Luxor

Trip Start Jan 20, 2009
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Trip End Mar 03, 2009


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Where I stayed
Nile Sham Cruise
(Luxor hotels)

Flag of Egypt  ,
Monday, January 26, 2009

We did a tour of Karnak Temple and Luxor Temple in the morning.  Karnak Temple is enormous.  The full temple extends under all the surrounding neighborhoods.  The part that has been excavated is 15 acres.  It has dramatic plazas of columns (>130 columns).  The huge plaza that leads up to the first pylon is lined with statues.  The entrance faces the Temple of Hatshetsup on the west bank.  The Temple of Amun is the largest religious structure ever built.  There were 81,000 people that worked for the temple.  It was the most important religious place in Egypt during the New Kingdom.  There were 16 obelisks in the temple (but only one remains).  The others have been shipped to museums and parks across the world (one in Central Park).  Construction at this temple started around 1960 BC and continued for 2,000 years.

Another interesting story told in Karnak Temple is of The Sexual Figure.  One of the pharoahs left all the women behind to go to war.  He left a single weak old man to watch over them.  When the pharoah returned all of the women, except one ugly woman, was pregnant including the Queen.  The untouched woman told the pharoah that the old man did it.  They cut off his arm and leg and left him in the desert to die.  The pharoah took all the children from this man to war and they won several wars.  As a tribute to the old man, they immortalized him as a man with one arm and one leg and a huge penis.  It is in many of the temples of the New Kingdom.

Luxor temple is less dramatic, but it has cool mix of construction.  It was built by Amenhotep III and Ramses II (1350 BC), but was used by Coptics, Arabians, Greeks, and Romans.  There is a working Mosque built on top of some of the ancient structures.  We came back later in the evening and had a beer in a resteraunt over looking the temple.

The next morning we went to the Valley of the Kings.  We saw were all the Kings from the New Kingdom were buried, including King Tutankhamun.   We went to the tombs of Ramses I, Tuthmosis III, and Ramses IV.  The valley is all white from the limestone.  It is very strange walking down into someone's grave, particularly a king from 5,000 years ago.  The biggest of the tombs was Ramses IV.  It has a 20 foot tall entrance hall that descends to a huge burial chamber.  The walls are 100% covered in heiroglyphics and bright colors.  It is hard to imagine colors lasting thousands of years in the desert.  The sarcophagus alone is 10 feet tall of solid granite.  The paintings in this tomb are on every -shirt in Egypt.  They are really impressive.

We went to the Temple of Hatshepsut, which sits on the ridge behind the Valley of the Kings.  The temple looks out over the Nile toward Karnak Temple.  The causeways between the two temples lead into each other, and there are plans to build a brige over the river, between the two.

Next was the Temple at Medinat Habu.  This temple is dedicated to Ramses III.  It has lots of descriptions of battles with Lybians.   It shows Egyptians cutting the hands and genitals of prisoners to count them and to make sure they don't procreate. 

We had a quick stop at the Collosis of Memnon.  This is a temple to the african god Memnon.  Memnon is the same as the Ancient Greek King Agmemnon, who was killed by Achilles (I think).  This temple was the largest (by area) ever built in Egypt.  It was mostly mudbrick and has been washed away by the Nile floods.
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