was feeling a little down; she went down to the lobby to call JR (on WhatsApp—for free) which revived her. But when she left the room she locked the door. When I roused, I kept thinking: what if there is a fire; I couldn't get out. It made me panic a little.We visited the market again for a bit. After our time in Luxor I thought that I wanted to get a papyrus (or maybe something similar) with beautiful hieroglyphics on it, but I didn’t feel like looking. I should have. I never found one in Cairo. My one shopping regret.
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| Our train compartment |
We had a long wait for our late train to Cairo, so we spent a long time at dinner on the roof again.
We walked to the station, hassled all the way—Taxi? Horse? Station? Hotel? Very cheap. You learn to ignore it. We had been told and had read that trains are not reliable, so we were prepared to be there for a long time. The train we were taking goes every night from Aswan to Cairo. Ours, amazingly, was pretty much on time. Our little sleeping compartment was big enough. Dinner came with it, but we ate very little of it, and we actually slept reasonably well.
End of Part I, Upper Egypt. Go to Part II, Lower Egypt.
