Out of Egypt (With apologies to Andre Aciman)

Some random thoughts and comments on what I observed that I did not wish to publish  from Egypt.

Bear in mind, please, that I had personal interactions only with out local tour guide, a “liberal” woman of about 35, two or three Egyptian  men who worked for the American tour operator, and a physician who treated me for a minor problem. Of course, I interacted with hotel staff and about 5,000 street merchandise hawkers but I had no conversations with them.

Tahrir Square

. We went to the Egyptian Museum on the morning of a scheduled “million man march.” We were in and out of the Museum before the demonstration began. The Museum is right next to the former headquarters of the Democratic (Mubarak’s) party. The building has been utterly destroyed by fire and just the hulk stands there. This is really the center of Cairo, next to the Museum and fancy hotels. I think people are satisfied to keep the ruin there as a symbol of the “ancien regime.” Traffic that day into central Cairo was horrible but maybe it is horrible every day. There were Egyptian flags everywhere, sort of the way it was in NY after 9/11. I was told that pre-Revolution no one would have thought to fly a flag.

Traffic and security. I didn’t see traffic lights anywhere in Cairo or Giza (the Cairo suburb in which the Pyramids are located) and certainly none in the other cities. There were accidents and arguments all over the place. Crazy.

The approach into and out of Cairo airport is very similar to Ben Gurion. Modern and lovely with the same kind of security set up; only in Cairo no one stops the cars. There were no soldiers visible in Cairo airport. In fact, the only soldiers I ever saw were in Aswan at the airport and by the High Dam. Cairo airport is really like BG, a modern terminal with much more capacity than seems to be needed. The “modern” part ends abruptly as soon as you go out the door, just as it does in TA with the confusion with Sherutim and buses. In Cairo, the confusion is slightly more pronounced and it really helps to have someone wait for you. In fact, the tour operator always has at least two people waiting: one to get me through and one to drive the van.

The police are sort of under siege after the protests and particularly after the “soccer massacre,” so three was not much police presence in Cairo. From Luxor going north, there were many police “check points” which consist of booths alongside the road manned by one or two uniformed police who didn’t stop anyone at all.

I arrived in Cairo around midnight and the ride to Giza was over an hour. The road first went through  a quite lovely area with office buildings and high-rise apartments. The road and the neighborhood both deteriorated after about 30 minutes. The streets were full of people and street markets were open and crowded everywhere.

South of Aswan, the monuments are pretty empty as the only sensible way to approach them is by boat on Lake Nasser. There was security in each monument that consisted of either a young soldier with an Uzi (pretty sure it really was an Uzi) or a  middle aged “tourist policeman” with  a handgun. In these cases, the security guy would walk around with our group. On certain days our group was accompanied by a tough looking young soldier type with an Uzi (seemed very Israeli).

We had one troublesome encounter. At Hatshepsut’s Temple, the AIA arranged a viewing of part of the temple that is generally closed to the public. (In fact, this tour was called “Hidden Treasures” because we had access to several sites that are usually closed including the interior of the step pyramid and several off-limit tombs.) Anyway at Hatshepsut’s Temple, a group of clearly religious young men vehemently objected to our having access while they were excluded. Tensions were high, particularly since this was the precise location of the massacre of the Swiss and German tourists ten or so years ago. Several of our group were perfectly happy to pass on the visit, but the guide and accompanying archaeologist were determined to bring us in. The temple guards (not police or soldiers, just unarmed guards) stood their ground and we went in without incident and when we came out the young men were gone. I think we were all happy to get back on the bus. I am sure we seemed to be the last vestige of colonialism,  and maybe we were.

Women and Liberalism: The vast majority of women have their hair covered with head scarves in Cairo. Outside of Cairo, virtually every woman had her hair covered. Our guide does not cover her hair. She professes to be religious and says her mother and sister do cover their hair but that she says she can be a believer and modern at the same time. Her husband is a hotel manager who spends part of every week at Sharm el Sheikh. She and her husband lived in the US for several years while he worked at a hotel in Florida.

She said she had not previously been involved in politics but joined the women’s march and identifies with the sign she saw that said: “I want to live to see another president.” She supports Mubarak being put on trial and believes he should be punished (executed?). She believes the real cause of the revolution was the fear of the military that Gamal Mubarak (the son) would be put in charge and that the military actually supported and maybe fomented the revolution. She seems to believe that conspiracies lie behind everything in Egypt; she may be correct.

Anyway, she both fears and admires the Muslin Brotherhood. She fears that they may impose their values  regardless of what they say and admires their courage for their steadfastness during the Mubarak years. She says if the environment becomes too religious or repressive she will emigrate ( to Norway, not sure what the connection is but she probably has a relative there.)

Interestingly, the doctor I met, absolutely without my asking, said he cares only about his family and not about politics. He said if things get bad, he will move to Germany and that he has secured German citizenship. The Egyptian Gazette (an English language newspaper)) reported on the continuing brain drain to Canada and elsewhere. I think elsewhere means the USA.

Our "liberal" guide and our American church-going West Point Graduate tour operator ( a  really nice man who seems perfectly sensible) both believe that the NGO's and their personnel were doing inapproriate things including paying demonstrators. Al Jazeera reports (with incredulity) that some generals seem to believe that the NGOs were a cats paw for a US invasion! Am I nuts or is everyone else? It seems to me that this will work out pretty quickly not because of fear of loss of US military  aid but for fear of not getting an IMF loan, without which the country is likely to collapse. In any event, the military "government" is salami slicing itself out of existence and the Muslim Brotherhood (which really paid demonstrators) is not worked up on the NGO issue.

Soccer Massacre. The reaction of the few locals I spoke with is confused, naïve and contradictory. They blame the government for repression and they also want the government to impose order. I can see where this is going. The speaker of the Parliament, a Muslim Brotherhood  guy, said the military should resign and the MB should form a government. That government would then  have “legitimacy” and so could end the protests “with whatever means are necessary.” The liberals (not more than 25% of the parliament and badly fragmented) have said they will not join any coalition government so they will be in the victim category. Sounds French and Russian.

Tourism. Hotels were not more than 25% full. The most common languages heard in Luxor were German and Russian. No other Americans a few English folks. Many of the people in my group were blithely unaware of developments while we were there and were deliberately not communicating with relatives back home who were worrying.

As I said in my blog, Philae is on an island and we got there in a 100 year old (so it seemed) rowboat with an outboard motor piloted by a kid who was no more than nine. He had to start the motor by cranking it with a piece of clothesline. We all noticed that another group of tourists-German- were in a spanking new boat captained by a grown-up and all the Germans wore life vests. Our Lake Nasser cruise boat was lovely but there never was a safety drill and this was less than a month after the Italian cruise boat incident. So no police, no regulation and nobody gives a damn. While we were in Egypt, three German tourists drowned in a sightseeing submarine off the Sinai coast. That didn’t stop several of our group from going up in a hot air balloon to view Luxor. I hope the guy controlling the balloon was more than 9 years old.

Roads and River. The north-south roads going out of Luxor stink and there does not seem to be any commercial river traffic at all. The land along the River is fertile (it is now irrigated and fertilized since the Nile no longer inundates). I saw fifty miles of sugar cane but the cane is moved principally by camel and donkey cart. There seem to be resources but no infrastructure.

Gasoline lines. Service stations either have no gas or have gigantic lines. We had to change buses every day because the driver couldn’t fill up. No explanation given but my theory is that this relates to the subsidies. Gasoline is heavily subsidized by the government and this is primarily a middle and upper class benefit. The government can’t afford the subsidy but is probably afraid to take it away so I bet the government is controlling its outlay by limiting the supply rather than adjusting the price. That is my guess.

Local color. As we drove out of Luxor we saw hundreds (maybe thousands) of kids in the villages. Everyone of them smiled and waved at the bus. Some of my fellow travelers said they saw a few grownups making hostile gestures but I only saw smiling kids and friendly adults. I cannot begin to describe the hawkers who approach any and all visitors to any temple or site or street or airport. Everyone wants money and some are straight-forward saying “I want money.” Usually the hawker is trying to sell you some useless item but you cannot shake these people off your tail. It is the same story in retail stores. If they would just let you look they would sell more. I never felt unsafe just totally hassled. It would be exhausting to do this trip without a group and professional tour operator who immunizes you just a bit.

The most common site in Egypt.  Every street corner and almost every building is plastered with colorful campaign posters usually of smiling men wearing ties. Occasionally  there is a poster of  a sheikh or imam and very rarely of a female. I wonder what the streets looked like before Mubarak’s fall; certainly less colorful.

The second most common site. Half built buildings and apartment houses. Various explanations were given. The building is not on the tax roll until completed; a guy builds a new floor for his son who will marry one day but not yet; cheap financing; corruption; who knows what. There seemed to me to be more incomplete buildings than complete ones. I sort of remember the same thing in Turkey fifteen years ago.

Random thoughts. I got a great sense of satisfaction at the Aswan  High Dam. All that is left of Nasser is the Lake and all that is left of the Soviet Union is the Friendship Monument. Thus always to tyrants!

Shabbat in Luxor. I had the weirdest feeling that I was the only person in Luxor, perhaps in Egypt, who heard the Muzzein on Friday night and celebrated Shabbat. This in the land of Maimonides and the hundred thousand Jews who were forced out just in our lifetime.

The future. I am not buying stock in Egypt any time soon.

What I saw. I absolutely am thrilled that I took this trip. It met or exceeded my expectations. It put everything I read and studied into a real context. But… I saw nothing of Egypt and the  ancient sites are somewhere between a great museum and Disneyland. It happens that I love both museums and Disneyland so I am ok with that. Contrast this with Rome, which is also Disneyland but is a living breathing place. The ancientness ( I know there isn’t such a word) of Egypt and the sophistication of so much of what is there is unparalleled anywhere else. Inshallah, I would go back in less exciting times.

I need to think more on the New Kingdom and the Exodus story. Aknathen, a true mon-theist is part of this puzzle as is abrupt change of policies and capitals and building projects and the introduction of chariots and horses. I am not turning into a Bible literalist but the “foundation” story does appear to have some foundation.

Farewell, dear Reader.

Look carefully at this fertility god in Karnak

I

Stone Forest in Karnak

50 people stand on top of a column ?

Last Day in Egypt- Karnak, Luxor Museum and Luxor Temple in Daylight

Karnak is at least 3-4 times the size of Luxor Temple. Its most famous features, and deservedly so, are the gigantic columns in the Hypostyle Hall. The colors are mostly faded except for the top parts where you can see the vivid blues and reds. Standing among the 150 or so columns, like all other visitors, I felt myself to be in a stone forest. The largest columns ( need I say it again, almost 3,500 years old) are more than 80 feet tall and the tops are in the form of lotus flowers. The guide book says that there is room for 50 people to  stand on each column; ok so maybe only 40. I have never seen anything like these before. As in so many other temples, structures vary in age from about 2000 BCE to 100 AD. There are two remaining standing obelisks in Luxor. One previously here is now in St Peter’s Square in Rome and one is in front of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul. Hatshepsut’s Obelisk (still here) is 90 feet high.

The Luxor Museum, as advertised, has a concentrated collection of masterpieces. Very few visitors.

After Karnak, I wanted to se Luxor Temple in daylight. It appeared much smaller, having just been at Karnak but I stand by my estimate that it is about the size of the Roman Forum. I would say that Karnak is about the size of Central Park (at least 59-96^th Streets, maybe the whole park).

I missed a few important sites, particularly the Valley of the Queens. I understand that Museum Tours runs a tour for ten days with the object of teaching hieroglyphic fluency. Hmmm….

I promise at least  one more interesting posting.

The Bank of the Nile, South of Luxor

This is how it must have looked in ancient times.

Saturday Night in Luxor

The stars are out in Luxor on Saturday night and I had a most relaxing day. I never left the grounds of the Winter Palace. The main building is an elegant 19th Century Colonial Hotel with a beautiful lobby. Between the main building and the “Pavillion”  where I am staying is a delightful  large garden. It covers an area equivalent to

Fifth Avenue

to Park Avenue; 78^th to about 83^rd ; in other words, big. It has many different kinds of trees but is dominated by about 50  very tall and slender palm trees. I am on the fifth floor and many of the trees reach beyond my level. There is a very large swimming pool and an aviary with beautiful, exotic birds. I spent most of the day on the terrace of my room and I finally am rested!

Tomorrow, Karnak, which should be one of the highlights of the whole trip. If there is time I will re-visit Luxor Temple, which is right next to the hotel and the Luxor Museum which, I hear, has a concentrated collection of local masterpieces. Then off to Luxor Airport for my flight to Cairo; a five hour layover in Cairo before my flight to Amsterdam; and a five hour layover in Schiphol  before my flight to JFK. All in all, it is good that I am rested.

Thanks for reading. Look for one more post about Karnak and perhaps the Musuem and then one more  for additional comments.

Hatshepsut Temple

As seen on the Nile

Hatshepsut’s Temple, Worker’s Village

Hatshepsut’s Temple, Worker’s Village

On the other side of the Mountain that shields the Valley of the Kings is the Temple of Hatshepsut. Those of you who know the Met’s Egyptian collection are already familiar with the story of the Female Pharaoh who ruled as King, not Queen, for eighteen years. The Met’s collection of statuary is much better than the statues remaining on site but the Temple itself (as magnificently restored by Polish archaeologists) is both impressive and beautiful. The AIA group had a private visit to the inner part of the temple from which the public is excluded. (More on that in my supplemental notes to be published next week).

We also saw the tomb of Senenmut, the Temple’s chief architect which is the only “commoner” tomb in the area. Very deep and quite “exciting”  (meaning treacherous) to enter.

We visited the workers’ village which housed the 500 artisans who worked on the temple and the tombs of two additional commoners (not near the Temple or royal burials) with beautiful frescoes but no carvings.

I hear the Muzzein calling for sunset prayers and  I am going to stop right now.

The group leaves tomorrow and  I will be staying until Sunday. You have probably read about the general strike scheduled for tomorrow, but I hope and expect to be able to depart on schedule. 

I almost forgot, I had a lovely afternoon sail on the Nile in  a traditional Egyptian sailboat this afternoon. Look for an interesting photo, Miriam.

Cleopatra & Son at Dendara

Sety's Temple at Abydos (plus my finger)

Abydos and Dendara Temples

Three and a half hours on a bus to Abydos to see the Temple of Sety I, the father of Ramses the Great. The Temple was begun by the father and completed by the son.

Abydos Temple is huge with seven “chapels” each dedicated to a god or a manifestation of a god. The older part of the temple has the finest carvings completely on par with the art in Sety’s Tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Many of the carvings show traces of the original coloring. A number of the carvings were defaced by Iconoclasts during the Christian period.  Each chapel was used by the Pharaoh to make offerings to the respective god or goddess of the chapel. The Pharaoh would anoint the statue of the god, burn incense and make offerings. One of the most interesting aspects of the Temple is the Kings’ List which lists (almost) all the Pharaohs from the earliest times of the Old Kingdom (as far back as the First Dynasty, around 2700 BCE,  which pre-dates the Pyramids) right up to Ramses the Great (around 1200 BCE).

On the way back to Luxor, we visited the Temple of Dendara, not to be confused with the Temple of Dendur at the Met although they are  of  the same period. Dendara was begun in the  Ptolemaic period and continued during the Roman rule. There is a monumental wall carving of Cleopatra VII (yes, the Elizabeth Taylor, Antony and Cleopatra one) with her son by Julius Caesar, Caeserion. You HBO “Rome” fans will know one version of the story!  Dendara is dedicated primarily to the goddess, Hathor, the “cow goddess” and  one of the principal deities. The famous Zodiac ceiling now in the Louvre was removed from this temple in the early19th century.

Having seen a few “late” temples –only 2,000 years old, I am touched by the beauty and delicacy of Dendur at the Met but now realize that it is tiny compared to most its contemporary temples. New York is lucky to have it but one needs to travel here to appreciate the sophistication, scale  and beauty of the Egyptian temples throughout the ages.

Luxor Temple at Night

Valley of the Kings and Luxor Temple

I am beginning to run out of adjectives!

I visited Luxor Temple at night while it is artificially illuminated. I had really no idea of its size. The area of the temple seems to me to be about the same as the Roman Forum but most monuments are standing. I know that the much of the Temple has been restored and re-erected but it is easy to see and “get” the plan. Monumental doesn’t do it nor does colossal even though there are several colossal statues of Ramses.  The Temple is primarily a New Kingdom creation spanning several dynasties with most of the work done under Ramses the Great. (By the way, I am sure many of you have thought about correcting the name to “Ramesses” or some other variation, but “Ramses” seems perfectly acceptable in is home country; I digress.) As I was saying, it is New Kingdom but there are Middle Kingdom remnants; there is a shrine to Alexander the Great with his portrait and cartouche; there is a Roman garrison area with a wall portrait of Romans in Togas from the time of Diocletian and building stones from all other periods. The obelisk in front of the Temple is in perfect shape without the pollution damage that the NY, Paris, London and Rome obelisks have suffered. The obelisk is one of  a matched pair; the other is in Place Concorde in Paris. The temple is approached by an Avenue of Sphinxes which is still being uncovered and which connects with Karnak Temple, a mile away. All in all, Luxor Temple is on the same breathtaking level  with Abu Simbel.

Early this morning we set out to the Valley of the Kings. The valley is barren and surrounded by bare mountains; no green whatsoever. There are about sixty discovered New Kingdom Tombs including the tomb of Tutankhamen and 19 other Pharaohs. We entered five or six of them, the most spectacular of which was Seti I’s, which is closed to the public. The carvings and drawings are fresh and colorful. One can only imagine the palaces, if these were the tombs! No cameras are permitted anywhere near the tombs.

           Tutankhamen’s  Tomb was uniquely found intact with all the contents on display in the Cairo Museum. The tomb, itself, is quite small since the King died unexpectedly young and had to use someone else’s tomb.

            After visiting these tombs, I am beginning to get the principal ideas expressed in carving and paint. I must confess that I didn’t get it at all from my readings or museum trips.  The ceiling paintings depicting the sun’s daily birth, death and rebirth matches the Isis, Osiris, Horus story and the Pharaoh’s own journey. The ceiling decoration complete with elongated goddess, stars and boats  is the direct forerunner of art deco (but I know that I am way out of my league here.) 

A little more on Abu Simbel

A little more on Abu Simbel

The four colossi of the seated Pharaoh at the Great Temple are each about 70 feet high. Even though the façade is the front of a temple, there is no pylon. Egyptian temples are typically fronted with a pylon—a structure that looks two tablets connected by a lower entry gate. The mountain itself was carved to be the pylon for the temple at Abu Simbel. Inside the Great Temple there is a hall of eight columns each almost 35 feet high depicting the Pharaoh as Osiris. The walls are decorated with magnificent carvings and hieroglyphs which include a detailed rendition of the Battle of Kadesh (Qadesh) in modern Syria against the Hittites in the 13^th Century BCE . The Egyptians celebrate the battle as a great victory although it was essentially a tie but the King was rescued from almost certain death or captivity. The wall covering is reminiscent of the carvings in the British Museum showing the (neo) Assyrian victory over Israel at Lachish 600 years later. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Assyrian artists knew of Abu Simbel type carvings. As in all temples, there are several other interior rooms including a second hall and finally the Sanctum Sanctorum where only the King and Priest were permitted. This room held sculptures of the seated King and three seated Gods.

The smaller temple has four 35 foot high standing colossi- two each of King Ramses and Queen Nefertari. The great hall of the smaller temple does not have colossal statues but has beautifully decorated square columns and to, my eye, carvings more beautiful than the ones in the Great Temple. No photographs are permitted in the Temples so I can’t show the carving of Queen Nefertari being crowned by Hathor and Isis—it is delicate and beautiful. I will try to photograph it from a book.

Abu Simbel-Smaller Temple

Queen Nefertary being crowned by Isis and Hathor. Copied from book-- no photos allowed in Temple

Abu Simbel

Abu Simbel (Monday, February 06, 2012)

I posted a picture of the larger façade but it doesn’t begin to make up for the proverbial thousand words. First of all the two monuments were moved 180 feet up and 240 feet back to avoid the on-rushing waters when the dam was built. Second, our group had access to the inside of the dome on which the artificial mountain was built in the temples’ new location. The interior looks like a space station—a perfect dome, around the size of the Pantheon in Rome (no oculus, of course) which serves as the inside of the monument. There are two monuments, about 1,000 feet apart. The Great Temple  has four monumental Ramses II statues (one broken since late antiquity) and the Smaller Temple has two statues of his chief wife, Nefertary and two more of Ramses. Behind the façade of each is a temple with the finest carvings and art that I have seen thus far.

I was reminded today of how I felt on my first trip to South Africa. When I saw my first zebra in the bush, I was tremendously excited; within  three days,  I had seen so many zebras, that they appeared as common as pussy cats. I have seen quite a few temples in my week here and they all started to blur, especially the New Kingdom ones (1500 to 1000 BCE). Then came Abu Simbel, these temples are lions not pussy cats.

A short flight from Abu Simbel to Aswan and a three hour bus ride through desert to Luxor. We are at the Winter Palace Hotel, another bit of choice 19^th century colonial architecture.

Mud brick wall

And closeup of bricks with flecks of straw.

More new friends

Sent from bus in desert between Aswan and Luxor.

Abu Simbel at Night

M/S Eugenie

Ron and Friend (7 am Sunday)

Kalabasha Temple

Temples along Lake Nasser

Temples along Lake Nasser (Sunday, February 05, 2012)

Internet signal tonight for the first time since Friday.

6 AM wake up call, quick cup of coffee, and transfer to a motor launch. We visit the temple at Wadi es Sedua, now relocated to the west side of Lake Nasser. It is a New Kingdom temple approached by an avenue of sphinxes, some with the face of a falcon rather than lion. The temples all fall into a familiar pattern—a series of rooms (or spaces) going from large to small, from light to dark, and from profane to sacred. The final room could only be entered by the Priest and the reigning monarch. Familiar, right?

Leaving the temple, several of us (including me) board camels to take us for about a mile or more to a Temple from the Greco-Roman period. The same familiar form but our guide and archaeologist disagree whether the carved face refers to a late Ptolemy or to Augustus. During this late part of antiquity, the cartouche only spelled “Pharaoh” with no personal name. The carvings and hieroglyphs here are very well preserved

Back to the boat before 9 for breakfast. After breakfast back to the motor launch.

We visited the tomb of an Egyptian (or Nubian who worked for the Egyptians) as an important local functionary in the New Kingdom period and Amada and  a Nubian Temple with life-size reliefs that were more like folk-art rather than the elegant stylized carvings we have seen elsewhere. A mile or so away (which I covered in  a donkey cart) was the Temple of Dakka, also from the New Kingdom (about 1300 BCE), with well preserved reliefs still showing some color and a large  panel of hieroglyphs extolling the victories of Thutmose III.

Sunday night- Sound and light show at Abu Simbel. Tacky script; amazing monuments. Daytime visit tomorrow.

M/S Eugenie

M/S Eugenie- Saturday Night; published Sunday night

The small  cruise ship on which we are sailing  is an elegant looking vessel from the 1920s and is said to have been Marjorie Meriwether Post’s yacht. It has 50 or so cabins on two decks plus three public decks. Everything is done in polished wood. My cabin is about the size of Lisa’s room in Lido with two twin beds, an armoire and a small “make-up” table that serves as a desk. There is an adequate bathroom with a stall shower. There is a terrace facing the water (of course) about the size of our terrace in the Senato in Rome. It holds two deck chairs and nothing else. The public areas have obviously been re-furnished many times and don’t have the elegance that would become this ship. I have seen very few other ships or boats on Lake Nasser although we have been sailing all day.

I had some bad luck and then some good luck.

 The bad: Pharaoh’s Revenge (closely related to Montezuma’s Revenge) beginning Friday afternoon. Imodium and supper in my room consisting of chamomile tea and Coca-Cola worked  and I am much better now (Saturday night). I am trying to be very careful in what I eat and drink. There is no problem in being vegetarian. The fresh salads look great but I have stayed away from them.

The good: we were meant to sail Friday afternoon but a group of French tourists who were scheduled to be on the boat were delayed in arriving because of a cancelled flight. As a result, although we boarded Friday morning, we sailed only this morning and will not reach the first temple to be visited until tonight. I was planning to skip the visit (because it was Saturday) but will now see it on Sunday.

Because we never left the boat today, it was devoted to “education.”  We saw a fascinating film (produced by UNESCO, I think) about the incredible engineering involved in moving many temples—including Abu Simbel—in the 60s.

We are accompanied at all times by an Egyptian guide and an American archaeologist.

Our guide, a Cairene about 35, gave a  talk, with slides,  of her perspective on the Egyptian Revolution. (A Cairine is someone from Cairo; I learned a new word and wanted to use it!)

Our archaeologist gave a very good  lecture (also with slides) about Nubia (now partly in Egypt and mostly in Sudan), its place in antiquity. and its relationship with Egypt. All the temples south of Aswan, although Egyptian,  are in what is considered  Nubia.

Today, fittingly being Saturday, was entirely restful. Tomorrow will be very active and may include a camel ride. It is a little weird being cut off entirely from the rest of the world—no telephone, internet or television. I hope peace has broken out in our absence.  

Aswan High Dam/ Kalabsha Temple

Aswan High Dam/ Kalabsha Temple

(Written aboard M/S Eugenie Saturday night; sent Sunday night from Abu Simbel)

On Friday morning, we left Elephantine Island and drove over the causeway that is the top of the High Dam. I have not seen the Hoover Dam but my “fellow travelers” tell me that Aswan is longer but shorter. In any case it is very large, as is the monument to Soviet-Egyptian friendship (in the shape of a stylized lotus flower) commemorating the building of the dam.

After boarding the cruise ship (more on that later) we took a motor launch to Kalabsha Temple. Kalabsha like virtually all the temples below the High Dam is not in its original location. As with Philae,  it was moved during the UNESCO project to save the monuments; Kalabsha was underwritten by the German Government. It is a very large Roman era temple that is architecturally complete but not completely finished with carvings and hieroglyphs. As in Philae and many other temples it is dominated by freestanding “pylons.” I think Kalabsha must be the largest (or among the largest) of the temples in Egypt. Philae is smaller but more beautiful. Kalabsha was relocated on to the mainland just opposite the dam and several other unrelated temples and monuments were also relocated to the same location which is now sort of an outdoor archaeological museum. There is another “Kiosk” from Hadrian’s era, a New Kingdom Temple from the 13^th century BCE and even some “pre-historic” rock drawings of animals from 5,000-6000 BCE. It is marvelous that all these were saved but it is disconcerting to see artifacts from 6,000 BCE next to a temple from 100 CE. Something between a museum’s sculpture garden  and Disneyland.

Lake Nasser cruise

Embarked Eugenie-4 days no Internet. I will post additional blogs when I re-surface.

"Kiosk" of Trajan at Philae

Built at the same time as Pantheon in Rome.

Temple of Philae

The unfinished obelisk

Just to prove that I really am in Egypt

Philae and Elephantine

Philae and Elephantine

We started the day at a granite quarry in Aswan where there is  an “unfinished” obelisk lying in the place where it was shaped in the quarry. It was mean to be the largest obelisk in Egypt commissioned by Hatshepsut, the Queen who governed as King and Pharaoh and whose relics are as much in the Met as here. The obelisk broke during its creation and was abandoned. It has been lying in the quarry for about 3,500 years.

We took a motor launch to the island of Agilkia which formerly was an undistinguished outcrop of rock.  After the High Dam was created, the temple on Philae was threatened with destruction so it was dismantled into 250,000 pieces and rebuilt on nearby Agilkia which everyone now refers to as Philae.

The temple is reminiscent of Dendur (Metropolitan Museum) which was not very far away. Dendur was built in Augustus’  time and Philae, which is perhaps five times  larger and more beautiful, was built primarily by the Ptolemies and added to by the Romans. The latest part of the temple was a “kiosk” built in honor of Trajan by order of Hadrian. It is very interesting to see this temple and compare it to the Pantheon in Rome which was built at exactly the same time. They are both beautiful but, although the Romans built this temple on Philae, they adopted many Egyptian building motifs. The columns are a mixture of Roman and Egyptian and there is no obsession with symmetry.

In the afternoon, we visited the outdoor archaeological site of Elephantine. It is an active site worked on by Swiss and German teams and is amazing because it has buildings (and fragments of buildings) from the Old Kingdom right through Roman rule in one small area. Buildings have been reassembled with original material and clearly marked filler so you don’t have the problem we encountered in Mexico of not knowing what is real and what is hypothesized. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a book on the site. To my surprise, our guide knew all about the Elephantine Papyri and briefly mentioned them.

Tomorrow, off to Lake Nasser and a four day cruise down to Abu Simbel. I don’t think there will be internet access while cruising but I will take notes.

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European Pressphoto Agency

More Than 70 Dead at Egypt Soccer Game

At least a thousand others were injured when spectators rushed onto the field after a match between heated rivals in Port Said, Egypt.

Memphis and Aswan

This morning we went to the open air museum in Memphis about 15 miles south of Cairo. Not to bore you but Memphis was the capital (or co-capital with Thebes and later Alexandria) throughout the ancient period; that is, it was the administrative center for more than 2,500 years. It has totally disappeared. Although Alexander the Great was crowned Pharaoh in Memphis, his successors diminished the use of Memphis as a political capital in favor of Alexandria. The stones of the temples were used as a quarry to build Fustat (Old Cairo) and Cairo and the rest of the buildings were made of mud brick. In any event beginning in the Christian period and continuing through Muslim times, the city was almost entirely abandoned and this process was exacerbated by the changing course of the Nile which is now quite a distance from the site of Memphis. Memphis is no more!

There is precious little there other than some statuary. The two most famous pieces are a large alabaster Sphinx and a colossal statute of Rameses II (Rameses the Great). The Rameses was found buried under sand and is now presented lying down so visitors can see it from above in a structure built to house it. It appears to me to be roughly the size of Thomas Jefferson in his memorial in Washington. Big.

We flew to Aswan and are staying in a hotel on Elephantine Island. To those of you who are familiar with the Brooklyn Museum collection, I need say no more about an important (and almost unbelievable because of the date) connection. To those of you who have no idea what I mean, check out Elephantine Papyri in Wikipedia (or better yet buy the Brooklyn Museum monograph); you will be astonished. I am sure this bit of arcane history will not be covered on the tour but nevertheless…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elephantine_papyri

The link may be different in the US

Colossus of Ramses in Memphis