Day 8 – Many Kings and
a Bad-Ass Queen
The second day on the
‘cruise’ will actually soon feature time at sea, but before that there were the
last few key sites from Luxor to check off before the skip launches. In some
(failed) attempt to avoid the hottest part of the day, the tourism part started
early, with the seven of us meeting the same tour guide outside the boat at
7:30 – which was negotiated down from 7am at first.
Knowing the early
start, I tried sleeping early the night before, but still I feel asleep on
parts of the 30 minute drive from the dock to the entrance point to the Valley
of the Kings, on the West Bank. As the sun sets in the West, and the Egyptians
revered the sun in the form of God Amun-Ra, the West side of the Nile was seen
as the land for the dead, used mostly for tombs. Because of this, there is such
a high volume collection of tombs and temples to the West Bank of Luxor.
The first stop was the
literal Valley of the Kings, fairly deep into the sand and sand-stone
mountains, a truly idyllic (if unbearingly hot) settting. I shudder to think of
the heat and the effects it had on hundreds of thousands, if not millions, if
slaves and laborers who built these structures or carved these tunnels in the
valley.
The Valley of the
Kings is essentially where all Late Kingdom (~1700-1000 BC) Egyptian kings were
buried, including multiple Ramesii, Tutankhamen, and many others. Again, the
ticket structure was a bit confusing, with the main entry ticket getting you
access to three tombs (those of Rameses III / IV / IX), with another ticket
needed to get you the ability to take photos inside the tombs, and then
separate tickets for the other tombs (Tutankhamen – probably the most popular
other tomb; Iysi – the one with the longest tunnel; etc.). Given my ‘you only
live once’ mantra, I got a ticket for the Tutankhamen tomb, and obviously
snapped up the photo one.
We all took a
Disney-style wagon train from the main entrance to the start of the true
valley, with blindingly light colors in all directions. I was cursing myself
for adhering to my normal anti-sunglasses stance. Luckily here the sites are
underground, providing great respite from the sun and heat – as the great Kings
would have wanted.
The first tomb was
that of Rameses IV, one that was like 10% unfinished (mostly half-completed
carvings and paintings) due to a workers strike – was surprised to learn such
actions were allowed in Ancient Egypt times, as I’m surprised those workers
weren’t just killed and new ones brought in to replace. Despite the
‘unfinished’-ness, the tomb was stunning. The long tunnel leading to the
sarcophagus was painted and carved from bottom to top to ceiling, with various
depictions of battles Rameses III led Egypt to, along with the standard
offerings to the gods Amun-Ra and Anubis (the jackal-faced got of death and
mummification). The sarcophagus itself was empty in the middle, but exquisitely
carved on the sides.
After that tomb came
the tomb or Rameses IX, which was probably the least impressive of the four
that we saw, similar in style to the other two main toms but not as much
carving and color. What was interesting is apparently people grew quite a bit
in the 1,000 or so years between the pyramids in Saqqara and Cairo and these
times as the tunnels were higher and broader, and didn’t require some level of
cortotioning to ascend and descend.
Prior to seeing the
final tomb, the one of Rameses III (annoyingly not the son of Rameses II – the
king who plastered his image and flair on the Karnak and Luxor temples). It had
the most color, including a gold-painted main sarcophagus with the large
granite tomb in the middle with its own set of carvings. These tombs are
staggeringly old, but in really good shape. The tour-guide swore that they were
in their original condition, but even if they were touched up (I’m guessing at
a minimum the color was re-painted on) the condition they were in was
incredible.
Following the Valley
of the Kings, we all took a trip to the token shop of the day, which this time
was an alabaster store. The quick demo was on how they turned alabaster rock
into a jug or something. They didn’t really put much effort into that, and
mostly it was just time for us to roam around their store – we all took more
time than probably needed doing so given the nice air conditioning.
After our sojourn we
left to the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, the first Queen of Egypt, who stole the
crown from the son of her ex-husband (the old King) who was born to a local
farmer girl. Queen Hatshepsut was able to steal the crown concocting some
ridiculous story that the God Amun-Ra was her father (including a fairly
graphic scene of this painted in the Karnak Temple, with Amun-Ra and her mother
mid-coitus. Anyway, it is fairly well understood that Hatshepsut was a strong
and brilliant leader, and in a very bad-ass way memorliazed her life with this
beautiful temple built into the mountains.
The original temple
was destroyed in an Earthquake in around 350 BC, and was rebuilt through the
joint effort of the Egyptians and, randomly, the Polish. The temple is an
imposing, three level structure built right infront of, almost to the point of
blending in with, the rock face behind it. The second level has about 20
columns and a pathway behind it with intricate paintings and carvings. The
third level had the same, with many statues of Queen Hatshepsut, all she made
with man-like features such as a fake beard. In the heart of the temple,
basically connecting the building to the rock-face, is the tunnel to her tomb,
again ordained and carved to a high degree. For someone who was a ridiculous
groundbreaker (hell, we can’t get a woman elected President in 2016, but Egpyt
had a queen break the glass ceiling in 1600 BC), the temple is a great
testament to her legacy and place in history.
The final tourism stop
was the Colossi of Memnon, two towering statues that will soon be joined by the
rest of a recently unearthed temple. The statues were so named by the Greeks
who because of some confluence of winds and a crack in the sculpture, heard it
call out ‘Memnon’ as in Agamemnon the figure from Troy. Of course, it was a
statue of Imanhotep III, whose temple is slowly getting excavated around it.
We finally returned to
the ship about 30 minutes prior to launch for lunch – another nice meal.
Somehow, about 20 more people joined the boat overnight seemingly. Not sure if
they were truly missing yesterday or just not at the meals. Anyway, the
lunch-room was now fairly full, and I absconded quickly to the ‘sun deck’ top
to watch the boat take off.
It truly is a leisurely
pace they go down the Nile, allowing you to take in the palm trees and mosques
and foliage to either side. Again, a lot of Egypt is just a feeling of history,
of knowing that thousands of years ago, the most advanced civilization of their
day, one that so many have ripped off and learned from, was using this as their
means of transport. The Nile River is one of the great breeding grounds of
history, and sailing down it is just an awesome feeling.
We reached Esna, our
first stop, around 6pm. Esna was purely a fueling stop or break on the Nile
journey, a town with little archaeological history or import. However, our tour
guide did take the opportunity to tale us on a small walking tour of Esna, to
see the small-ish Esna temple in the heart of the city (literally, it was a
city block right next to bazaar stalls). There, we all went to a ‘coffeeshop’,
basically a place serving basic drinks and hookah in an outdoor/indoor set-up.
For those inclined (me included) got a few hookahs and Egyptian coffees to have
the full experience. During our time there sitting in the indoor/outdoor
coffeeshop, a teenager stringing a camel along by the leash came by to inspect
a local shop. None of the locallers seemed at all perturbed, but needless to
say us tourists were all excited.
Post dinner on the
boat basically took the form of all of us on the sun deck at night, letting the
somewhat cool Esna night air seep in as we wantched the coastline slowly turn
dark for night. It was a thrilling time, stationed on this ancient, mystic
river, watching he world go by.
A lot of my
description during this trip has been somewhat mystical rather than tangible,
like feeling exhilarated being at the Pyramids of Giza, or even now, on a
modern boat floating down the ancient elixir of life that was the River Nile.
It may all sound fanciful, and even I can’t accurately quantify the actual
impact of these feelings. But in this one case, history is a bit overwhelming,
in a different way that it was in Rome; or maybe I was just younger when I went
to Rome. I haven’t really done a true ancient civilization vacation in a long
time, and if this is what it feels like, that may need to rapidly change.
