Egypt: Day Nine, Part Two

Edfu waterfront

Ahmed has warned us that the vendors here in Edfu are the most vicious anywhere.  But in fact I don’t have any trouble when Peter and I leave.  I just pull Victoria’s hat down over my eyes and keep walking.  I’m getting the hang of it.
     As soon as everyone is back on the boat, we set sail farther up the Nile toward Kom Ombo and our next temple.  After lunch, we have an event waiting for us: an exposé on the search for Cleopatra.
       Along with us on the boat is Kathleen Martinez, from the Dominican Republic (which might explain the presence of the Dominican ambassador on board.)  An ex-criminal lawyer, Martinez was so fascinated with Ancient Egypt, and Cleopatra in particular, that she became an archeologist.  Everyone knows the story about Cleopatra committing suicide with a venomous asp (is there any other kind?), but no one knows where she’s buried.  Martinez is convinced there is a tomb, and that Mark Anthony is buried with her.  She spent 15 years studying any document she could get her hands on, and then decided to ask Zahi Hawass for permission to dig; he was Minister of Antiquities* at that time.  According to her, the meeting didn’t go well.  “He gave me two minutes to make my case, but after 25 seconds he wasn’t listening.  I told him,’You don’t listen because I’m not from Harvard’.  There were three professors from Harvard there.  They all stood up and said ‘We”re from Harvard and we’re listening’ ”.  Hawass gave her permission.

       Her hypothesis is that the asp/cobra was part of a ceremony, and thus religious, which means that she would have been buried - surreptitiously, without the Romans knowledge - inside a temple.  One temple in the north as important at that time as Phylae in the south is Taposiris Magna, 20 kilometers west of Alexandria.
       Martinez has been searching for six years, and now employs 50 workers plus 10 to 12 specialists, all Egyptians.  For the past month, she’s been using radar devices and has found three promising sites.  Within two months she discovered two chambers, underground passages, and now has amassed 600 articles, a bust of Cleopatra’s face, statues of Isis, 500 coins, and a stele like the Rosetta Stone.  All this in a temple that functioned for 600 years and would be the biggest temple to Isis, which could be a connection to Cleopatra.  But no inscriptions and no decoration.  She also mentions 800 skeletons plus 14 mummies.
       In opposition to Hawass’s theory that Cleopatra was just after power, Martinez’s theory is that Cleopatra wanted power, yes, but she might still have loved Mark Anthony and when he died and  Rome was going to take her country from her and carry her off to Rome as a prisoner, she knew had lost everything and wanted to die
       At the end of her presentation, and after Dr. Hawass steps in to jest that Martinez may be  the reincarnation of Cleopatra but he’s not sure she’s right, many of the women in our group tell her to stand strong.  That if Zahi Hawass thinks she’s wrong about her theory, he’s just seeing it from a man’s viewpoint and we understand her interpretation.

Throughout lunch and the presentation, our boat has been sailing 35 miles farther up the Nile toward Kom Ombo, and its temple.  We’ve passed construction on a new bridge across the river, although there are no signs of activity right now.  As I already said, there are very few bridges across the Nile, and I’m sure that trucks are happy to see new bridges that would take miles off their delivery routes.

       As the invitation was extended to visit the ship’s bridge, and we have some spare time, I decided to take them up on it.  Especially as one of the other passengers tells me he’s already done it and was welcomed there.  First I go down to the deck on the bow and look inside.  Then I walk around the small deck a bit, just to let them know there’s someone around.  The captain - the raïs is pacing back and forth in his caftan, on the phone.  He waves me to one of the wicker seats, but I leave him to it.  I stick my head into the bridge and ask if I can enter.
       The pilot on duty -  also in a caftan - is sitting cross-legged in a chair, keeping a close eye on the river ahead, while a TV set blares some sort of Egyptian soap opera well off to the starboard side of the room.  There’s no sonar to be seen, no depth detection; the pilots “just know” where the sand bars are... and there are lots of them.  The Nile is only 30 feet deep.  He smiles and invites me to steer - hopefully just a joke - and I tell him I only steer sailboats.  Well, actually I strike my chest, make a triangle with my hands for the sail and pull on an imaginary line, then steer an imaginary wheel and waggle my finger no, back and forth.  He’s laughs, and I leave him to it, not sure whether he understood or just thought I was another crazy tourist.  Time for a nap.
       When we reach Kom Ombo, there’s enough spare mooring for us to sidle right up to the quay.  A gangway aft is lowered and one of the crew strides right to the end of it, then when we’re just a foot or two from the quay, he jumps down and is thrown a line.  Quite the spectacle, but I’m sure he’s done this before.

Temple of Kom Ombo

Dinner will be late tonight because we visit the Temple of Kom Ombo as the sun sets.  It’s always interesting to know “why here?”, especially as there doesn’t seem to be much else around for miles.  In this case, for centuries the town was on the trade route toward places south in Africa.

     Like the one back in Edfu, this temple is also from Ptolemaic times (the last two centuries BCE).  One thing that’s unique about it is the use of tongue-and-groove architecture.  But the most unique thing is that it has two sets of everything because it served two gods.  The two halves are laid out symmetrically along a central axis.  The north half was for my old friend Horus.  The south half was dedicated to Sobek, the crocodile god... and what could be more fitting along this southern part of the Nile where there are crocodiles.  Or at least there were; Ahmed says the only ones he knows of are in Lake Nasser, beyond the Aswan High Dam.

Birthing scene

       Ceremonies were held here for the seasonal flooding of the Nile, for agriculture and especially harvests.  But there’s also an interesting medical element that is unique.  The Greco-Roman god of medicine, Aesclepius was evidently worshipped here, judging by wall carvings that depict numerous medical instruments used 2200 years ago.  Sick people would visit here to be treated, not necessarily because the doctors were better (although...) but because the god of medicine would be smiling on them here.  One carving depicts a woman on a birthing stool and another shows a woman actually giving birth!
       As in Edfu, here again the lighting is striking, underlining the curves of the gods’ bodies.  The mellow light adds to the magic of being here.

As soon as everyone is back on board, we shove off from this city where the region’s sugar is refined, on the last leg of our trip upriver to Aswan.  When I get to my room after dinner, the towel fairies have been at work again.  This time it’s an elephant and a mahout astride him, holding the reins.  This is the best of all the towel artwork our room crew has come up with so far, after the two swans kissing when we first arrived.  The towel mummy sprawled across the foot of my bed last night gave me a jolt though when I spotted something out of the corner of my eye, seeing as I was supposed to have the room to myself!
       After a warm shower to wash off the sands of Edfu and Kom Ombo, I slip into bed and turn off the lights.  Through the wall-window, I watch the full moon shimmer in the Nile as the dark river banks slipped by, with occasional faint lights from villages.  And then I guess I fell asleep.