Tour de Force

The Citadel of Saladin

We arrived back in Cairo by sleeper train very early and we get to our first site before it is even open. We start the day at the Citadel of Saladin high above Cairo. The citadel was built in 1176 to defend Egypt from its enemies. And for centuries it did just that. The fortress was destroyed by Napoleon’s armies. The Ottoman king Muhammad Ali restored the fortress and built the mosque for himself. Unfortunately the stones for the mosque came from the pyramids of Giza. The alabaster for the outer casing came from a nearby alabaster quarry and is sometimes referred to as the “alabaster mosque”. It carries the same design as the blue mosque in turkey. There are actually several mosques on top of the fortress. 

The Citadel of Saleh-Al-din

The mosque features a large open court with a clock tower. Doors lead from the open court to the prayer room. The prayer room is built to acoustically amplify the voice of the iman so everyone could hear him and follow along. 

Beautiful detail on the ceiling in the prayer room

The tomb of Muhammad Ali 

Our next site is the Hanging Church. The name of the church is St. Mary’s and it was originally  built in the 4th century AD, but most of it was destroyed. It was rebuilt in the 17th and 18th centuries. It is located in the area known as Coptic Cairo.  Coptic is simply an  Egyptian Christian. It doesn’t refer to a particular denomination of Christianity. It’s called the hanging church because it was built over one of the round towers of an old Roman fort. 

Entrance to St. Mary’s Church

There were twelve towers in the old Roman fort 

St. George’s Church was also built over one of the Roman towers 

Egyptian museum 

The original Egyptian National Museum was located in one of the old palaces of Muhammad Ali. But geographically it was not in a good place. When the first big flood came, most of the artifacts were submerged by the waters, and many were stolen. The government then gave the money for the construction of this museum. The museum opened in 1901. The new museum is being constructed next to the Giza plateau  and will be the largest one in the world when it opens. 

We finish the day at an Egyptian bazaar that is teeming with humanity and vendors offering wares too numerous to mention. It is a cacophony of sights and sounds. Here we have lunch before we indulge in some shopping. The market is seemingly endless, stretching on for blocks in every direction.  It would be SO easy to get lost here! Next it was back to the Oasis Pyramids hotel, which is where we started this journey eight days ago. In a few short hours we will all be going our separate ways. This was my first travel experience of this type and it has been amazing. The people I traveled with were so friendly, interesting, and engaging. I’m ready for my next tour. 

                               

                               

The day in Luxor

Up at 3:45 am again this morning, this time to go hot air ballooning. The balloons are MASSIVE. The basket is divided into 9 compartments and will hold 28 people plus the pilot. The pilot pointed out things of interest to us from the air, including the funeral temple of Hatshepsut. We landed after about 30 minutes safely in the middle of a sugar cane field. 

Sunrise over Luxor

                    

Our tours for the day began on the West Bank in Luxor, with two statues that were built during the reign of Amenhotep III.  At one time there were cracks in the statues that would produce a  singsong sound when the wind blew, but in restoring the statues they had to block the cracks in order to strengthen them structurally, so they no longer sing. 

The golden time of ancient Egypt started with Tuthomosis I. His daughter was  Hatshepsut, who was bis daughter by his wife of royal blood. She was forced to marry her half brother Tuthmosis II, who was allowed to come to power instead of her. Then their younger brother, Tuthmosis III, who was only 11 at the time, came to power and she took the opportunity to co-rule with him and influence his decisions. She influenced him into going to a war expedition and for those 20 years she ruled as pharaoh. After he returned, she mysteriously disappeared. Tuthmosis III then started to destroy and deface temples dedicated to Hatshepsut. She was an extremely successful pharaoh and lead during the height of the new kingdom.

The Funeral Temple of Hatshepsut

Some of the temple is free standing  and some is carved deep into the mountain. In ancient times, if you followed the road that ran from Hatshepsut’s temple it would lead you straight to the temple at Karnak. Tuthmosis III built a shrine on top of the temple to show superiority over her.  A lot of the temple has been damaged, not only by Tuthmosis III. but also by the Romans. Most of the scenes in the first floor were chiseled off. Those on the second floor are mostly intact except that her image has been removed by her half brother. The section to the left covers trading expeditions to the southern part of Africa and depicts sea life. In the third floor a number of statues feature Hatshepsut standing as Osiris with her arms crossed. Once upon a time each column in the front features such a statue but those have been lost to time and the elements. 

Next we head to the Valley of the Kings. King Tuthmosis I decides he would not build a pyramid to house his funeral chamber. He sent someone to scout out a spot for him as his final resting place. The scout discovered the valley and brought the King out to inspect it. The natural curve of the mountains formed a pyramid and the king decided that this would be where his tomb would lie. This would be the end of  pyramid building in Egypt. All the kings of ancient Egypt who came after were buried here. Half of the mummies of the new kingdom were buried here. Even his daughter, Hatshepsut, was buried here. The workers who carved the tombs into the mountain were never allowed to return home so they could not tell anyone the location of the tomb. Some of the  workers were also entombed here. The tombs in the valley are numbered by the order in which they were discovered. King Tut’s tomb was discovered in 1922. There were 19 infant mummies inside the tomb as well. Howard Carte, the archaeologist who discovered the tomb, and his crew all died due to breathing in the poisonous air inside. This tomb is unfinished. The best theory as to why it’s unfinished is that he died so young his actual tomb was not ready and he was buried in a tomb that was meant for his mother. They sand blasted the walls and attempted to paint over them. 

King Tut's mummified remains

Inside King Tut's tomb

We later go to an alabaster factory  where they show us how they still make alabaster pots using traditional methods. We also learn about other stones  found in Egypt and how to tell the difference between them. Our final stop of the day is the Karnak Temples. Karnak is the name that was given to the temples by the Arabs. The ancient name was Ben- Amun “the house of Amun”. The original temple was built during the Middle Kingdom. During the new kingdom the temple in the front was built. There are six temples inside of Karnak. All the kings of the new kingdom came to Karnak and added to it. King Akenaten closed Karnak temple because he came to worship another god, called Aten, and he built a temple to Aten on the site. Akenaten was deposed by his son Tutankaten, later Tutankhamen, who restored the worship id Amun. 

Karnak Temple

The Avenue of the Sphinxes 

Karnak Temples are mainly composed of sandstone. Rams we’re the favored animal of the god Amun- Ra. Ram headed statues line the open court of the front temple. The temple is unusual because you have an open court, a colonnade hall, a shrine, and a temple all in the same space. This is because various kings made changes to the original structure over time, so the end design was very haphazard. The hypostyle hall of King Seti I has 134 columns. Some of the columns l. The hall was started by Seti I but finished by his son, Ramses II. The obelisks of Tuthmosis II and Hatshepsut are both over 200 tons and are carved from one single piece of rose granite. Adham explains how they carved the obelisks out of a fissure in the transite using basalt, transported them during the floods, and how they slid them into place using sand. It was carved and decorated from three sides while it is still attached to the bedrock. Only the 4th side was decorated once they were erect, by use of a scaffolding system. We have about forty five minutes to wander through the temples after Adham finishes our tour, but the temples are MASSIVE. Tonight we take the sleeper train back to Cairo for the end of our incredible journey.

The obelisks of Hatshepsut and Thutmosis II

The Hypostyle Hall

The Temples of Luxor

At 7:30 this morning we disembarked from our felucca and met up with the group that had stayed at the hotel the previous two night. Kom-Ombo was our first stop of the day. The ancient name meant “built on a city of gold” because this most of the gold from ancient times came from this area. It was built during the Greco- Roman era and it is a double temple. It is dedicated to Horus, the falcon god of the sky,  and to Sobek, the Nile crocodile god. There once was a smaller temple in the area that was dedicated just to Sobek. It was the Romans who came and built a bigger temple on the site and added the worship of Horus. The priests of Sobek were angry and closed the shrine of Horus and his worshippers left and built the Temple of Horus on another site. Ma’at, goddess of Justice and truth returned the worship of Horus to the area and it became a double temple.

Kom-ombo 

Most of the temple have been lost to time and the elements but it was also damaged by the Ottoman king Muhammad Ali. He used stones from the monument as building materials for a sugar factory. If the temple had remained intact, it would be the second largest in Egypt. In fact, the temple used to have a second floor. There were secret corridors under the floor that the priests used to communicate with the worshippers who were in the waiting room that had the ability to amplify the priests voices. This was how the priests convinced the people that they were communicating with the gods. 

Behind the mud break walls that protect the temple archaeologists discovered mummified crocodiles, which are now displayed in the on- site crocodile museum. There is also an area on the temple grounds where the priests kept a living crocodile. There was also a small well room and a large well room. The large well room had tunnels connecting it to the Nile, which is how they caught the crocodile. 

Mummified crocodile

This stela in the Crocodile museum depicts Sobek

The pit where they kept a living crocodile as a representative of Sobek

It is a nearly two hour drive to our next stop. We drive through miles of desert, but this time humanity intrudes more often, passing vegetable stands, convenience stores, and schools. We finally arrive at the city of Edfu, which is teeming with people. The roads are packed dirt. Apartment buildings several stories high and dusty store fronts offering all types of items crowd the streets. In Edfu we arrive at our second stop of the day, the Temple of Horus. This is the most intact temple left and is the second largest after the Temple at Karnak. It is intact because it is below street level and until the 1800s, it was completely covered by dirt. It was discovered accidentally when a farmer was walking his donkey and the donkey fell through the ground.  

The Temple of Horus

This falcon statue is not part of the original construction. It was added at a much later time. 

Empty cartouches surround the open courtyard because the Romans who carved the stones could not decide who was going to rule Egypt. The pictures on the wall show the king’s journey to find the place to build a temple for the god Horus. Then the king and the god together lay the foundation stone for the temple. The staircases in the waiting room are for entry and exit to the second floor. The entry stairs spiral up to mimic the flight of a falcon. The exit stairs go straight down to mimic how a falcon dives to the ground. The statue of the sacred goat in the shrine is not the original. The original was still here when the temple was excavated, but it was moved into a room behind the shrine, where it remained for years until it disappeared. There is a warren of corridors and at least a dozen rooms behind the shrine. 

The shrine inside of the temple 

The passage of victory  at the Temple of Horus

Horus capturing Set

At night we went to see Luxor Temple. The ancient name of Luxor Temple meant “the house of women”. Like Karnak, this is a temple of Amun- Ra, even though it is only 3 km away from Karnak. Amenhotep III built this temple to show that he is the divine son of Amun- Ra and Hathor. He was not of royal blood, and needed a stronger connection to the gods. The temple was built from the inside out. Amenhotep, Hatshepsut, Seti I and Ramses II all added to the temple.  The main part of the temple that we see was constructed by Ramses II. 

Luxor Temple

There were originally two obelisks in front of the temple, but one was given away to France by Muhammad Ali. For centuries, due to Nile floods,  the temple was partly covered by silt. This site has significance to various religions. Two centuries ago, while the temple was still mostly underground and covered with silt, a mosque was constructed on the site. Various churches have been built at this location throughout time. The temple was also used as a church by the ancient Romans when they had conquered Egypt. It was used as a church until AD 580. 

Note where the door of the mosque located. This was ground level when the temple was mostly underground. 

The Avenue of the Sphinxes

King Tut with his mother, Nefertiti