Mohammed woke us around 5:30am and we got dressed and got our stuff together. We gathered for a simple breakfast on the upper deck of the mother ship. It was another sunny clear day Egypt. The ship then crossed over to the other side of the Nile and we clambered onto the rocky bank with all our luggage and got into the bus waiting for us on the verge of the highway. Mohammed explained at bit about the temple we were about to visit and just over 15 minutes later we were in Kom Ombo.
Kom Ombo was built on the banks of the Nile around 150BC in the era of the Ptolomies. It is dedicated to the gods Horas (falcon) and Sobek (crocodile). The temple itself is in a pretty bad state, large parts of it are missing having been used for building material. Several of the inscriptions of the walls were also defaced. The remaining pillars tower over one as one walks through the hippostyle hall. Each of the pillars is topped with a complex design including papyrus, lotus and other plants, typical of the Ptolomies. The temple is perfectly symmetrical along the main axis, twin entrances, halls and sanctuaries. One side (right) was dedicated to Sobec, and the other to Horus. We wandered through the halls inspecting the carved reliefs, a multitude of gods and kings. we spotted a lot of Sobek the crocodile god. Between the antechambers at the rear of the temple was a secret passageway, where the priests would hide and give a voice to the gods to answer pilgrims. In each antechamber stands a basalt shrine on which is thought statues of the gods would have been placed. Chambers off to the sides of the temple would have contained papyrus and priests vestments.
We wondered out of the temple and saw the deep Nilometer, in the bottom of a well. This was used to determine when the flood would be, and the greater the flood, the higher taxes would be.
On route to the exit we also visited the mummy museum and saw a lot of mummified crocodiles and other exhibits explaining the practice. There were even mummified crocodile eggs and baby crocodiles. We rejoined the group in the bus and left for Edfu temple, over 2 hours away.
In the bus Mohammed started introducing Edfu temple, constructed between 237-57BC in the Ptolomic era for the god Horas. Surrounding the temple is a large boundary wall which contributed to the preservation of the temple. Apparently people were also living on top of the the temple, again preserving the temple from damage. The temple includes a massive pylon with a relief of the Pharoah fighting his enemies, shown in front of Horas. Beyond the pylon is the open court, the hippostyle court with scenes of the construction of the temple. Mohammed explained about the reunion festival between Horas and Hathor. The temple of Hathor and Horas were 160km apart, so the statues of the gods were carried on boats to meet each other. Also within the temple wall is a relief of the victory wall depicting the struggle of Horas and Seth.
Once at Edfu we ran the guantlet of shops and touts, made our way through the entrance and the boundary wall and paused to take in the grandeur of the massive 40m pylon. The reliefs of the Pharoah smiting the enemies of Egypt were still very clear and impressive. Two large statues of Horas stood sentinel on either side of the entrance. We proceeded through the Pylon and looking up could see the vultures depicted above the entrance.
In the open air inner court Mohammed explained this was the limit of where commoners were allowed. A row of massive pillars flanked each side of the court. Leading into the hippostyle court, was another set of excellent Horas statues. Mohammed joked that the Egyptians had the first 'angry birds' because of the way that the grey granite statue of Horas was posing.
Inside the temple, looking up at the ceiling of the temple it appeared blackened, some think by smoke of cooking fires, but used to have images of the vultures. In the Hippostyle court were reliefs depicting the foundation and construction of the temple by the Pharoah, each step being committed to the gods. The king is wearing the crown of the north and of the south of Egypt. Horas is depicted giving the key of life and scepter to the Pharoah. The completion of temple is depicted in a cartouche form, with the Pharoah dedicating it to Horas. In another scene Hathor and Isis are depicted as supporting Horas. It is only possible to distinguish between the depiction of Isis and Hathor by looking at the supporting hieroglyphics.
Next we moved to another set of reliefs showing the reunion ceremony. The boats carrying Hathor and Horas are being carried by 32 people, which gives one a sense of the size of the boats. Mohammed indicated that the priest shown is wearing the skin of a large cat, like a lion or leopard. The king is offering incense, an important ritual blessing the temple area.
The temple has a second floor, but no longer accessible for safety reasons.
In the temple sanctuary is a large replica wooden boat, the originals were never found, that gives an idea of what the boats for the gods would have looked like. There are also two shrines for the two gods, and reliefs of prayer and offering scenes.
The shrine of Hathor, where the ceiling is decorated with the scene of the goddess Nut. The ancient Egyptians pondered about what happened to the sun during the night. The sky goddess Nut swallowed the sun at dusk, then it travelled 12 hours through the body of the goddess and then she gave birth to a new day in the form of a scarab beetle. So the scarab, called Geber, became a symbol of good luck in Egypt. Nut is depicted as as encircling the entire world, with her head in one corner of the roof, her body stretching around three sides ending with her feet.
The wall of victory depicts the battle between Horas and his evil uncle Seth, good and evil. Mohammed recounted once again the story of Osiris, Isis, Seth and Hathor. In this depiction Horas is portrayed as hippopotamus. In the first scene he is depicted as a really small hippo, and into the following scenes gradually gets larger and larger. Horas is shown stabbing down on the hippopotamus, and eventually standing over it and controlling it. This signifies that Seth could not be completely defeated and that good and evil are in balance.
Once we were finally back in the bus, Mohammed handed out our lunch. He had ordered "takeaway" for us, to save time, which was smart. It was falafels but in the interests of not making us sick, he had avoided any salad. Thus they ended up just being dry falafels in dry pita bread, oh well it filled the hole...
We then drove two hours to Luxor, the day gradually getting hotter and the bus making us all rather sleepy and quiet. Luxor is the ancient city of Thebes, a very important centre of political and religious activity, especially in the new kingdom times. We reached Luxor around 2pm and those that wanted to visit the Karnak temple had only 15 mins to drop their luggage and go. We were taken to the Susanna hotel on the East bank, probably the best one so far, in a great location overlooking the Luxor Temple, Nile, and Avenue of Sphinxes... We squeezed in a quick shower and soon were back in the bus with 12 of our buddies going to the next temple.
We arrived at the Karnak temples shortly thereafter and Mo took us quickly through the visitor centre where we saw how massive the Karnak temple complex was - multiple temples and the central one was huge, with a massive 10 pylons leading into the biggest hypostyle hall in the world... Mo showed us how the complex was laid out North-South and East-West, and explained how the avenue of Sphinxes connected the Karnak temple with the Luxor temple down the road. Another avenue of sphinxes lead to where the Nile used to be. The sphinxes were only discovered recently, and once archeologists understood what they were, every building that was built on top of the avenue had to be demolished to allow the area to be excavated and restored. Once the restoration is complete, it will make Luxor the biggest open air museum in the world!
A huge festival of reunification known as the Arpit festival was held at this temple every year, where god Amun-Ra would visit the female goddesses in the temple of Luxor. His statue would be transported either along the avenue of sphinxes or the Nile. It would be purified in the holy waters of the Nile before making the trip to the other temple and back.
We moved to the courtyard outside the first pylon, which was flanked by two sets of sphinxes with ram heads, representing one of the forms of Ra as god of creation. Mo explained that the first pylons were never properly finished, as they are incomplete. They know they were unfinished because a mud brick ramp was found leading up to the top of the pylon. They would have used this to build the pylons and then would have dismantled it once done.
Inside the first pylons we found a small triple shrine dedicated to the triad of Gods worshipped in Luxor: Amun-Ra the creator, his wife Mut the goddess of fertility, motherhood or protection (vulture and the only goddess to ever have a double crown) and their son, Khons the moon god, often depicted as a mummy or with a crescent moon and solar disk above his head. The shrine was from Seti II, one of the sons of Ramses II. Three niches would have contained statues of the gods. Images on the walls showed the triad of gods on the boat of Ra, with the pharaoh. Seti II is shown making an offering of Maat to the gods, meaning he promised to follow the system of Maat in ruling the country. Maat is also a goddess, shown seated with bent knees, the key of life, and a feather.
The open courtyard also contained a "temple" of Ramses III, copied from the one on the West Bank of Luxor. It would also have contained 12 massive pillars with open papyrus flowers (symbol of the North of Egypt) but only one was left standing. This was called the Taharka gate and was added by the Ethiopian king Taharka. The flowers were open and flourishing because they were close to the Nile, and associated with the festival and fertility. There were three statues of Amun, but one only had its feet left. As Mo was trying to explain, Emma was getting mobbed by hundreds of Egyptian tourists wanting to have their photo with her. Eventually Mo had to rescue her and brought her inside our circle for protection.
Next we headed to the hypostyle hall, constructed by Ramses I, Seti II and Ramses II, grandfather, father and son. No photo can do this hall justice. It is 6000 square meters and has 134 pillars. The central pillars are crowned with open flowers because the gods would go past them, while the others held up some beams, but no ceiling. Each pillar was elaborately decorated, and the walls also depicted hundreds of rich images, and hieroglyphics. They all would have been painted colourfully. Mo pointed out the most important images, including one of 5 gods on a boat, taking part in the Arpit festival. Seti II is included with the gods as he saw himself as one of them. Another one shows Amun on his boat heading to Luxor temple.
We found another image showing Amun-Ra, his wife Mut, and Amun-Men, the God of fertility with the extended penis. Mo told us the story of Amun-Men: he was once a man who was the only one left behind when all the men went to war. He was supposed to look after the children and women. When all the men came back, they found many babies, and many of their women pregnant. To punish Amun-Men they cut off his right arm and left leg, a horrible punishment as it confuses the brain. Later he became a god, because of his impressive fertility, and is always shown with only one arm and leg.
Another image introduced us to the god of writing, knowledge and wisdom, Thoth, shown with an ibis head. He is the one who writes everything we do, and is always present at the final judgement, where the heart of a person is weighed on a scale against a feather, to see how they lived their life and whether they will pass into the afterlife. In the image, Thoth is writing the name of Ramses into the king list.
After the hypostyle hall, we walked towards two obelisks. Both were from Hatshepsut and the one was absolutely massive. It was 29.8m high, carved from pink granite all the way from Aswan and covered in hieroglyphics. To get it to the temple would have required 36 boats, and scientists/archeologists still don't know how they got it to stand up. National geographic tested a theory that two large bulls could pull up the obelisk to standing, but this failed. They probably used a huge sand hill to get the obelisk in place. Hatshepsut dedicated it to god Amun-Ra, her supposed father, since she was trying to prove she was a daughter of the gods. There used to be 18 obelisks in the temple, but now they are all over the world, in Paris, Rome, London... The obelisk was like a church bell tower or mosque minaret - it characterized the temple and showed it from a distance.
Mo then took us out a side door where we found a wall with many people tied up, and many cartouches. These represented the enemies of Egypt and the provinces that Egypt controlled. Next, we walked to a large statue of a scarab beetle. This is known as good luck by Egyptians, as they believe that at sunset, the sky goddess swallows the sun and in the morning it comes back with the scarab. This was because scarabs disappeared at sunset, but were seen again at sunrise, pushing around balls of dung, looking like the sun. Egyptians walk anti-clockwise around the scarab for luck, 3 times for love, 5 times for marriage, 7 for children...
We all did a few circuits around the beetle then had a look at the large lake, which was used by the priests for ceremonial bathing.
Then we had free time to explore on our own, and first checked out the inner sanctuary, built by the first of the Ptolomies, the ceiling of which had two layers to enable air to flow - a form of ancient air conditioning. It also had hundreds of stars, representing the sky goddess.
We went outside that to see another temple, known as the botanic garden of Karnak, built by Tutmosis III, which still had vivid colors, showing what the temple would have been like when it was fully painted. As we wandered through the rest of the ruins, the sun started setting and the whole area was bathed in a beautiful golden light, the temple walls glowing.
We headed back to the hotel and had one more trip to make, a visit to Moses the jeweler. His shop was close to the hotel, and had many beautiful pieces of jewellery. The highlight was the cartouches he made in silver and gold, translating each persons name into hieroglyphics, to be hung from a chain or made part of a bracelet. Mo had previously explained what a cartouche really was, it was typically used for a name, and mostly the name of the King. The cartouche actually relates to the creation story. In the beginning, Amun Ra was all alone, so we created two more gods, Shu, god of air and Tefnout, god of water. These two gave birth to Geb god of earth and Nut, the sky goddess. These two produced Isis, Osiris, Seth and Nephtys - the first nine gods in Egyptian mythology. When Nut (Sky) and Geb (earth) were born, they were on top of each other. Their father separated them, and this created the space between the sky and earth, but with the hands and arms of Nut still touching the ground, this created the whole world. Thus the cartouche shape represented this, and the Kings put their names between sky and earth, to last forever.
That evening was Christmas Eve and we were really missing our families. Werner and I decided to eat out on our own for a change, for a bit of a special evening. We did some research and decided on Sofra restaurant. It was more in the back streets of Luxor, about a 10-15 minute walk. Once we got off the Main Street, the hassling from caleche (horse carriage) drivers, taxi drivers and random touts reduced significantly. We found the restaurant easily and headed up to the rooftop where two other groups were already reclining, although it was early.
The service was excellent, and we ordered beautiful fresh fruit juices to refresh ourselves. Then we ordered a mezze special which allowed us to choose 4 hot and 4 cold mezze dishes. We had hummus, baba ganoush, Egyptian cheese and olives, lentil salad, bean falafel (the Egyptian way to make it), cheese and spinach sambusas, meatballs, and stuffed baby aubergines served with an assortment of breads. And that was just the starter! For mains we had duck stuffed with vegetables and herbs (I would say surrounded rather than stuffed...) and upside down aubergine with rice and mince. Everything was excellent, and we spoilt ourselves to finish with amazing Turkish (Egyptian) coffee and an apple shisha. A great Christmas Eve and a meal almost as good as we would have enjoyed with our families back home.
Back at the hotel, we went up to the sixth floor to see the Luxor temple beautifully lit up. We were amazed to find that the desert mountains across on the West Bank, where the valley of the kings is, were also lit, creating a spectacular effect.
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