Luxor

Tuesday’s excursion was to the city of Luxor in Egypt. Because the ship docked at a port (Safaga), and because Luxor is not really near the coast, there was a 4-hour bus ride (each way!) to get from the ship to Luxor. It made for a long day. But well worth it!

The tour guide's name was Magdy. He had a PhD and his area of expertise was studying tombs of the "common people". Apparently you can learn a lot from what is found in the tombs of common people. They found some things that showed remarkably advanced technology, such as high temperature glass. Magdy makes his living studying details about what people did, how they lived, and learning about the culture from the things found in the tombs.

I spoke earlier about the desert scenery along the Suez Canal. Actually, Egypt is mainly desert. Only 3.5% of its land is permanently settled, this being mainly along the Nile River where it is most fertile. The main industries in Luxor are tourism (of course!) and agriculture, with the main agricultural crop being sugar cane.

Most of Egypt - desert



Egypt near the Nile - fertile and green

Typical Egyptian city along the drive


Luxor is located on the east bank of the Nile River in southern Egypt, on the site of ancient Thebes, which was the pharaohs’ capital at the height of their power (16th – 11th centuries BC). The city today is known for its monuments, especially two huge temples, and the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens. The temples of Luxor and Karnak are linked by the Avenue of the Sphinxes. The Karnak Temple is very large and impressive, with gigantic columns. Each Pharaoh added to the temple, so over time the temple grew very large.







Part of the temple consisted of very tall colonnades and two obelisks. One of the colonnades was over 98 feet tall, carved from a single block of granite, and was inscribed with all kinds of carvings. The engineering of how this piece of granite ended up in this place is amazing. Apparently the colonnades came from many miles up the Nile River, then was transported along the Nile to this location, was removed from the boat and placed intact in one piece in the temple, in an upright position without the help of modern machinery.











The Valley of the Kings contains the tombs of Egypt’s great pharaohs. Included in these is the tomb of King Tut (the boy king!). Also nearby is the “Valley of the Queens” where the wives of the Pharaohs were buried, including Queen Nefertiti.

In the Valley of the Kings, there are 11 chambers connected by tunnels. King Tut’s tomb was accessed through some of these underground channels. King Tut was actually buried in a small space that was located behind the burial spot of another, apparently more important pharaoh. As pharaohs go, King Tut was not important. However, he is the most famous because of the discovery of treasures, left untouched by raiders, in his tomb. Apparently the raiders didn't notice the tomb of King Tut when they raided the tomb of the nearby king. So they took all the treasures of that king, but left King Tut's space untouched. There are over 5300 objects located in King Tut's tomb, the greatest treasure trove in history. This begs the question: if those kind of treasures were buried with King Tut, who was insignificant, what kinds of treasures had been buried with more important kings, such as Ramses II.






The tombs are carved into the mountains, not built as separate structures like the pyramids. The pyramids were stand-alone structures, and they were subject to being raided, so learning a lesson from these older tombs, when they built the “newer” tombs in Thebes (Luxor), they built them into the mountainside, which presumably would make it harder for them to be pillaged.






A few more tidbits from the day: The ancient capital of Egypt was Memphis (near Cairo) and was known as the Old Kingdom. Then the capital was moved south to Thebes (near Luxor) and became the New Kingdom. The philosophy of ancient Egypt was that the living people were located on the east bank of the Nile and the dead people (the tombs) were located on the west bank.

 

The Nile

The Nile

Luxor was used as a continuous place of worship for 35 centuries. It is considered to be the world’s greatest open-air museum. 

One more interesting observation about driving through Egypt: Every new town you enter has a very prominent guard tower with arm guards in it. Joe asked Magdy why that is. Magdy said that trucks have permits to only travel so far within Egypt, so towns post guards, complete with serious weaponry, to check to be sure no one is going further than his permit allows. Wow, they take those permits seriously.

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