Are we really going to survive this road trip?

Trip Start Mar 07, 2006

Trip End Jun 07, 2006

Loading Map

Map your own trip!

Map Options

Show trip route

Hide lines

Flag of Egypt Abydos, Egypt
Wednesday, March 29, 2006

We booked one of the hated hotel tours for today to visit two temples about 4 hours North of Luxor. It's difficult to get out of Luxor on your own, the police don't like people catching random local trains or service taxis as they can't keep tabs on people, so pretty much the only way to visit sites surrounding Luxor is to go as part of the daily convoy which is escorted by local police. All local traffic entering from side roads is stopped to allow the convoy to pass and there is an armed policeman at every single roadway, bit like being royalty really!! Well the closest we'll ever get that's for sure. The road followed the river most of the way and is lined with small irrigated fields of all sorts of crops, wheat, barley, alfalfa(for stock feed) and lots of sugar cane (it's harvest time at the moment also) and countless small villages with mudbrick houses and flat roofs usually of reeds or palm fronds.

After four hours of driving North, never sure if we were actually going to arrive at our destination due to the driver's tendency to play a kind of leapfrog with each others vehicles regardless of oncoming traffic, we arrived in the village of Al-Balyana and the famed Temple of Seti I at Abydos

Abydos colums

. Due to restoration work this is one of the most complete and beautiful ancient structures in Egypt. It is a dedication to six of the major gods of creation Osiris and Isis, their son Horus, Amun-Ra, Ra-Horakhty and Ptah and of course to Seti I himself.

It is one of the few temples to still have it's roof intact so you get a totally different perspective to visiting a ruined temple which is open to the sky. The reliefs carved on the walls are simply stunning in their detail and quality, absolutely beautiful. Every surface of the temple walls, ceiling and pylons are covered in carved reliefs which are painted in what would have been bright colours but is now faded with age. This in no way detracts from the fact that the remaining colour is over 3000 years old, awe inspiring place and the most impressive we've visited so far.

The police here are so nervous about tourists visiting that you are not allowed to leave the Temple complex to wander around the village of Abydos, you are confined to the Temple grounds and a small cafe at the entrance, while village life goes on around you, strangely isolating experience.

Back in the crazy "let's see who can overtake the most cars" convoy we headed South again to Qena (Kena) and the wonderfully preserved Temple of Hathor at Dendara. Represented as a woman with a cow's horn headdress or as a cow, Hathor was the Goddess of Love and Pleasure and was worshipped at this site right up until the end of the Pharonic Era and into Roman times.

Six massive pylons topped on all four sides with a depiction of Hathor's head greet you as you enter the temple into a huge hall containing 18 more identical columns

Abydos in a different light

. The thing which stood out the most about this particular temple wasn't the size or quality of the reliefs though, it was the fact that almost every single depiction of Gods, Goddesses and Pharonic deities has been defaced. This was a common practice in early Christian times and we had come across examples in other temples also but never to the total extent that it was evident here. All 24 pylons in the entrance hall are also defaced, most fully and some only partially. You can only imagine the effort these early Christians went to to obliterate the old Gods from living memory.

The outside walls of this temple also have lion headed gargoyles which we hadn't seen before, you wouldn't think there would be much need of them here but what do you know, on our way back to Luxor it rained!!! Well spat enough to use the wipers and end up with a few puddles on the road but hey it hardly ever rains here.