Egypt: Day Seven, Part Two

Temple of Karnak

Symbol of Amon(Ra

 Our first visit is to the Temple of Karnak.  Once the biggest temple in the ancient world, it took 1,800 years to complete, with work stretching from 2000 BCE to 200 BCE, under Ptolemy.  It’s dedicated to Amon-Ra, the chief god represented by the ram, and to his wife Mut and son Khonsu.

  Our bus drops us off at the temple, then takes our luggage to the boat which will be our home for almost a week.  Ahmed gives us a crash course on Egyptian temples and their architecture.  First comes the pylon, a monumental gate at the entrance to the temple.  Through that you reach an open courtyard, the only place commoners were allowed to enter.  Then comes a second gate to the hypostyle, where only temple officials could enter; it’s decorated with sandstone columns with carvings representing trees from the Nile delta.  After that come three sets of antichambers with gates between each one.  The floor of each chamber is higher than the last and the ceiling is lower, so they get progressively darker.  They all lead you to the sanctuary, where only two people could enter:  the high priest and the pharaoh.

  The entire temple was once enclosed in a mud brick wall built to mimic the undulations of the sacred Nile.  It also protected the site from the Nile flooding, and there’s a mark to show where the waters reached in 1887.  It’s hard to imagine, now that the Aswan Dam prevents any such flooding.
  The temple within the wall (or temenos) runs north and south, with other wings running east and west.  One section led south to the two-mile-long causeway - The Way of the Rams - that connects Karnak to Luxor Temple.  Now you can get an idea what it must have looked like in its heyday, but only a few years ago, the causeway was used by traffic and there were houses and shops along it, all demolished in 2010 to restore the site.
  To get an idea of how important this temple and the Luxor Temple nearby were, one figure:  25,000 people out of a total population of two million served the pharaoh.
  Hidden among the miles of wall inscriptions, I spot one I’ve heard of before.  Let’s call it The Obama.  It’s really the ideogram for face - logical!  It can also be the preposition “on” or “upon”, and is pronounced “hr”.  When Obama came here during his presidency, he spotted one in a tomb and said “Hey!  That’s me!”  And actually it kind of is.  Brings a smile to my face, and that of others when I point it out.

  Another one I like is the bee, which was evidently very important in Ancient Egypt.  It’s the symbol for the King of the North (i.e. Lower Egypt).  When linked with the sedge hieroglyph (King of the South), it represents the king of both Egypts after their unification.  And so you see it a lot.

Egypt: Day Seven, Part One

An hour after our wake-up call, we’re in the bus to go to the airport for our flight to Luxor.  Everyone’s tired, but in a good mood, which speaks well for us as a group, and individually.  With his commute home and back, Ahmed is even more tired than we are.
       There isn’t a lot of traffic, but more than one would expect at 4 am.  And amazingly, a lot of businesses are open.  Not just the belly-dance joints (where no women ever go, dixit Ahmed), but also American fast food joints such as KFC and Buffalo Burger (made with camel meat instead of bison?) and countless small corner grocery stores, not to mention the streetcart vendors.  This is truly a country where people have recourse to The Early Morning Munchies. 
       The white minivans are already plying their trade, so I guess people need to get around the city around the clock.  And so gas stations are also open.
       Our progress is impeded nonetheless by multiple speed bumps (initially called “sleeping policemen” in the States).  As there are bloody few streetlights in Cairo (and Ahmed says people would drive through them anyway), this is how traffic is slowed.  And as they aren’t marked in any way - paint or signs - you have to pay attention or your shock absorbers will take it on the nose.  Everyone seems to know where they are - which is impressive - but sometimes new ones appear overnight.  All part of the game, I guess.

Louxor

The trip from Cairo to Luxor takes just a little over an hour in an Embraer 170, an 80-seat twin jet.  Embraer is a Brazilian aerospace company; it seems fitting for a developing country to buy from another developing country instead of from Boeing or Airbus.  (Besides, I’m not sure either of those companies even make small planes of this capacity any more.)

Luxor is a city of almost half a million people located on both banks of the Nile about 300 miles south of Cairo, and surrounded by sugar cane fields.  In ancient times, it was called Thebes.  And as Thebes, it was the capital of Lower and Upper Egypt combined, which accounts for all the monuments. Often called the world’s greatest open-air museum, it’s home to the temples of both Karnak and Luxor, plus the Valleys of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens directly across the river... all of which we will be visiting over the next five days.
       Thebes is the name the Greeks gave to the original Waset.  It became the wealthiest city of ancient Egypt, due to its geographic location.  Being close to both Nubia and the eastern desert, it cashed in on their valuable mineral resources and trade routes.  Its present name, Luxor, was given to it by invading Arabs much later; they thought the tombs were palaces, “el-Uqsur.”  And the name Karnak in Arabic means fortress.

Karnak causeway

Egypt: Day Seven, Part Three

Dr. Mustafa Waziri

Then we meet Dr. Mustafa Waziri, Director General of Luxor Antiquities.  He walks us through this section of the temple.  It has a long history of misuse, with Coptic Christians hiding in it from the Romans, and putting up their own frescos over the original ones.  Other parts were destroyed by the Persian invaders, as they did to most of the temples throughout Egypt.  And the Romans re-used the stone.  Then there were the earthquakes of course.  Waziri says only 30% of everything ever built is above ground; the rest still lies buried.

       Waziri’s team show us all the rooms in this part of the temple, where they’re busy restoring the artworks.  In the paintings that cover all the surfaces, there are many colors, all made from ground-up minerals.  The white is limestone, the light blue is turquoise while dark blue is lapis.  Red ochre makes the red color and yellow ochre the yellow.  Black is simple coal.  To prep the wall, the ancient Egyptians used beaten egg white; egg yolks were used as varnish.  All these details are fascinating.

Mahmoud with his discovery: a statue of Ramses II

Dr. Waziri is as excited about his work as Dr. Hawass, but tends to talk more in “we” than “I”.  In fact, he starts by introducing his team, and later on, after showing us the restoration work, he lets one of the diggers, Mahmoud, unveil a statue of Ramses II.
       Why Mahmoud?  Because he’s the one who found it.  Mahmoud is smiling from ear to ear.  I ask him how long he’s been working in archeological excavations.  He says “40 years”, then hesitates - to find the words - and adds “And my father before, and his father before.”  I ask him “All the way back to the Pharaohs?” and he smiles that big smile of his and says “Maybe”.
       The centuries buried this statue of Ramses all except for one corner that stuck out.  As it lay hidden near a water tap, all the women would use that corner as a pumice stone, to scrape the callus off their feet while their pails filled up...  which is why the statue has that one part worn away.  It’s little stories like this that I love.

After several hours and lots of information gleaned, the bus
appears and takes us to our new home away from home:  a four-story boat.  The lower level, part-way below the surface of the water, is the restaurant.  The main floor is the front desk, gift shop, lounge and bar.  Above that are two levels of rooms and the top deck is for just watching the water flow by while you read, have a drink or soak in the jacuzzi or mini-pool.  The outer wall of each room is pure window, which sometimes is a blessing and other times means that, if there weren’t any drapes (which mercifully there are) you’d be looking into the room of the boat you’re tied up against.  On various days, in various towns, we’re the first at the quay; other times we have to cross one or two other boats to reach terra firma.  It’s kind of a crap shoot, and you never know when you go to bed if you’ll be moored in the same place when you wake up.  They’re very good at doing the switcheroo while you sleep.
       As we have time before sunset, fellow traveler Julie and I decide to try to find the Luxor Museum.  As she works in the museum curating business, she’s been here before a decade or so earlier and thinks she can find it.... which it turns out she can’t.  We walk along the river, then down a few perpendicular streets and finally back along a main street that triangulates us back to the river again.  No museum in sight, and some of the sidestreets are not too reassuring.  But in spite of the fear that’s been instilled in us by the U.S. news, and as two Western women unaccompanied in a Muslim country, no one bothers us - although they do stare - and we make it back in time for supper.
       After that, there’s nothing to do but a shower and sleep.  Especially as tomorrow will be the second early-rise day in a row, but for an excellent cause:  a hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings!

Luxor Corniche along the Nile and our boat-hotel (right)

Egypt: Day Six, Part Two

After the Pyramids, we run the gauntlet of vendors and our bus takes us to Abu Shakra for lunch, which it’s been serving since 1949.  It’s the usual grilled meats with rice - which Ahmed says is safest so none of us comes down with Nile Belly - but it offers a great view of the pyramids nearby from the picture windows in the restaurant upstairs.

     Once lunch is finished, we head back to hose off the dust of the millennia and dress in our finery to take tea with Jehan Sadat, the widow of President Anwar Sadat.  She lives in the very ritzy Dokki neighborhood in Giza, near the Nile, amid tall trees and embassies, carefully guarded, lo these many decades.  Her husband was assassinated before her eyes in 1981 by Muslim extremists during a military parade commemorating the 1973 Yom Kippur War against Israel.  (Strangely enough, Mubarak, then Vice-President, was seated right next to Sadat but was only lightly wounded in one finger, although others died with the President.  One could wonder whether Mubarak knew, or was even part of a plan, given how long he ruled once he came into power.  But that’s just my fertile imagination.)  Mrs. Sadat has been given this house in Giza until her death, and protection to go along with it.
       She greets us personally as we arrive.  She notices I’m carrying her book, “My Hope for Peace” (as we were told she’d be signing them).  I reply that I also have her other book,  A Woman of Egypt, back in America, and read it many years ago.  She seems pleased.  We’re ushered into her living room, where armchairs have been set up.  She spends about half an hour telling us a few stories about her life with Sadat, and then invites us into the dining room where we’re served tea or coffee and a selection of many kinds of pastries.  The house is filled with photos of her family and we’re allowed to walk around, including into the study where she says Sadat did most of his writing.  She is most gracious, and still beautiful in spite of her 83 years.




       After a group photo, we pile back on the bus - our books still unsigned (more about that later) - and head back to the hotel for dinner and an early bedtime.  Tomorrow we’ll get our wake-up call at 3 am for the flight to Luxor, so it will be a very short night!

Egypt: Day Six, Part One

Today is the Great Pyramid.  And we get to visit it before it opens to the public.  There will be only the 38 of us and no one else.

There are, in fact, three pyramids.  The one most people talk about is the Great Pyramid of Cheops, who is called Khufu here.  It’s the oldest and largest, and in fact was the tallest man-made structure in the world for almost 4,000 years.  Originally 481 feet tall, it has lost 26 feet somehow.  Some people think that’s because there was once a cap on it which is now missing.  This pyramid has three chambers, the deepest cut into the bedrock and the others above it.  The Tura limestone used for its casing (the cover layer) came from quarries across the river.  It was transported across the Nile during the flood season (June through September) by boat when the waters reached all the way up to the Temple of Khafre near the Sphinx, making it far easier to transport from there.  Which is a very good thing, as each block weighed in at up to 88 tons.  And there were no wheels or pulleys back then, just brute force.
       The second pyramid is the Pyramid of Khafre, son of Khufu.  It’s less tall than his father’s (471 feet), which was respectful on his part.  However, it’s built on higher ground, so it surpasses the father’s in altitude, if not in height.  There are still casing stones on the top third, but the pyramidion and part of the apex are missing.  Originally the bottom course of casing was pink granite but the rest was cased in Tura limestone, which is a finer quality than the stone blocks underneath.  The first two levels inside are cut into bedrock.
       The third and smallest at only 215 feet is the Pyramid of Menkaure, grandson of Khufu.  It’s slightly out of line with the two others.  The bottom was cased in red granite, floated downriver all the way from Aswan far to the south, and the top casing was Tura limestone.  There’s nothing inside this pyramid because the king died suddenly, which is also why there are only six or seven levels of casing laid on its north side.

All this is revealed to us by Dr. Hawass, who is waiting for us at the Sphinx just after daybreak.  When we arrive, he’s already there, leaning against the Sphinx’s paw, in his levis, blue jean jacket and Indiana Jones hat, ever the debonnaire character.  He starts by explaining the meaning of the Sphinx:  the brain of man and the courage of the lion.  Its face is said to be that of Khafre, and indeed it bears (or once bore) the pharaoh’s three attributes:  the cobra, the beard and the headdress.  Between its paws stands a stele relating the dream sequence that legitimizes the pharaoh’s right to reign.  Originally cut out of bedrock, its shape has been restored by blocks of limestone, because the erosion of centuries has not been kind, even if the Sphinx was once buried in the sands up to its neck.  Overall the monument measures 250 feet in length and stands 70 feet tall.

Khafre statue at Cairo Museum

       Dr. Hawass also tells us about his excavation of the nearby Temple of Khafre.  Originally its floor was made of alabaster floated downriver 650 miles from Aswan, and it boasted two rows of six columns each.  Mummies were blessed here before they were moved along the limestone causeway to the mortuary temple.  There they were put in the sarcophagus and installed in the pyramid, which was then sealed.  In this temple stood the striking dolorite sculpture of Khafre with the falcon embracing his head which we saw yesterday in the Cairo Museum.
       The last thing to see here is the Cheops Boat Museum.  There are old sepia-colored photos of what was unearthed in 1954:  five of the pharaoh’s solar barges built to transport him through the afterlife, and one perhaps that carried his mummy across the Nile to the pyramid for burial.  These boats had no nails; they were held together only by rope.  The one restored had been dismantled - all 1,224 pieces of Lebanese cedar - and buried, piled in 13 layers, in a large pit.  The other four boats, all discovered in different places around the pyramid, have been buried again.

Pharaoh Cheops solar barge at Cheops Boat Museum