Before I get into this post, I would like all those reading this to do me a little solid; this week has been a heavy one, health-wise for a family member of mine, and for two good friends of mine. My aunt Maggie went through a pretty serious procedure last Wednesday and all your positive healing thoughts would be appreciated for her speedy recovery. Also, my friend Lonnie suffured a stroke and she could use some of those thoughts too. What's more, we made a good friend here on set, Mostafa- he's off to Germany to donate part of his liver to his mom. Let's make sure he gets some of those good thoughts too. Thanks, y'all- it means alot.
Soooo, where was I? Oh yeah, Luxor and its varied archeological riches.
The first temple we visited was Karnak temple. THE largest ancient religious site in the world. It took over 2000 years to build the place, and 4 different pharaohs were involved in its construction. This was ancient Egyptian Ipet-isut ("The Most Selected of Places"), the main place of worship of the 'Theban Triad' (Amun, his wife Mut [goddess of the sky] and their son Khons) with Amun Re (the creator God) at its head. The temple of Karnak is famous for its 134 massive columns arranged in 16 rows in the Hypostyle Hall. 122 of these columns are 10 meters tall, and the other 12 are 21 meters tall with a diameter of over three meters. The tops of these columns weighed 70 tons! It's purported that they were either lifted to the top with a pulley system or brought to the top by way of a ramp of mud bricks and sand. Actually, just inside the first pylon (pylon: Pylon is the Greek term for a monumental gateway of an Egyptian temple. It consists of two tapering towers, each surmounted by a cornice, joined by a less elevated section which enclosed the entrance between them. The entrance was generally about half the height of the towers. Contemporary paintings of pylons show them with long poles flying banners.) there's the remains of a mudbrick ramp, showing how they got the huge blocks to the top. The reason the ramp is still there is because war broke out during the last phase of construction and all the workers had to go to battle, abandoning everything. The outter areas of Karnak are unfinished because those areas were the last to be constructed; ancient Egyptian temples were built from the inside out, radiating out from the most sacred inner sanctum where the god's image was housed. Every other inch of the complex though was covered in carvings. Sayyid thought it was really funny to point out the huge image of Min, the god of fertility. He's depicted as a human with one arm and one leg, and a, ahem, generous endowement, standing at attention. According to Wikipedia, the symbols of Min were the white bull, a barbed arrow, and a head of lettuce, that the Egyptians believed to be an aphrodisiac, as Egyptian lettuce was tall, straight, and released a milk-like substance when rubbed- ewwwwwwww. No salad for me, thanks.
It was so hot in Luxor, even though we were by the water. 108F. Yeesh. We saw alot of tourists being attended to by fist aid, wiped out by heat exhaustion. Shady spots were at a premium.
Notwithstanding, we could have been there the whole day- there was so much to see!
We went next to the Luxor temple, dedicated to Mut (Amun's wife). It was the focus of the festival of Opet, when a statue of Amun travel from Karnak to Mut's temple to spend a romantic week with her. There would be huge parties, lots of food, drinking, games, etc.. When the week was over, they walk the idol back to Karnak 3km along 'the Avenue of Sphinx'- an avenue lined with sculptures of the sphinx all the way to the Karnak temple.
The Luxor temple is unique because it encompassed 4 different religions; ancient Egyptian, Roman, Islam and Catholic. The temple was orginally dedicated to Mut (ancient Egyptian). It was then taken over by Alexander the Great showed and in order to avoid an revolt, built this inner sanctum to honour Amun to say “hey, I'm just like you guys- now worship me as your new King” (Roman). Like many of the ancient sites in Egypt, the temple of Luxor was buried under sand for many years. In the meantime, a village was built over the site, and a mosque was errected. (you can see the picture at the top of the blog) Because the mosque is over 1000 years old, they left it standing (Islam). Finally, while the Christians were being hunted down in Rome, many hid out in the ancient Egyptian temples. In the temple of Luxor, they turned one of the areas into a church and painted frescoes right over the ancient carvings (Christian). Actually, that's one thing that pissed me off at every site we went to: all of the temples were defaced in some way or another by Christians who were hiding out in the buildings during their time of persecution. Beautiful, informative, ancient works of art were smashed, painted over, burned out, etc. Ech. Now, I'm a catholic (in the loosest of terms) and I was thoroughly embarassed. When exactly did the notion of tolerance become enacted?
That night we returned to watch 'The Sound and Light Show' at the Karnak Temple. Basically, they shut off all of the lights and project images on the walls while a recording of the history of the place plays. You walk through to various areas to hear the different parts of the story. Very eerie to be in that ancient place with all the lights off. At one point, there are almost no lights and all you can hear is the tapping of the chisels against stone. Spoooky.
The next day saw us up bright and early and headed for the Valley of the Kings. Even at 7am, the sun was bouncing off landscape, baking us in 115F temperatures. The east bank of the Nile in Luxor has the majority of the temples and the west bank is where the valley is. With the 2005 discovery of a new chamber and the 2008 discovery of 2 further tomb entrances,the valley is known to contain 63 tombs and chambers (ranging in size from a simple pit to a complex tomb with over 120 chambers),and was the principal burial place of the major royal figures of the Egyptian New Kingdom, together with those of a number of privileged nobles. Even while we were there, excavations were going on, discovering more incredible ancient findings. A ticket bought you admittance to 3 of those tombs, so you had to choose wisely. We actually decided to forgo Tut's tomb. I know that sounds foolish, but actually, the tomb is very sparsely decorated and we had already seen all the stuff they took out of it at the Cairo museum. We went instead for Tutmosis III, Ramses III and Seti I's tombs; all incredibly preserved and rife with brightly coloured paintings and wall carvings. Tutmosis III's tomb was the most interesting because it was built 30ft off the ground in the cliff face. You have to climb a tall staircase and then down a steep ladder into the tomb. It was all worth it though. The artwork was incredible. As you can guess, no photos allowed! They actually have guards posted that will check your camera to see if you've tried to sneak a pic. The fines can cost you upwards of 1,000$ USD! It was all slightly surreal. I think we've been spoiled by Disneyland and Universal- everything around me was so well preserved that I felt like I was at a cunningly designed Hollywood attraction or on an elaborate set. It was hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that these places had been around for thousands and thousands of years.
We rounded out the day with a visit to Hatshepsut's temple (sort of pronounced like 'hotchickensoup', according ot Sayyid). She was is generally regarded by Egyptologists as one of the most successful pharaohs, reigning longer than any other woman of an indigenous Egyptian dynasty. Most of the images of her depict her as a man, as she wanted to be seen as an equal to any other man, if not stronger and smarter. She was eventually kicked off the throne by her brother when he got old enough to take it from her. Bully.
All in all it was an amazing trip. Looking back, I'm pretty sure that we stuffed a 7-day trip into 4, but I don't regret a single exhaustive minute.
