sightseeing and excursions upper egypt
luxor
Luxor Temple
Amun, one of the goddess of creation, was the most important god of Thebes and head of the local trial of deities. As Amun-Ra, the fusion of Amun and the sun-god Ra, he was also a state deity worshipped in many parts of the country. Once a year from his Great Temple at Karnak the images of Amun and the other two gods in the local triad - Amun’s wife, the war-goddess Mut, and their son, the moon-god Khons would journey down the Nile to Luxor Temple for the Opet Festival, a celebration held during the inundation season.
Built by the New Kingdom Pharaoh Amenophis III, on the site of an older sanctuary dedicated to the Theban triad, Luxor Temple is a strikingly graceful piece of architecture on the banks of the Nile. Amenophis rededicated the massive temple as Amun’s sacred ‘harem of the south’, and retained what was left of the original sanctuary built by Tothmosis III and Hatshepsut 100 years earlier.
Karnak Temple
The Amun temple enclosure (sometimes referred to as the Precinct of Amun) is the central enclosure of the numerous temples that make up the enormous Karnak complex; it was the main place of worship of the Theban triad. Its ancient name was Ipet-Isut, or ‘the most perfect of places’.
Although the original sanctuary of the Great Temple of Amun was built during the Middle Kingdom period, when the Theban Pharaohs first came to prominence, the rest of the temples, pylons, courts, columns and reliefs were the work of new kingdom rules.
Karnak was built, added to, dismantled, restored, enlarged and decorated over a period of nearly 1500 years. During the height of Theban power and prosperity it was the most important temple in all Egypt.
The complex can be divided into three distinct areas: the Amun temple Enclosure, which is the largest enclosure; the Mut Temple Enclosure, on the south side, which was once linked to the main temple by an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes; and the Montu Temple Enclosure, to the north, which honored the original local god of Themes.
Luxor Museum
This wonderful little museum on the Cornish, about halfway between the Luxor and Karnak Temples, has a small but well-chosen collection of relics from the Theban temples and necropolis. The displays, which include pottery, jewelry, furniture, statues were arranged by the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
On the 1st floor is a well-preserved cow-goddess head from King Tutankhamen's tomb. Exhibit No 61 is a finely carved statuette of Tuthmosis II that dates from at least 1436 BC.
The most interesting exhibit is the Wall of Akhenaton on the 2nd floor, which is actually a set of 283 sandstone blocks found within the 9th Pylon of the Karnak Temple. The reliefs show the rebel Pharaoh and his queen, Nefertitit, making offerings to Aten.
Valley of the Kings
Once called the Gates of the Kings or the Place of Truth, the canyon now known as the Valley of the Kings is at once a place of death, for nothing grows on its steep, scorching cliffs, and a majestic domain befitting the mighty kings who once lay there in great stone sarcophagi, awaiting immortality.
The isolated valley, behind Deir el Bahri, is dominated by the natural pyramid-shaped mountain peak of El Qurn, or ‘the born’. The valley consists of two branches, the east and west valleys, with the former containing most of the royal burial sites.
All the tombs followed a similar design, deviating only because of structural difficulties of the length of time spent on their construction. The longer the reign of the Pharaoh, the larger and move magnificent his tomb. Two groups of workers and artisans would live, in alternating shifts, in the valley itself for the duration of the work, which usually took many years.
The tombs were designed to resemble the underworld, with a long, inclined rock-hewn corridor descending into either an antechamber or series of sometimes pillared halls, and ending in the burial chamber. Once the tomb was cut its decoration was started; this dealt almost exclusively with the afterlife and the Pharaoh’s existence in it.
Hatchepsut Temple
Rising out the desert plain, in a series of terraces, the Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut merges with the sheer limestone cliffs of the eastern face of the Theban Mountains as if nature herself had built this extraordinary monument.
The party rock cut, partly free-standing structure is one of the finest monuments of ancient Egypt, through its original appearance, surrounded by myrrh trees, garden beds and approached by a grand sphinx-lined causeway, must have been even more spectacular.
Discovered in the mid-19th century by Auguste Mariette, it wasn’t completely excavated till 1896 and still being restored. The third terrace is currently closed to the public while a team of Polish archaeologists clear and repair it. Unfortunately, over the centuries the temple has been vandalized. Akhenaton removed all reference to Amun, before taking his court off to tell el Amarna; and the early Christians who took it over as a monastery Deir el Bahri, or ‘monastery of the north’, also defaced the pagan reliefs.
Valley of the Queens
There are at least 75 tombs in the Bilan el Harim, the Valley of the Queens. They belong to Queens of the 19th and 20th dynasties and other members of the royal families, including princesses and the Rammessid princes. Only tomb Nos 43, 44, 52 and 55 are open.
The top attraction here is No 55, the Tomb of Amunherkhepshep. Amun who was the son of Ramses III, was nine years old when he died. The scenes of the tomb walls show his father grooming him to be Pharaoh by introducing him to various gods.
Amun’s mother was pregnant at the time of his death and in her grief she aborted the child and entombed it with Amun. A five month old mummified fetus was discovered there. Wall paintings also show Ramses leading his son to Anubis, the jackal-headed god of the dead, who then takes the young Prince Amun down to the entrance of the Passage of the Dead.
esna
The Greco-Roman Temple of Khnum is the main attraction of Esna, a small, busy farming town on the west bank of the Nile, 54 km south of Luxor. All that actually remains of the temple is the well-preserved Great Hypostyle Hall built during the reign of the Roman emperor Claudius. This sits, rather incongruously, in its huge excavation pit amongst the houses and narrow alleyways in the middle of town.
Dedicated to Khnum, the ram-headed creator-god who fashioned humankind on his potter’s wheel, the temple was begun by Ptolemy VI and built over the ruins of earlier temples. The hall, as it stands today, was built later; it was excavated from the silt that had accumulated through centuries of annual Nile floods and is about nine meters below the modern street level. Ptolemic temple and features reliefs of Ptolemy VI, Philometor and Euergetes II.
The intact roof of the hall supported by 24 columns decorated with a series of texts recording hymns to Khnum and relating the annual sacred festivals of Esna. The text also refer to other temples in the area and one from the same era has in fact being excavated at Kom Mer, 12 km south Esna. The west wall of the Roman-built hall is also the only remaining part of the original Ptolemic temple and features reliefs of Ptolemy VI, Philometor and Euergetes II.
edfu
The largest and most completely preserved Pharaonic, albeit Greek-built, temple in Egypt is the extraordinary Temple of Horus and Edfu. One of the last great Egyptians attempts at monument building on a grand scale, the structure dominates this west bank riverside town, 53 km south of Esna. The town and temple were established on a rise, above the board river valley around them, and so escaped the annual Nile ruination of so many other buildings of antiquity. Edfu a sugar of pottery center, is also a very friendly place - even though it seems that no-one in town, except the pharmacist, speaks English.
kom ombo
The fertile, irrigated sugar cane and corn fields around Kom Ombo, 60 km south of Edfu, support not only the original community of fellahin but also a large population of Nubians displaced from their own lands by the encroaching waters of Lake Nasser. It’s a pleasant little place easily accessible en route between Aswan and Luxor but possibly best visited on the day trip from Aswan, which is 40 km to the south.
In ancient times Kom Ombo was strategically important as a trading town on the great caravan route from Nubia and was the meeting place of the routes from the gold mines of the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea. During the Ptolemaic period is served as the capital of the Ombite Nome, and elephants were brought up from Africa to Kom Ombo to train with the armies to defend the region. The main attraction these days, however, is the unique riverside Temple of Kom Ombo, about four km from the center of the town.
aswan
Philae Temple
Philae is pronounced ‘feel-i’. The romantic and majestic aura surrounding the temple complex of Isis on the island of Philae has been luring pilgrims for thousands of years; during the 19th century the ruins were one of the Egypt’s most legendary tourist attractions. Even when it seemed that they were destined to be lost forever beneath the rising waters of the Nile, travelers still came, taking to row boats to glide amongst the party submerged columns and peer down through the translucent green to the wondrous sanctuaries of the mighty gods below.
From the turn of this century, Philae and his temples became swamped for six months of every year by the high waters of the reservoir created by the construction of the old Aswan Dam. In the 1960s, when the approaching completion of the High Dam threatened to submerge the island completely and forever, the massive complex was disassembled and removed stone by stone from Philae in an incredible rescue organized by UNESCO. The temples were reconstructed on nearly Agilka Island, which was even landscaped to resemble the sacred isle of Isis, in positions corresponding as closely as possible to their original layout.
The oldest part of Philae dates from the 4th century BC but most of the existing structures were built by the Ptolemies and the Romans up to the 3rd century AD.
The early Christians also added their bit to the island by transforming the main temple’s hypostyle hall into a chapel, building a couple of churches and of course defacing the pagan reliefs; their inscriptions were in turn vandalized by the early Muslims.
Unfinished Obelisk
Much of the red granite used for ancient temples and colossi came from quarries in the Aswan area. Around these quarries are many inscriptions, many of which describe successful quarrying projects. The Unfinished Obelisk located in the Northern Quarry still lies where a crack was discovered as it was being hewn from the rock.
Possibly intended as a companion to the Lateran Obelisk, originally at Karnak but now in Rome, it would have weighed over 2.3 million pounds and would have been the worlds largest piece of stone ever handled. However, a crack in the stone occurred, which caused it to be abandoned. Tools left by its builders have given us much insight into how such work was performed. The site has recently been renovated and equipped with tourist facilities. Nearby is the Fatimid Cemetery.
Aswan Museum
Of the south-east end of the island, overlooking the ruins of the original town and surrounded by an attractive flower and spice garden, this modest little museum house a collection of antiquities discovered in Aswan and Nubia. Most of the Nubian artifacts were found and rescued before the construction of the old Aswan Dam. The weapons, pottery, utensils, statues, encased mummies and sarcophagi date from Pre-Dynastic to late Roman times and everything is labeled in Arabic and English. The sarcophagus and mummy of a sacred ram, the animal associated with Khnum, dominates the center of the downstairs mummy room.
High Dam
Egypt’s contemporary example of building on a monumental scale contains 18 times the amount of materials used in the Great Pyramid of Cheops. The controversial Sadd al Ali, the High Dam, is just over four km across and 111 meters high at its highest point. The water contained by the dam has backed up nearly 500 km, taking it well into the Sudan and creating Lake Nasser, the world’s largest artificial lake. The rising level of this incredible reservoir has inundated the land of Nubia with waters as deep as 200 meters, forced the relocation of thousands of Nubians and Sudanese and washed away 45 villages along the banks of the Nile south of Aswan.
While the old Aswan Dam successfully regulated the flow of the Nile during the course of a year, it was realized, as early as the 1940s, that a much bigger dam was needed to counter the unpredictable annual flooding of the great river. However it wasn’t until Nasser came to power in 1952 that the plans were drawn up for a new dam six km south of the British-built one.
Agha Khan Mausoleum
Aswan was the favorite wintering place of Mohammed Shah Agha Khan, the 48th imam, or leader, of the Ismaili sect of Islam. When he died in 1957 his wife, the Begum, oversaw the construction of his domed granite and sandstone mausoleum, which is part of the way out of the hill on the west bank opposite Elephantine Island. Modeled on the Fatimid tombs of Cairo, the interior, which incorporates a small mosque, is more impressive than the exterior. The sarcophagus, of Carrara marble, is inscribed with texts from the Qur’an and stands in a vaulted chamber in the interior courtyard.
The Begum still lives for part of the year in the white villa, below her husband’s mausoleum, which used to be their winter retreat. Every day she places a red rose on his sarcophagus; a ritual that is carried on his summer by her gardener.
Kitchener's Island
One of the most delightful places in Aswan, this island to the west of Elephantine was given to Lord Horatio Kitchener in the 1890s when he was consul-general of Egypt and commander of the Egyptian army. Indulging his passion for beautiful flowers, Kitchener turned the entire island into a botanical garden, importing plants from the Far East, India and other parts of Africa. The gardens, which are perfect for a peaceful stroll, attract an amazing variety of colorfully exotic birds. The Hundreds of white ducks in the small out-of-bounds cove at the southern end of the island, however, belong to a biological research station.
Abu simbel temples
While the fat of his colossal statue and the Ramesseum in Luxor no doubt gnaws at the spirit of Ramses II, the mere existence, in the 20th century AD, of his Great Temple of Abu Simbel must make him shake with laughter and shout ‘I told you!’.
The Abu Simbel temples were threatened with being swallowed forever beneath the rising water and silt of Lake Nasser. Their preservation, 280 km south of Aswan, must rank as the greatest achievements of the UNESCO rescue operation. And, hewn as they were out of solid rock, the modern technology involved in cutting, moving and rebuilding the incredible temples and statues at least paralleled the skill of the ancient artisans who chiseled them out of the cliff face in the first place.
In the 1960s, as work progressed on the High Dam, UNESCO launched a world-wide appeal for the vital funding and expertise needed to salvage the Abu Simbel monuments. The response was immediately forthcoming and a variety of conversation schemes were put forward. Finally, in 1964 a cofferdam was built to hold back the already encroaching water of the new lake, while Egyptians, Italian, Swedish, German and French archaeological teams began to move the massive structure.
At a cost of about US$40 million the temples were cut up into more than 2000 huge blocks, weighing from 10 to 40 tones each, and reconstructed inside a specially built mountain 210 meters away from the water and 65 meters higher than the original site. The temples were carefully oriented to face the correct direction and the landscape of their original environment was recreated on and around the concrete, dome-shaped mountain.