[We have photos for this post, but our internet connection is so unstable that Blogspot times out before we can upload them. We're trying!]
We woke up at 4:45 am to a text from the States, but we had to be up at 5 am anyway for our expulsion from our Garden of Eden. It was our last day as passengers on the SS Sudan, and we were to spend it on the west bank of the Nile visiting tombs and temples.
The desert is always an environment of extremes, but the contrasts of hot and cold were especially apparent this morning. We were bundled up in everything we had for our 6:30 am motorboat across the Nile from our boat to the landing on the west bank. There, our guide brought up a car and we headed though the formalities of getting into the Valley of the Kings.
The west bank is more complicated than I realized. There’s a Valley of the Kings with the pharoahs’ tombs; a Valley of the Queens for tombs of the queens of the pharaohs and their children; a Valley of the Nobles for other court members; a good number of temples; and even the Deir al-Medina, a tomb-workers’ village. Apparently, no one really lived on the west bank except the priests who served in the temples and the workers involved in building tombs and temples for the pharaohs.
Tomb-building was big for the pharaohs. In fact, one of their principle occupations was to prepare a tomb to ensure a comfortable afterlife, so the New Kingdom pharaohs began preparing their tombs as soon as they assumed power and had hugely ornate tombs excavated. Unlike the Old Kingdom tombs we saw in Aswan, which served as temples as well as tombs, these here in Luxor were only for burial, and the pharaohs’ goal was to create a construction that could be hidden but still guarantee their comfort in the afterlife. The pyramids of the Old Kingdom (Saqqara, Giza) drew too much attention, so the New Kingdom rulers chose the base of a mountain shaped like a pyramid to tunnel tombs into, using the excavated material to cover the tombs and camouflage them.
We visited so many sites today that I’m just putting them as a list. I’ve lifted all the tomb photos from the internet since photography is forbidden inside, though that didn’t stop Lou and his flow of Egyptian pounds from getting a few.
Valley of the Kings
Rameses IV – The first tomb we looked at. At 3000 years old and damaged, it’s still a beautiful tomb with walls covered in text from various sacred texts; it apparently has the only full text of the Book of Nut, who is stretched across the ceiling of the main tomb chamber. There’s yellow and blue everywhere, but the ceilings are especially affective with their rows of sketched stars.
Rameses IX – Gorgeous tomb with long corridors and pillars covered with hieroglyphs; there’s a reason this is one of the most popular to see. We both especially liked the ceiling of the main chamber, which has Nut stretched across it. The sun makes its daylight trip outside her but goes into her body at sunset for her to give birth to the next sunrise. The spirit of the pharaoh goes with the sun and has duties to do each hour of the night, hence the Book of Nut. This tomb is covered with the texts of several sacred books. And I liked the two priests decorating columns as we entered – they each wear leopard skin and have a shock of hair on the side. This is one of the nicest tombs.
Tomb of Tutankhamen – So it’s not a dog, but Tut’s tomb isn’t anywhere as wonderful as its contents were. Tut only reigned for 10-11 years and died young, so he didn’t get much done on his tomb. A guide told us his successor had rather hastily finished it. Tut’s tomb is right beside that of Rameses VI, and as workers on the latter dumped the debris from that excavation, they covered the entrance to Tut’s, which kept it hidden hidden over the millennia. Tut’s mummy is still here as is one of the heavy gold masks.
Rameses V and VI – Since building was expensive, long and complicated, some pharaohs simply took advantage of their predecessors’ work. Rameses VI was one of these, taking over Rameses V’s tomb and extending it for himself. As pharaohs had a lot of things to in the afterlife could end up with an unhappy one if they made a mistake, their tombs are covered in the texts of their sacred books which describe what to do when. The text-orientation is especially obvious in yellow and blue riot of the tomb of Ramese VI. Like several of the others we saw, it’s beautiful.
The Tomb of Tausert and Sethnakht – This is another appropriated tomb with a complicated story behind it. First, Seti II died. Then his successor died and Seti II’s wife, Tausert, became pharaoh (one of the rare female pharaohs). She started a tomb for her and her husband in the Valley of Kings (no Valley of the Queens for her!), but she died a couple of years later. Her successor, Sethnakht, appropriated her work, chiseled away many of her cartouches, and added a chamber to it for himself. However, he left her chamber and, in classic (s)he who laughs last fashion, the gorgeous winged Ra emerging at daybreak in her chamber is the most striking work in the tomb. [ADD PICTURE]
This was a lot of tomb-crawling for a morning, and we were ready for break as we headed out of the Valley of the Kings. We paused at the visitor center to watch some archival footage of Howard Carter’s team removing some of the items from Tut’s tomb that had been donated by the MET….and then discovered that we’d only begun our morning’s tour.
Valley or the Queens (and children)
Our next stop was the Valley of the Queens. The star stop here is Nefertari’s tomb, but with that cost so high, did three other stops.
Tomb of Amunherkhepshef – Some of the children of pharaohs had their own tombs, too, but since they never assumed the position of pharaoh, they were entombed in this valley. Amunherkhepshef was a teenaged son of Ramses III, and I found his tomb to be poignant. In it, we see clear reliefs of his father Ramses III holding his son’s hand and introducing the boy to different gods. A couple from Shanghai who were with us, however, thought it a good example of early networking. [ADD PICTURE of Ram and kid]
Tomb of Titi – This is a small tomb whose reliefs are damaged. It’s not clear who she was married to, but some think she was the wife of Ramses III and mother of Amunherkhepshef and Khaemwaset.
Tomb of Khaemwaset – Khaemwaset was another young son of Ramses III. These reliefs were in great condition and similar in subject to those in Amunherkhepshef’s tomb. As we climbed up out of the tomb through its various corridors and chambers, the blue ceilings and their painted stars were striking.
For a day that had started out flat-out cold, we were losing layers of clothing fast as the heat built in this dry, desolate area. And white. The landscape was a glaring white that reflected the sun and made it even hotter.
Tombs of the Nobles
If you wanted a tomb for the afterlife but weren’t in the pharaoh’s family, you’d build yours in this area. The “nobles” of the title were courtiers or, more frequently, civil servants who served the pharaoh. These tombs are especially interesting because they don’t dwell so much on religious text but show us more of the daily life of people.
Tomb of Ramose – Although damaged quite a bit, Ramose’s tomb is fascinating because he served as governor during a revolutionary time and the art of his tomb reflects the revolution. He began his term under Amenhotep III, and much of Ramose’s tomb is done in the standard, New Kingdom, Luxor style of idealization. However, Ramose also served as governor under the next pharaoh, Akhenaton, who tried to move Egypt to worship only the sun god, Ra. Of course Akhenaton failed, but the elongated figures and emphasis on the rays of the sun in parts of Ramose’s tomb point to his service in that era.
Tomb of Userhet – Userhet’s tomb has lots of scenes from daily life like hunting and getting a haircut in paintings that are in a great condition of preservation. It was a pleasure to finally see here what normal people did in ancient Egypt. Userhet was a scribe for Amenhotep II, which means this was life in 1400 BC.
Tomb of Khaemet – This guy is called a scribe, but the reliefs in his tomb imply something like chief accountant. There are charming scenes from daily life here, accompanied by scribes writing it all down. The scribes, too, record a funeral procession since verifying it in writing was important.
We were already fairly worn out by the time we got to the Valley of the Queens, so we were truly tired by this point. Then came the Temple of Ramses III (aka. Medinat Habu), which was rejuvenating in several ways. For one, it’s hard to be puny in the presence of such magnificent architecture and art. This Ramses, like his predecessor Ramses II, knew how to commission architecture that inspired. Not only was the scale incredible, but the message in the images made you want to follow him as a leader. These New Kingdom rulers knew how to wield soft power. And in addition to the effect of the place on us, we could finally take pictures again, which pulled us out of the passivity of being only a viewer and let us interact with the great environment more.
There were many highlights here. There were the images we’d seen before of the king offering to slay his captives as an offering to Amun-Ra, and the range of the captives based on their dress was surprising. We also noticed an overt ferocity that hadn’t been obvious in some of the other Ramses temples we’d seen. One gruesome relief had the hands of enemies being piled and tabulated for the pharaoh, and an even more gruesome one had the enemies’ penises being heaped and counted. Battle scenes showed chaos under the pharaoh’s onslaught, and lines of captives marched with either wrists or elbows tied together. All of this in humble service to the gods of Egypt. And oddly affective, in all honesty.
By the time we’d finished our visit to this giant complex, we were genuinely exhausted, yet one more west bank site remained. Fortunately, you could get a good look at the Colossi of Memnon from the parking lot, though we rallied enough to get out of the car to take a photo. These two giant statues, in a state of ruin, are of Amenhotep III, although Greeks and Romans thought they were of an African king named Memnon. The name doesn’t matter; they were stately and inspiring sitting on their west bank plain.
The rest of our day was tourism chores. We were greeted with a final round of hibiscus tea upon our return to the ship, and moist towels to clean off with. Then we said goodbye to our cruise buddies and were shuttled off to our new hotel. Our new hotel, the Nefertiti, was a step down from the high life we’d been living, but the people were great. We had a big lunch and then made tour arrangements for the rest of our time here in Luxor. And we slept like mummies in Amonhotep II's deep, dark tomb.
We woke up at 4:45 am to a text from the States, but we had to be up at 5 am anyway for our expulsion from our Garden of Eden. It was our last day as passengers on the SS Sudan, and we were to spend it on the west bank of the Nile visiting tombs and temples.
The desert is always an environment of extremes, but the contrasts of hot and cold were especially apparent this morning. We were bundled up in everything we had for our 6:30 am motorboat across the Nile from our boat to the landing on the west bank. There, our guide brought up a car and we headed though the formalities of getting into the Valley of the Kings.
The west bank is more complicated than I realized. There’s a Valley of the Kings with the pharoahs’ tombs; a Valley of the Queens for tombs of the queens of the pharaohs and their children; a Valley of the Nobles for other court members; a good number of temples; and even the Deir al-Medina, a tomb-workers’ village. Apparently, no one really lived on the west bank except the priests who served in the temples and the workers involved in building tombs and temples for the pharaohs.
Tomb-building was big for the pharaohs. In fact, one of their principle occupations was to prepare a tomb to ensure a comfortable afterlife, so the New Kingdom pharaohs began preparing their tombs as soon as they assumed power and had hugely ornate tombs excavated. Unlike the Old Kingdom tombs we saw in Aswan, which served as temples as well as tombs, these here in Luxor were only for burial, and the pharaohs’ goal was to create a construction that could be hidden but still guarantee their comfort in the afterlife. The pyramids of the Old Kingdom (Saqqara, Giza) drew too much attention, so the New Kingdom rulers chose the base of a mountain shaped like a pyramid to tunnel tombs into, using the excavated material to cover the tombs and camouflage them.
We visited so many sites today that I’m just putting them as a list. I’ve lifted all the tomb photos from the internet since photography is forbidden inside, though that didn’t stop Lou and his flow of Egyptian pounds from getting a few.
Valley of the Kings
Rameses IV – The first tomb we looked at. At 3000 years old and damaged, it’s still a beautiful tomb with walls covered in text from various sacred texts; it apparently has the only full text of the Book of Nut, who is stretched across the ceiling of the main tomb chamber. There’s yellow and blue everywhere, but the ceilings are especially affective with their rows of sketched stars.
Rameses IX – Gorgeous tomb with long corridors and pillars covered with hieroglyphs; there’s a reason this is one of the most popular to see. We both especially liked the ceiling of the main chamber, which has Nut stretched across it. The sun makes its daylight trip outside her but goes into her body at sunset for her to give birth to the next sunrise. The spirit of the pharaoh goes with the sun and has duties to do each hour of the night, hence the Book of Nut. This tomb is covered with the texts of several sacred books. And I liked the two priests decorating columns as we entered – they each wear leopard skin and have a shock of hair on the side. This is one of the nicest tombs.
Tomb of Tutankhamen – So it’s not a dog, but Tut’s tomb isn’t anywhere as wonderful as its contents were. Tut only reigned for 10-11 years and died young, so he didn’t get much done on his tomb. A guide told us his successor had rather hastily finished it. Tut’s tomb is right beside that of Rameses VI, and as workers on the latter dumped the debris from that excavation, they covered the entrance to Tut’s, which kept it hidden hidden over the millennia. Tut’s mummy is still here as is one of the heavy gold masks.
Rameses V and VI – Since building was expensive, long and complicated, some pharaohs simply took advantage of their predecessors’ work. Rameses VI was one of these, taking over Rameses V’s tomb and extending it for himself. As pharaohs had a lot of things to in the afterlife could end up with an unhappy one if they made a mistake, their tombs are covered in the texts of their sacred books which describe what to do when. The text-orientation is especially obvious in yellow and blue riot of the tomb of Ramese VI. Like several of the others we saw, it’s beautiful.
The Tomb of Tausert and Sethnakht – This is another appropriated tomb with a complicated story behind it. First, Seti II died. Then his successor died and Seti II’s wife, Tausert, became pharaoh (one of the rare female pharaohs). She started a tomb for her and her husband in the Valley of Kings (no Valley of the Queens for her!), but she died a couple of years later. Her successor, Sethnakht, appropriated her work, chiseled away many of her cartouches, and added a chamber to it for himself. However, he left her chamber and, in classic (s)he who laughs last fashion, the gorgeous winged Ra emerging at daybreak in her chamber is the most striking work in the tomb. [ADD PICTURE]
This was a lot of tomb-crawling for a morning, and we were ready for break as we headed out of the Valley of the Kings. We paused at the visitor center to watch some archival footage of Howard Carter’s team removing some of the items from Tut’s tomb that had been donated by the MET….and then discovered that we’d only begun our morning’s tour.
Valley or the Queens (and children)
Our next stop was the Valley of the Queens. The star stop here is Nefertari’s tomb, but with that cost so high, did three other stops.
Tomb of Amunherkhepshef – Some of the children of pharaohs had their own tombs, too, but since they never assumed the position of pharaoh, they were entombed in this valley. Amunherkhepshef was a teenaged son of Ramses III, and I found his tomb to be poignant. In it, we see clear reliefs of his father Ramses III holding his son’s hand and introducing the boy to different gods. A couple from Shanghai who were with us, however, thought it a good example of early networking. [ADD PICTURE of Ram and kid]
Tomb of Titi – This is a small tomb whose reliefs are damaged. It’s not clear who she was married to, but some think she was the wife of Ramses III and mother of Amunherkhepshef and Khaemwaset.
Tomb of Khaemwaset – Khaemwaset was another young son of Ramses III. These reliefs were in great condition and similar in subject to those in Amunherkhepshef’s tomb. As we climbed up out of the tomb through its various corridors and chambers, the blue ceilings and their painted stars were striking.
For a day that had started out flat-out cold, we were losing layers of clothing fast as the heat built in this dry, desolate area. And white. The landscape was a glaring white that reflected the sun and made it even hotter.
Tombs of the Nobles
If you wanted a tomb for the afterlife but weren’t in the pharaoh’s family, you’d build yours in this area. The “nobles” of the title were courtiers or, more frequently, civil servants who served the pharaoh. These tombs are especially interesting because they don’t dwell so much on religious text but show us more of the daily life of people.
Tomb of Ramose – Although damaged quite a bit, Ramose’s tomb is fascinating because he served as governor during a revolutionary time and the art of his tomb reflects the revolution. He began his term under Amenhotep III, and much of Ramose’s tomb is done in the standard, New Kingdom, Luxor style of idealization. However, Ramose also served as governor under the next pharaoh, Akhenaton, who tried to move Egypt to worship only the sun god, Ra. Of course Akhenaton failed, but the elongated figures and emphasis on the rays of the sun in parts of Ramose’s tomb point to his service in that era.
Tomb of Userhet – Userhet’s tomb has lots of scenes from daily life like hunting and getting a haircut in paintings that are in a great condition of preservation. It was a pleasure to finally see here what normal people did in ancient Egypt. Userhet was a scribe for Amenhotep II, which means this was life in 1400 BC.
Tomb of Khaemet – This guy is called a scribe, but the reliefs in his tomb imply something like chief accountant. There are charming scenes from daily life here, accompanied by scribes writing it all down. The scribes, too, record a funeral procession since verifying it in writing was important.
We were already fairly worn out by the time we got to the Valley of the Queens, so we were truly tired by this point. Then came the Temple of Ramses III (aka. Medinat Habu), which was rejuvenating in several ways. For one, it’s hard to be puny in the presence of such magnificent architecture and art. This Ramses, like his predecessor Ramses II, knew how to commission architecture that inspired. Not only was the scale incredible, but the message in the images made you want to follow him as a leader. These New Kingdom rulers knew how to wield soft power. And in addition to the effect of the place on us, we could finally take pictures again, which pulled us out of the passivity of being only a viewer and let us interact with the great environment more.
There were many highlights here. There were the images we’d seen before of the king offering to slay his captives as an offering to Amun-Ra, and the range of the captives based on their dress was surprising. We also noticed an overt ferocity that hadn’t been obvious in some of the other Ramses temples we’d seen. One gruesome relief had the hands of enemies being piled and tabulated for the pharaoh, and an even more gruesome one had the enemies’ penises being heaped and counted. Battle scenes showed chaos under the pharaoh’s onslaught, and lines of captives marched with either wrists or elbows tied together. All of this in humble service to the gods of Egypt. And oddly affective, in all honesty.
By the time we’d finished our visit to this giant complex, we were genuinely exhausted, yet one more west bank site remained. Fortunately, you could get a good look at the Colossi of Memnon from the parking lot, though we rallied enough to get out of the car to take a photo. These two giant statues, in a state of ruin, are of Amenhotep III, although Greeks and Romans thought they were of an African king named Memnon. The name doesn’t matter; they were stately and inspiring sitting on their west bank plain.
The rest of our day was tourism chores. We were greeted with a final round of hibiscus tea upon our return to the ship, and moist towels to clean off with. Then we said goodbye to our cruise buddies and were shuttled off to our new hotel. Our new hotel, the Nefertiti, was a step down from the high life we’d been living, but the people were great. We had a big lunch and then made tour arrangements for the rest of our time here in Luxor. And we slept like mummies in Amonhotep II's deep, dark tomb.
Quite a day!
ReplyDeleteP. S. Your final paragraphs are reminiscent of Saul, David and the foreskins of the Phillistines. Must have been a common practice in antiquity? As you say, gruesome!
ReplyDelete