A wake-up call (more of a knock really) at about 7:30 heralded the beginning of a long day of seeing some of the best known spots of Luxor. Breakfast was included in the tour, so we trooped down to the restaurant to partake. It was the best breakfast I had so far encountered during this tour. Where most places managed a couple of buns and some jam, maybe a boiled egg, and a small piece of cheese, this hotel had a good buffet, with cereal, meat, vegetables and even a cook on hand to do eggs up properly, or at least to some sort of specifications. I was impressed.
We ate our fill and headed down to meet our guide for the day, hoping that he wasn't going to be as much of a dud as others had been so far. He wasn't. I don't remember his name, but he was immediately engaging. He had a nice air about him and seemed to be relaxed and easy to get along with. He talked with everyone and made sure all could hear him and understand. All together there were seven of us, three from the original trip that started in Aswan, and two Egyptian couples, one of whom were on their honeymoon. Congratulations went all around upon learning that.
Our first stop was the Valley of the Kings. Unfortunately, I have absolutely no photos from inside the entire complex. I have only a few shots from outside looking in. There was a time when people could take their cameras into the area. They could take photos outside the tombs. But inside the tombs photos have not been allowed, since the paint and colour inside the tombs is highly sensitive to light and would be degraded over time. In order to prevent such degradation, first tourists were asked not to use flash photography. When tourists proved not to understand basic instructions like that, photography was banned. And a couple of years ago, when it was discovered how prevalent the practice of offering something to the guards in exchange for being able to take photos inside the tombs had become, cameras were forbidden to be brought inside the compound. It is such a shame that people can't understand the damage they do in the quest for their selfish aims. It's also a shame that so many of the people who might claim to be helping preserve Egypt's cultural and historical heritage would look the other way and allow the degradation of the same for a few cents.
In any case, I have nothing to show for my entry into the Valley of the Kings, except memories. Which are enough I suppose. In order to aid my memory, this is one of those spots where I felt that it was worth investing in a postcard set and CD with photos on it showing what was in the tombs. So I did. I bought it from the guide, who told me the money went to the officials at the site and the proceeds went towards preservation of the tombs. I have no real idea of whether or not it really did, nor of how much commission he got on the deal, but I can't really concern myself with that. I would go crazy trying to make sure all the money I pay to various people for supposedly legitimate things is actually legitimate.
The Valley of the Kings was chosen by the kings of the 18th through the 20th dynasties to be buried. The very first kings had been buried in graves with a simple mound over them. Over time, these mounds were improved and added to in step fashion until the results were the first pyramids. These were called step pyramids.
Later dynasties added onto the practice and soon pyramids were the plan rather than the result of additions over time. The culmination of this practice of building pyramids were the great pyramids at Giza.
There was one problem with such grand displays of the power and wealth of a dead king. Everyone knew where they were buried. The pyramids served as beacons pointing to the final resting places of the kings and pharaohs. In ancient Egyptian cosmology, when the frail and short-term life ended on Earth, everyone would proceed to the underworld. Some would go to “heaven;” others would go to “hell.” But if the dead person had the means to make it so, they would be buried with all the stuff their souls liked and would need in the afterlife. In the case of the pharaohs, this meant the gold and other signs of wealth that accompanied them in life. There were massive amounts of treasure in the pyramids and burial chambers within. And with the beacons of the pyramids pointing the way, grave robbers proved quite capable of finding the treasure and removing it.
By the time of the 18th dynasty, the kings had decided on a new way of being buried that would hopefully prevent the dastardly thieves from taking all the riches from their tombs and making it impossible for their souls to have a comfortable afterlife. A place was found where a tomb could be dug in tunnels in a mountain. The king would be placed inside after death and mummification and then the entrance would be sealed up and hopefully concealed well enough to prevent grave robbers from finding the tombs.
The Valley of the Kings was the result of this change. It was chosen for its remoteness (it's 30 or so kilometers from Luxor, a day's journey in a world with no cars), as well as its composition (the mountain is made of limestone and so is easy to dig through).
The tombs vary in size and length and opulence. Some are very short. Some are quite long. Some have side tunnels that seem to go nowhere and have no obvious purpose. It took a while for the guide to get around to explaining why. As soon as a king ascended the throne, he would have his tomb begun. He would participate in the planning and the choice of location for the tomb. He would design it as well. Now, while the king was living, it could never be stopped. To stop the construction of the king's tomb was to say that it was finished. If the tomb was finished, then that would imply that so was the king, and that was a bad omen. Then once the king actually died, there were seventy days to get the tomb ready, as well as the king's body, for burial. This was just not enough time to do much completion of a tomb project. So it can be said that no tomb in the Valley of the Kings is complete. The lengths of the tombs, being dependent on the length of the reign of the king, meant that if the king was long-lived there was a long and elaborate tomb. But some kings only lasted for a couple of years, which meant their tombs were only small holes in the mountain.
To date, there have been 62 tombs found, including the most famous, King Tutankhamun's tomb. Most of the tombs have been open since ancient times as, while kings were trying to be really smart in their deception of the thieves, grave robbers (as most all thieves, crooks, and brigands) proved themselves almost as resourceful and able to think like and out-think the kings and their advisers. The single exception to that was King Tut's tomb. Discovered accidentally by Howard Carter, it had lain undiscovered for thousands of years. It had riches beyond description inside, most of which can be seen in the Egyptian Museum, or in exhibitions around the world. But there is still hope for more. Sixty-two tombs have been discovered. However, a paper discovered in one of the tombs told of 102 tombs out there in the hills. If grave robbers happened to be illiterate, there are possibly up to 40 more tombs waiting to be discovered. That may be a big if however, and there is the possibility that it was a misleading trick by someone to try to keep the grave robbers occupied. There may be more tombs out there waiting to be discovered. Only time will tell and there are teams out there looking. Or they were until the revolution.
The ticket that was purchased allowed us access to three tombs. There are some 15 or 20 tombs that are currently open to the public, with the rest being closed for various reasons ranging from conservation to unsafe conditions. Two of the tombs require an extra fee, Tutankhamun's and Ramses II's tombs. As the stuff inside was all removed, the only reason to enter one of those tombs was to say I had been there. It was already rather expensive, so I declined to even entertain the idea. Our guide told us he would choose what he felt were the three best tombs to visit. We trusted him to do so. They were all Ramses kings, the fourth, the ninth and maybe the first (I don't remember well which numbers they were; there were too many of them).
Inside there were chambers and corridors. There were hieroglyphics on the walls. Most had their sarcophagi in the burial chambers. And it was all rather well-preserved, despite all the traffic and the grave robbing. It's quite a sight.
Next it was on the next spot on our itinerary, the fairly obligatory (unfortunately) shopping stop. We were taken to an alabaster shop. We were shown how rough stones are cut and shaped and used to make wonderful pieces for the home. And since they were stone, they were large and heavy and unlikely to find their way into my pack for the trip home. They didn't, so it was a reasonably useless stop for me.
After the useless shopping stop, we headed to the temple of Hatshepsut. This was a temple set at the base of and cut into the mountain, on the opposite side from the Valley of the Kings. Hatshepsut was one of the few female rulers of the Egyptian people. But this was not easy for her to accomplish. During the old Egyptian kingdoms, rulers routinely married their sisters. I can see why each dynasty seemed not last too many generations. The next ruler often came from amongst the offspring with other wives, but the king and queen were siblings if at all possible. This kept the power where they wanted it and made it easier to control.
Hatshepsut was the queen and her brother was the king. Then the king died, but there was an heir. However, the heir Tutmosis was only four years old. He couldn't rule as he was too young. Hatshepsut was considered as the ruler, but the people didn't support her. They wanted Tutmosis to be the king. The solution was that Tutmosis would be the titular ruler, but Hatshepsut would be helping him and making the decisions until such time as Tutmosis was old enough to assume the throne. This arrangement worked for about four years, but Hatshepsut grew to like ruling Egypt. So she decided to more or less take over. She shipped Tutmosis off to military school. The people rebelled and would not accept her as sole ruler, so she worked out a solution. The way to the people's acceptance was through the priests. The way to the priests was to shower them with money, which she did. The priests, who liked getting money for their projects worked out that if she could be linked to the sun god, Amun, she could be legitimized in the eyes of the people. So they convinced her to wear men's clothing to be seen as a king, and the earthly aspect of Amun. Thus she came to be viewed as a man, and all of the statues of Hatshepsut ever made show her as a man.
As king, Hatshepsut wanted to make some kind of further gesture to show her legitimacy as “king.” she also wanted to be connected to, even buried in, the Valley of the Kings. She chose a spot for a temple, which was right beside another temple that she admired.
She directed her architects and builders to make a temple that was the same, but built into the mountain. This became the temple we were visiting. To help her position, the temple was position so as to have the entrance pointing to the entrance to Karnak Temple across the river in Luxor. Karnak Temple was dedicated to Amun, which helped further establish the connection to Hatshepsut. At the back of the temple she had her builders start a tunnel that was to go through the mountain to the Valley of the Kings. It's thought that the tunnel would lead to where she wanted her tomb.
Alas, this was never completed. Hatshepsut forgot one thing in all of her work to gain legitimacy. She forgot the one person she had wronged the most, her co-ruler Tutmosis, whom she had sent away to the military. He grew up while she was being king. And he was bitter. He became a general in the military and had a large command of soldiers who were loyal to him. He marched on Hatshepsut and ousted her. Then he set about wrecking everything she had done, removing her image from anything he could find. He was trying to show that everything during her reign had no legitimacy, that it didn't exist because he had been the rightful ruler all along. He put his name over hers many times, hacked her face off statues and tried to erase her image and name from anything he found. Legend had it that he killed her, but studies on her mummy showed she died of natural causes. It would seem that Tutmosis' murder of Hatshepsut was figurative rather than literal.
The damage to the temple was quite extensive and shows that, while hell might have no fury like a woman scorned, military school had the same embittering effect then that it has now.
But despite all the damage he caused, Tutmosis only damaged images of Hatshepsut. He didn't do any damage to the rest of the temple or its art, so there is considerable beauty that remains in the temple as well.
From the temple we headed into the Valley of the Queens. Our guide suggested that we needn't go there as there wasn't really anything of interest there. We wouldn't even be able to go into the tombs of any queens because they were all closed. We would only be able to enter the tombs of some of the princes. But we all wanted to go in, so in we went. I suspect the guide just wanted to save some time, but that was up to him. It was our tour.
In the Valley of the Queens, we were allowed to take our cameras in with us, although the prohibition of using them inside the tombs was still in effect. Apparently the whole illicit photo deal inside the Valley of the Queens wasn't as much of a problem as it was in the Valley of the Kings. Women always seem to get treated that way. Oh well. We visited three tombs of princes, all of them sons of Ramses II. They were interesting and actually we saw more colour and paintings on the walls than it seemed were in the tombs of the Valley of the Kings.
Despite the prohibition of taking photos, I still managed to surreptitiously snap a couple, although I was good enough not to use the flash. And I didn't get caught. Others were caught and did pay some considerations to the caretakers for the “transgression.” But I don't know how much it can be considered a transgression if it's so easy to get the officials to look the other way. It's more of a transgression in conscience than fact, I suppose.
Our final stop of the morning tour was at the Colossai of Memnos. This is a Greek name for them, but they were actually statues for an old king of Egypt. And they were just sitting out in a field. There was no particular temple of anything else that could be associated with them at this point in time. And our guide, although he told us their provenance, really felt they weren't particularly important. Others in the tour were tired and the statues were not overly interesting otherwise, so we spent about 5 or 10 minutes looking at them, then we headed back to the hotel for lunch and a short break before we began the afternoon program.
The afternoon was for two temples, Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple. Our first stop was at Karnak Temple. This was a temple built in honour of Amun Ra, the sun god. It was aligned to point to Valley of the Kings, but I wasn't clear which came first. It was a very large temple with gates and special areas. But like all other temples in Egypt, and probably elsewhere, there three main areas: the public area, the area for the king, queen and priests, and the inner sanctum where only the king and the high priest could enter. There was also an important side entrance. Out the front of the temple there was a canal that led to the Nile. Once a year, in the past, the idol of Amun Ra would be loaded onto the boat of the god. It would be carried to the canal, and then would be sailed out to the Nile. It would sail up the Nile for a few kilometers to Luxor Temple. This was where Amun Ra's consort was. Amun Ra would stay in Luxor Temple for ten days each year and then return via a processional along the street of the sphinxes, a road leading from Luxor Temple to the side entrance of Karnak Temple, and which was lined with sphinx statues along its length. Karnak Temple was originally fairly small, but was added onto by successive pharaohs until it became the massive site that can be seen today.
All the contributions were too much for me to remember, but I do remember a couple of them in particular. One was by Ramses II, who really was probably the most influential of all the pharaohs. He completed a set of pillars in the Hypostyle Hall. They were massive. They were begun by one pharaoh and completed by Ramses II. The biggest reason I remember them is because this was, I think, one of the places that was featured in the second Mummy movie with Brendan Fraser.
He also contributed a couple of giant statues of himself. I wasn't overly surprised by this, with the number of statues of the man all over Egypt.
The other addition that I remember was that of Hatshepsut, because she was the one who had caused so much trouble by trying to take over the pharaoh's throne as a woman. She contributed an obelisk. There used to be eight obelisks in the temple, but five were taken from Egypt and are now located in five world capitals. Three remain in the temple, but one of them has fallen down.
After explaining things to us for about 45 minutes, we were left to wander and take photos for about 40 minutes more. It was getting late in the day and the light was quite interesting, but it was a large temple and it really would have made a good place to look around in for at least two hours more rather than the 40 minutes we were given. Oh well.
From Karnak Temple, we headed to our final destination for the day, Luxor Temple. However, our guide was once again campaigning for the fact that it wasn't necessary to go in. Everything that was about the temple that needed to be seen could be seen from outside and there was no need to enter. As it was after 5 in the afternoon and most sites close around that time, I decided that it wasn't worth the entrance price to go in, if I wasn't going to have a lot of time to look around. The entrance fees in the country get to be quite pricey over the long haul, and this day had been an expensive one for that. But if the itinerary for the day was too much for the time allotted, maybe the touring companies in town need to rethink how they go about it.
Again, it had been a long day, and I wasn't all that interested in Luxor Temple by this point, so I don't remember too much more about it than what had been related about its relationship to Karnak Temple earlier. One thing that did stick out from the explanation though was that the temple had been completely buried by sands when the Muslims came to town. The found the tops of the columns protruding from the sand and thought they would make a great base on which to construct a mosque, so they did. Then, later when the archaeologists started looking at the site and then digging, they found this massive temple under the sand. The mosque was not removed, so it remains as an interesting and unique feature of Luxor Temple.
This concluded the day's programs and we returned to the hotel exhausted and satisfied. It had been a big day, but it had indeed continued the change that I had felt during the felucca ride. It was a much better organized and easy feeling day than I had had before the felucca in Aswan and I felt very satisfied with Luxor in general.
No comments:
Post a Comment