Wow, Egypt has so many interesting places to visit, and
“The Splendors of Ancient Egypt” tour organized by Archaeological Study Tours
took a group to site after site during February 2000.
Here’s what the trip itinerary said about what was ahead
of us. “This tour is exceptional in many
ways. There is time in Cairo
to explore this fascinating city in depth.
A day will be spent in the Delta, visiting the site of Tanis,
first excavated by Flinders Petrie in 1883.
We will travel into the Faiyum Oasis and to the rarely
visited site of Meydum, known for its collapsed pyramid, to the Hawara
pyramid, and to the important Greek and Roman site of Karanis. Five full days will be spent in Luxor
…. time for a thorough exploration of Thebes on both the West and
East Banks, including a visit to the lavishly painted Tomb of Nefertari
in the Valley of the Queens… as well as the temples of Hathor at Dendera,
decorated in the name of Cleopatra the Great, and of Seti I at Abydos. During a five-day Nile Cruise
on the deluxe Oberoi “Philae,” one of the most luxurious vessels plying the
Nile, we will visit the Temple of Horus at Edfu,
the most perfectly preserved ancient Egyptian temple in existence today, as well
as the recently moved Kalabsha Temple in Aswan. A visit to the newly opened Nubian
Museum in Aswan and a flying visit to Abu Simbel will
complete the tour.”
A pretty exhausting itinerary. My notes are not complete, but I’ll call out
some of the highlights in this blog.
Our accompanying scholar was Lanny Bell, who received his
Ph.D. in Egyptology from the Department of Oriental Studies at the University
of Pennsylvania. Among his credentials
and experience was 12 years spent at Chicago House in Luxor.
First, a dissertation on
tombs. I don’t care
whose tomb it is, creeping down those passages and descending steep and
slippery stairs is NOT my favorite thing; this might be the trip where my
claustrophobia came to the fore.
The tomb of King Tut in the
Valley of the Kings was impressive, however.
Although most of the goodies are in the Cairo museum, having the wooden
mummy case with the golden mask still reside in the sarcophagus at the bottom
of the tomb, is impressive and well worth the creep down the zillions of stairs
to see.
The photo in the Cairo
museum of the tomb as it was originally uncovered was very interesting. Piles upon piles of the worldly goods needed
for a comfortable journey through the afterlife… beds, chariots, pots, etc …
all heaped up. My goodness, if I woke up
to start my afterlife journey, it would certainly be delayed for several days
while I tidied up a bit first!
In mummification, the
internal organs are removed and 4 of the important ones are preserved in a
canopic jar (4 of them) which are then placed under the bench on which the
mummy is laid. My imagination got the
best of me when we were in the temple where 5000 cats were mummified – imagine,
said I, 20,000 little canopic jars all over the place!
CAIRO
Our group stayed at the Mena House Oberoi Hotel, which is
located at the foot of the great pyramid.
(in 2025, it is owned by Marriott).
It is an historic hotel established in 1886.
Day 1:
We began our touring with an exploration of Memphis, the first
capital of a united Egypt.
The Old Kingdom of Egypt had its capital
at Memphis. Memphis served as the capital city from the beginning of
the Old Kingdom and was the seat of power for the first notable king of that
era, Djoser.. It remained a significant city throughout much of Egyptian
history. It was the administrative capital of ancient Egypt. Memphis is
located south of the Nile River delta, on the west bank, about 15 miles south
of modern-day Cairo.
We also visited Sakkara, the necropolis of Memphis, which is
northwest of the ruins of Memphis. Here,
we toured the Step Pyramid complex of Djoser which predates the Giza pyramids and is
the world’s first monumental building constructed entirely in stone and located
northwest of the ruins of Memphis. It is the first Egyptian pyramid to be built.
More about this pyramid from EgyptToursPortal.com: “
The
step pyramid was constructed in the 27th century in the third dynasty about
4,700 years ago to become the final resting place of Pharaoh Djoser (2721 –
2780 BC) which makes the step pyramid of Saqqara also known to be a
proto-pyramid which is considered to be the oldest large-scale cut stone
construction ever created in the history of mankind. Most of the royal and
elite ancient Egyptian during this time were buried in mastabas which is a type
of funerary structure that was generally rectangular in shape and built over
the tomb and located underground. Djoser wished to be buried in a new kind of
structure. It was designed by one of the most intelligent characters in ancient
Egyptian history, his Vizier “Imhotep” to become a centerpiece in a massive mortuary
complex in an enormous courtyard surrounded by the most majestic ceremonial
structures and beautiful decorations. He is the first decided to build a simple
mastaba tomb but decided to build a square-based pyramid inside of an
extraordinary complex that changed the face of Architecture through the
millennia.”
We were lucky to see this site, as in 2006 it was closed
and not re-opened until March 2020 after 14 years of restoration.
Next was the smaller Pyramid of Unas, a 5th Dynasty king
whose burial chamber is covered with Pyramid Texts to ensure the survival of
his soul. It is a smooth-sided pyramid, almost like a crumbling hill, built in
the 24th century BCE for the Egyptian pharaoh Unas, the ninth
and final king of the Fifth Dynasty.
Photo courtesy EgyptToursPortal
We visited the tombs of the Nobles Ti and Ptahhotep. Also located in the Saqqara necropolis in
Egypt, near the Step Pyramid of Djoser, these tombs belong to high-ranking
officials of the Old Kingdom. Ti
was a high-ranking official who held titles like "overseer of the pyramids
and Sun-Temples" during the Fifth Dynasty.
Ptahhotep, a vizier and city administrator during the reign of King
Djedkare Isesi in the Fifth Dynasty, is also associated with the
"Instruction of Ptahhotep," an early piece of Egyptian literature
offering ethical teachings.
We visited the Serapeum.
In these catacombs we saw numerous huge sarcophagi that were used for
the burials of the mummified sacred Apis bulls of the god Ptah. The bulls were considered manifestations
of the god Ptah.
I can’t really cite details
about all the tombs, temples and sites that we visited on this tour. Overload set in at an early point in the
trip.
I like the fact that the
outside of the temples were used as a kind of newspaper, informing the populace
through pictures and hieroglyphics about the latest battles that the kind had
won.
When that king got out of
favor of died and his successor – particularly someone from a different lineage
– wanted to shape public sentiment, he would either have his workmen carve his
name over the others’ name, or chip away the offending head, or simply remove
the stones, turn them over, and re-use them.
The Christians were just
about the worst at tis. They regarded
these “graven images” as bad luck and damaged the faces and names as fast as
they could.
I guess that even then,
live-and-let-live was hard to promulgate.
Day 2:
Touring today featured the only surviving representatives
of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World:
The Pyramids
of Giza and the Sphinx.
No sense getting too serious about antiquity….
Close up to the big pyramid, you realize how many pieces
of granite had to be hauled to make this formation … how many workers/slaves
gave their lives to this endeavor!
Here is a military policeman to make sure we behave
ourselves…
If it looks hot and dusty, it is because it is. And there is that layer of pollution from
Cairo city that you can perceive.
At every pyramid we visited, tourists are encouraged to
take a camel ride. (Um, no thanks.
Previous experience in North Africa has left me with respect for tall animals
that sneak up on you and puff hot air on your neck…)
We visited a museum where the remarkably preserved
remains of the Solar Boat of Cheops is on display. (A perspective on how things have changed
in thousands of years… I wonder how long it can run on one charge?)
An evening performance of a Sound and Light show
on the Giza plateau was magical!
Day 3:
The collapsed Pyramid of Meydum, the tomb of Snefru, is
possibly the earliest true pyramid. This
an archaeological site in “Lower Egypt” (Lower Egypt is in the north and
contains the Nile Delta, while Upper Egypt contains areas to the South. These
two designations may seem counterintuitive to their physical locations, but
they reflect the flow of the Nile River, from South to North). It contains a
large pyramid and several mudbrick mastabas. The pyramid was Egypt's first
straight-sided one, but it partially collapsed in ancient times. The area is
located around 45 miles south of modern Cairo.
It gets confusing, this distinction about
mastabas. But mastabas are NOT
pyraminds. They are an ancient Egyptian
tomb that rectangular in shape with sloping sides and a flat roof,
standing to a height of 17–20 feet. They
consist of an underground burial chamber with rooms above it (at ground
level) in which to store offerings.
At Hawara,
we visited the pyramid attributed to Pharoh Amememhet III, the last powerful
ruler of the 12th dynastry, and its associated “Labyrinth”. Per Wikipedia, the pyramid was built of
mudbrick round a core of limestone passages and burial chambers, and faced
with limestone. Most of the facing stone was later pillaged for use in other
buildings— a fate common to almost all of Egypt's pyramids— and today the
pyramid is little more than an eroded, vaguely pyramidal mountain of mud brick.
There is a lot of mystery about the Labryrinth. Here is a representation of what it might
have looked like: For more details,
see this website: https://www.theancientconnection.com/hawara-lost-egyptian-labyrinth/
We toured the agriculturally fertile Faiyum Oasis, which was
reclaimed during the Middle Kingdom and Ptolemaic Periods. It is southwest of today’s Calro.
Lunch on the shore of Lake Qarun, part of the oasis.
We explored the important Greek and Roman site of Karanis, which once
housed two limestone temples and a large agora.
The settlement was established by Ptolemy II Philadelphus in order to
settle Greek mercenaries among indigenous Egyptians. It was founded around 270 BC and abandoned around
AD 650. The village of Karanis, located in the northern part of the Fayum Oasis;
the modern name of the place is Kom Aushim.
Day 4:
For the next few days, we stayed at the Nile Hilton Hotel,
which is centrally located in the downtown area.
Oh yes, the pollution of
Cairo is a major major turnoff to anyone who might want an occasional lung of
fresh air – and the continual requests for bribes and tips from taxi drivers,
street urchins and school kids, shop clerks, and just random people walking
down the street – well, it’s a bit wearing, but tolerable.
Our focus of this day was the Egyptian Museum, where we viewed the
highlights of its huge collection, including the new mummy room, and the
objects from the tomb of Tutankhamen.
Day 5:
As we traveled to and from the site of Tanis, we were able
to observe the Delta landscape. Tanis,
the Zoan of the Bible, was the capital of Egypt during Dynasties XXI-XXII and
served as the burial place of some of the dynasties’ most important leaders. The pharaohs brought decorated stones and
monumental statues from all over Egypt to embellish their temples. Today, Tanis is an impressive outdoor museum.
Photo courtesy of Britannica.com
Closeup of carving in photo just prior, shows Ma’at the
Egyptian goddess of truth, justice, and cosmic order. Ma'at is depicted
with an ostrich feather on her head, and her role was crucial in the Egyptian
concept of the afterlife. Photos
courtesy Priscilla Wopat.
Lunchtime at Hotel Etap Ismailia on the Suez Canal.
Day 6:
The monuments of Old Cairo
including the Coptic
Church of Abu Serga, the Ben Ezra Synagogue and the Coptic Museum are the
focus of this busy day.
The Saints Sergius and Bacchus Church, also known as the Abu
Serga Church, is one of the oldest Coptic Christian churches in Egypt,
dating back to the 4th century and built on the ruins of a Roman fort.
Wikipedia notes that the church is of significant historical importance. It is
where many patriarchs of the Coptic Church were
elected. Tradition holds that Saints
Sergius and Bacchus Church was built on the spot where the Holy Family (Joseph, Mary and the infant Jesus)
rested at the end of their journey into
Egypt.
The Ben Ezra Synagogue is no longer an active
synagogue, and is mostly a tourism stop and also has a Jewish museum. According to local folklore,
it is located on the site where baby Moses was found. To add to its significance, in 1890 about a
quarter million documents were found in the synagogue; those documents offered
details about To add to its significance, in 1890 about a quarter million
documents were found in the synagogue which offer a details about the life of
Jews in North Africa from the 11th to 13th centuries.
Photo courtesy of
Schlanger.
We visited the Al Rifa’i Mosque, which is
dedicated as a tomb to Sheikh Ali al-Rifai, the head of an order of dervishes.
Photo courtesy of JB Pallares
Wooden enclosure over the tomb of Ali Abu Shubbak
al-Rifa'i within the mosque
Photo courtesy of Ahmad Badr
Then to the Madrasa of Sultan Hassan, considered
to be one of the masterpieces of Mamluk architecture in the city of Cairo.
Photo courtesy of Mohamed Khalifullah
Day 7: We fly to LUXOR
We stayed at the PLM Mercure Hotel, which is well located
for our touring.
Please forgive me, dear readers, for not identifying the
exact location of the following photos.
My fault in not attending to building a photo album immediately after
this trip. But practically everyone’s
object in traveling to Egypt is to see Luxor and the Valley of the Kings… and
here are my photos of what I saw and also some photos of the Egyptians who live
and raise families there.
Luxor is well-touristed, as you can see from the photo of the
hot air balloon, and the little train that takes tourists around…
And here’s my photo to prove I was there!
And now for some random photos of places and people that
I found interesting:
A full afternoon touring the magnificent sanctuary of Amun-Re at Karnak, with its maze
of monumental gateways, obelisks, pillared halls and subsidiary shrines. The
sanctuary of Amun-Re at Karnak is the largest religious complex in ancient
Egypt, located in the ancient city of Thebes, now Luxor. It served as the
principal religious center for the worship of Amun-Re, the chief deity of the
Theban Triad, and was expanded and rebuilt over 2000 years by successive
pharaohs.
Photo courtesy Marc Ryckaert
Day 8:
We drove north through villages of baked-mud houses and
lush cultivated lands bordering the Nile, to get to Dendera.
At Dendera,
we visited the Temple of
Hathor, goddess of love, music and wine.
Although this temple was built largely in the first century BC, it
occupies the site of a much older building. The whole temple complex is one of
the best preserved temple complexes of ancient Egypt.
Photo courtesy of Ijanderson977
A fragment found outside the temple of Hathor
Photo courtesy
Priscilla Wopat
On the roof of the
temple is a plaster cast of the famous Zodiac of Dendera (the original is in Paris). This is the only circular representation of
the heavens to be found in Egypt to date.
The Hathor Temple has stone reliefs that depict
Harsomtus, in the form of a snake, emerging from a lotus flower. Harsomtus,
also known as Horus, is depicted as one of the ancient gods, a "primeval
creator. ( source Wikipedia)
Photo courtesy of Olaf Tausch
Next, to Abydos, where we toured the Temple of Seti I, and
viewed the famous List of
Kings and some of the most beautifully painted reliefs surviving from
Pharonic times.
An afternoon visit to the Temple of Luxor.
The image below is probably the most famous view of this temple.
Among other things, Luxor Temple is famous for the procession
of the Opet Festival and the scene of the divine conception and birth of
Amenhotep III.
More about the Opet Festival (courtesy
AI and wikipedia): The Opet Festival at the Temple of Luxor was a
significant religious celebration in ancient Thebes (modern-day Luxor),
centered around a procession of the god Amun-Re and his divine family from
Karnak Temple to Luxor Temple. This procession, carried on sacred barques
(boats), symbolized the renewal of the pharaoh's divine power and the fertility
of the land. The festival, which lasted for several days, involved
elaborate rituals, feasts, and public displays of devotion. The festival
included the barque (a ceremonial boat) transporting the cult statue of
“Amun-Re, supreme god, his wife Mut, and his son Khons. At the Luxor Temple, a ritual
marriage ceremony took place in the Birth room between the Pharaoh and Amun-Re,
spiritually linking them to ensure the Pharaoh’s fertility and reinstate the
Pharaoh as the intermediary between the gods and Egypt. During the marriage
ceremony, the Pharaoh was ceremonially reborn through a re-crowning ceremony, emphasizing
the fertile nature of the Pharaoh and legitimizing his divine right to rule. The
ritual procession of Amun's barque began at Karnak (see above re Karnak), and
ended at Luxor Temple.
More about the divine conception and birth of Amenhotep
III. The Luxor Temple features a series of reliefs depicting these events,
found on the west wall of the Birth Room. They show the god Amun
visiting Queen Mutemwia in the guise of the living pharaoh, leading to her
conception of Amenhotep III. The reliefs also include Khnum shaping the
infant on a potter's wheel, and Thoth announcing the pregnancy.
Photo of reliefs courtesy of Elpidio Valdes
Day 9, 10, 11:
In the morning of Day 9, we crossed the Nile to the West
Bank to visit the tombs of the Valleys of the Kings and Queens. This panorama of the Valley of the Kings
is looking north. Photo courtesy of Nikola Smolenski on Wikipedia.
The Valley of the Queens is where
queens, princes, princesses, and other high-ranking officials were buried from
roughly 1560 BC to 1130 BC. (Pharaohs were buried in the Valley of the Kings).
The Valley of the Queens was known anciently as Ta-Set-Neferu,
which has a double meaning of "The Place of Beauty" and/or "the
Place of the Royal Children". The
Valley of the Queens consists of the main wadi (wadi = a river valley which is
only wet when heavy rains occur), which contains most of the tombs, along with
the Valley of Prince Ahmose, the Valley of the Rope, the Valley of the Three
Pits, and the Valley of the Dolmen. The main wadi contains 91 tombs and the
subsidiary valleys add another 19 tombs.
This image below is a photo taken from a hot air balloon flight by
Zureks; the visible road leads to the
Valley
We visited the tombs of Tutankhamen and three other pharaohs
… where we could visit is a matter of which tombs were open to the public on
any one day.
The Tomb of Tutankhamun, (per Wikipedia) is designated as KV62 in the Valley
of the Kings, is renowned for being the only royal tomb discovered
relatively intact from ancient Egypt. Located in Luxor, Egypt, it was
discovered in 1922, more than 3,300 years after Tutankhamun's
death. The tomb's contents, including a golden funerary mask, are iconic
symbols of ancient Egypt. While most of the tomb's treasures are now
housed in the Grand Egyptian Museum; Tutankhamun's mummy and sarcophagus remain
on display in the tomb itself. For more details and views of tomb interior
decorations, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Tutankhamun
We visited the newly-opened tomb of Nefertari.
Details from Wikipedia:
QV66 is the tomb of Nefertari, the Great Wife of Pharaoh Ramesses II, in Egypt's Valley of the Queens; it was discovered in 1904. Nefertari,
which means "beautiful companion", was Ramesses II's favorite wife;
he went out of his way to make this obvious, referring to her as "the one
for whom the sun shines" in his writings, and commissioned portraiture wall paintings. Her tomb
once held the mummified body and representative symbolisms of her, consistent
with most Egyptian tombs of the period. Now, everything had been looted except
for two thirds of the 5,200 square feet of wall paintings.Of what still remains,
these wall paintings characterized Nefertari's character.
And we saw the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Dier el-Bahri, which is one of the most
spectacular monuments in Egypt.
More from AI: The
Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, known as Djeser-Djeseru (meaning "Holy of Holies"),
is a mortuary temple located at Deir el-Bahri on the west bank of the Nile
in Luxor, Egypt. It was built during the reign of Hatshepsut, a female
pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty. The temple is renowned for its unique
architectural design, which seamlessly integrates with the surrounding cliffs,
and its elaborate decorations depicting Hatshepsut's reign and religious
beliefs.
Overview Photo courtesy of EgyptToursPortal
Photo of the back wall of the colonnade at the mortuary
temple of Hatshepsut. Photo taken by
fellow traveler Priscilla Wopat.
We visited the temples and chapels of Medinet Habu, the
largest built by Ramesses III,
This is our guide Magdi, in the 2nd courtyard
of Medinat Habu.
Magdi explains the etching and leads the group to the
Inner Portico
Photos courtesy of Priscilla Wopat
and we also visited the Ramesseum, which, in accordance with New
Kingdom royal burial practices, was the memorial or mortuary temple of Pharaoh
Ramesses II. It is located in the Theban
Necropolis in Upper Egypt on the west of the River Nile, across from the modern
city of Luxor.
Here is a panoramic view of the Ramesseum as seen from
the Theban hills. Photo courtesy of
Vyacheslav Argenberg.
Photo courtesy of Marc Ryckaert
Very famous is the fallen statue of Ramsses II that
inspired Shelley’s famous people “Ozymandias.”
(here is the URL to read this poem… https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46565/ozymandias
)
Photo courtesy of Tim Adams
Next we went to some rarely-visited tombs, the tomb of Kheruef and the tomb of Ankh-Hor.
Our last stop on the West Bank of the Nile included a
visit to some of the hundreds of tombs of the Nobles, spread over two square miles. These tombs are of special interest for the
Naturalistic murals which give us an intimate view of life in ancient Egypt.
We visited the Tomb of Ramose in the Valley of the
Nobles. The Valley of the Nobles is adjacent to the Valley of the Kings and the
Valley of the Queens. The area contains the burial sites of many high-ranking
officials, administrators, and nobles from ancient Egyptian times, spanning the
Old Kingdom through the New Kingdom periods.Ramose was a noble who served as
the Mayor of Thebes during the reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep III, around the 14th
century BCE. The tomb is renowned for its vibrant and well-preserved wall
paintings, which depict scenes from Ramose's life, including his family, his
role in the administration of Thebes, and various religious ceremonies. These
paintings offer valuable insights into the daily life, religious beliefs, and
artistic practices of ancient Egypt.
(source: https://egyptianimports.com/blogs)
This photo taken by fellow traveler Priscilla
Wopat
We stopped at the ancient village of the artisans, Deir al-Madina,
one of the best preserved town sites in Egypt and the subject of the television
series “Ancient Lives.”
Returning to the East Bank of the Nile, we boarded the Oberoi Nile cruiser “Philae”
which was our floating hotel for four days.
We sail to Esna
to dock for the night.
There are a fair number of boats that cruise the Nile…
You can watch the banks of the Nile go by…
And see some incredible sunsets!
In addition to the views, there are always artists who
ply us with entertainment:
Snake charmers too!
Day 12:
We visit the half-buried Temple of Esna, which is dedicated to the
ram-headed creator god Khnum and dates to the Roman period. Khnum is associated
with creation and the Nile,
Photo courtesy EgyptToursPortal
Next stop is the Temple of Horus in Edfu, a completely preserved
Ptolemaic temple of the falcon god Horus.
Due to its completeness and state of preservation, it is the best
example of Ptolemaic temple building in Egypt. The building was started by
Ptolemy III Euergetes I in 237 BCE. (for more info, https://isac.uchicago.edu/research/projects/tell-edfu/temple-horus)
We traveled there by Caleche.
In the evening on the boat, we had a Galabiya party. This is what I found in the bazaar – probably
designed for a lady of the night, but oh well…
Day 13: ASWAN
Of all the cities we stopped
at, I like Aswan best. The diversity of
physiognomy that came with being so close to the Sudan (i.e. the Nubians) is
interesting, and the foreign presence from building “positive” projects like
the Aswan dams (the first by the Brits, the High Dam by those friendly folks
the Russians…) have made the populace amenable to tourists. Okay, the merchants in the bazaar will still
grab you when you walk by ( I hate it when anybody grabs my arm or
clothes!). But other than that, the
climate is wonderful, felucca rides are fun, and I believe that most people
would enjoy a visit at the Old Cataract Hotel. It’s a historic British colonial-era hotel
located on the banks of the Nile, built in 1899 by Thomas Cook to house
European travelers and many famous guests stayed there. Next trip, that’s where I want to stay!
Our first tour stop on the cruise tour program is Kom Ombo, often
called the acropolis of Egypt for its spectacular site overlooking the
Nile. It is also unusual in being
dedicated equally to two gods, Horus the Elder and the crocodile god Sobek.
Crocodile head relief in temple. Photo courtesy Steven C.
Price
Ptolemy VI Philometor makes an offering to Hathor and
Horus. Photo courtesy Shannon
Hobbs/Flickr.
We arrive at Aswan and tour the Quarries where an unfinished obelisk
remains embedded in its native stone.
We see the
Aswan High
Dam
We visit the Agha Khan Mausoleum, the mausoleum of Aga Khan III. The construction of the mausoleum began in
1956 and ended in 1960.
To get to the Agha Khan Mausoleum, which is on a hill on
the West Bank of the Nile, we traveled by felucca.
Day 14:
We ended our cruise and transferred to the famous Aswan
Oberoi Hotel. Lovely view of the Nile
from the hotel. And close to the
feluccas!
Our first tour was the Kalabsha Temple, built in the reign of Augustus on
the site of an earlier sanctuary founded by Amenhotep II. The temple, which was later converted to a
church, was originally dedicated to the Nubian god Mandulis who was associated with
Isis.
Mandulis…
In the same antiquities park, we visited the relocated
Graeco-Roman Kiosk of
Qertassi and the Shrine of Ramsesses II
from Beit el-Wali.
According to Wikipedia, this kiosk has now been moved to
the site of New Kalabsha in Southern Egypt as part of
the International
Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, but "once stood to the
entrance to the sandstone quarries" of Qertassi. Kiosk photo courtesy Dennis G. Jarvis.
The Temple of Beit el-Wali is a
rock-cut ancient Egyptian temple in Nubia which was
built by Pharaoh Ramesses II .] It
was the first in a series of temples built by Ramesses II in this region; its
name Beit el-Wali means 'House of the Holy Man' and may indicate its previous
use by a Christian hermit at some point in time.[2] The
temple was relocated during the 1960s as part of the International
Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia as a result of
the Aswan High Dam project and moved towards higher ground along with the Temple of Kalabsha. (per Wikipedia)
A visit to the new Museum of Nubian Civiliation. Per the internet: “The Nubian Museum,
officially the International Museum of Nubia, is a museum in Aswan, Egypt,
dedicated to showcasing the history and culture of Nubia, a region along the
Nile River spanning from Aswan in Egypt to Khartoum in Sudan. It houses a
vast collection of artifacts spanning from prehistoric times to the present
day, including exhibits on ancient Nubian civilization, art, and historical
displays. The museum also features reconstructions of traditional Nubian
houses and gardens, offering a comprehensive look into Nubian heritage.”
Day 15:
Such a memorable day!
We fly to Abu
Simbel for the day,
where the rock-cut temples
of Ramesses II and his favorite queen Nefertari have been saved from the
rising waters of the Nile that resulted from the building of the Aswan High
Dam. Although the temples were built to
honor the deified royal pair and to awe the Nubians, that awesome feeling is as
easy to feel today as it was 3200 years ago.
The most famous shrine of Ramesses II is
the Abu Simbel Temple complex, consisting of two massive rock-cut temples
in southern Egypt. These temples, including the Great Temple dedicated to
Ramesses II and the smaller Temple of Hathor dedicated to his wife Nefertari,
are renowned for their impressive size and intricate carvings. They were
built during Ramesses II's reign (1279-1213 BC). The temples were originally carved into the
mountainside: the temples were relocated in the 1960s to save them from being
submerged by the Aswan High Dam and the creation of Lake Nasser.
Group photo at Abu Simbel
Our group of travelers, by the way, was pretty
spectacular.
I was saddened while researching this blog to learn that Priscilla Wopat passed
away a mere 6 years after this trip.
We’d formed a nice friendship as she was my assigned roommate for the
trip; she sent me many photos and we exchanged a few letters afterwards. Here is a bit more about her per internet
search: Priscilla Wopat, a technical
writer-editor at the NIOSH Spokane Research Laboratory, passed away on May 13.
An excellent editor and publications manager, Priscilla was posthumously
awarded a 2006 NIOSH award.
We returned by air to Aswan after a few
hours.
The town of Aswan has a fascinating spice section in the
bazaar, which is known as the Aswan Souk or Aswan Old Market. Of course many other items are sold there, and
the streets near the market are interesting.
Day 16 and 17 :
A Morning flight on Day 16 takes us back to Cairo and
time to relax at the Nile Hilton Hotel or to further explore Cairo.
My lovely friend Marian Ortolf Bagley convinced me to
come with her to the Gayer-Anderson Museum art museum which is
situated in the Sayyida Zeinab neighborhood. The museum is noted for being one
of examples of 17th-century domestic architecture left in Cairo, and also for
its collection of furniture, carpets, curio, and other objects. Marian Ortolf-Bagley and I discovered a shared love of
textiles, and we had a wonderful few hours there, stopping only to take these
photos in front of an Islamic screened window…
We certainly visited many sights!
Day 18
– off to the airport, and for me, a flight to Israel (Sunday Feburary 20, 2000)
Ah Egypt! I’d go
back in a flash, but Israel – well that’s another question entirely. (You can
see my blog on the trip to Israel, which followed on the heels of this tour of
Egypt, at https://adventures-of-barbara-keck.blogspot.com/2025/06/israel-5-days-in-early-2000.html )
SOME END NOTES:
Our guide for the majority
of the trip, Magdi, was fabulous. He was
a thorough teacher and articular explainer of the stories written on the walls
of tombs and temples. His delight in
the minutiae of the way a face was turned, the beauty of an artisan’s job in
shaping leg curvature in an otherwise=flat relief, and stories about the
actions of the various gods … was terrific!
My joke, about the
Bobbit-gator, was not universally appreciated – this from a story on temple
walls about the alligator who swallowed the penis of a god who was cut up into
14 pieces – but the story ends happily as his wife Isis was able to assemble
all the pieces and bring him back to an erectile life somehow…
The biggest disappointment
of the trip was the lack of contact with people in the villages, except for the
one visit arranged by our tour operator under pressure from me and a fellow
traveler.
The security in Egypt is
very tight for tourists. We’re not
allowed to wander off in village streets.
Supposedly this is because of the militant Islamic attacks on tourists
of 1996-1997, but I believe it is more political than anything else.
The majority of Egyptians
live very humbly, and I believe that the government of Egypt is not keen for
the rest of the world to glimpse this poverty.
There’s a lot of foreign aid that flows into Egypt from the USA and
elsewhere, especially since the peace with Israel. Egypt vies to become the major regional power
in the Middle East, and a general knowledge of the lowly state of most of its
inhabitants would not serve its cause.
So, I filled my ancillary
duffle with wonderful things from Egypt… yards of beautiful Egyptian textiles
to make cushion covers, a few interesting papyrus, a Nubian cosmetic box, a
stone Horus in granite.
In the end, I’m not sure I
returned home with a vast store of knowledge on the splendours of Egypt, but
the trip provided me with perspective on this country and some good stories to
tell. Bobbitgator anyone?
