Roaming Royal Relics - part 1

The taste in tombs, style and content, we were told, changed from time to time in ancient Egypt.  In the New Kingdom era, rather than build pyramids, the deceased preferred to be buried in tombs sculpted out of or rather into limestone mountains.  The result is "The Valley of the Kings" on the West Bank of the Nile, across from Luxor.  Our day 5 excursion led us to this desolate location to explore what remains of this royal fad of long ago.

The road to the Valley of the Kings

The Regal Cemetery

The number of royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings is 62.  All of them, with the exception of #62 were pillaged and desecrated in ancient times so that all that remains are the rather amazing and beautifully decorated passageways that once lead to the burial chambers, usually at the very end of the tunnel.  We were able to enter three tombs the day we were there.  Different tombs are open on different days, and some are never open.  There are carefully monitored restrictions against any picture taking within the tombs to preserve the funerary art which still exists and impresses after 2,500 years.  I purchased some professional photographs of the interior of some of the more spectacular tombs and at some later date, I may try to scan them and insert them into this account.  But not today.

Entrance to Tomb of Rameses (sic) IX with photo ban sign and enforcer

Tomb #62 is, of course, that of Tutankhamen, discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter.  Miraculously it had been mostly overlooked by the ancient thieves and contained many artifacts and burial items untouched.  It is that treasure which has been on world tour and astounded any who have seen it.  King Tut was by any standard a fairly minor holder of the royal office and reigned less than 10 years.  So, the question for speculation is: If this minor boy king was buried with this much loot, what must have been in the tombs of his more influential and powerful predecessors?  We shall never know!

No caption required!

Map of the Royal Tombs in Valley of the Kings

Howard Carter's house from which he carried out his several years of excavations is located at the entrance of the Valley of the Kings.  It was one of our stops, though I'm still not sure what it was we were supposed to gain from our time there.  The interior was what would be expected of a foreign aristocrat in the 1920's.  The one item which I found interesting was the camera which was used to take all the famous photographs of the discovery, an historical artifact in its own right, I gather.

The Howard Carter Home

Howard Carter's Camera

Back in Luxor. mid afternoon, we traveled to what was called "The Papyrus Museum."  In reality, it was a tourist shop that sold quite beautiful and expensive traditional artwork done on papyrus.  But, it did include a demonstration of how papyrus is made.

I'm sure it will come as no surprise that I purchased three pieces for display (somewhere?!?) in my condo: one showing the Egyptian version of "the Last Judgement," one of a particularly attractive and colorful scarab, and one containing a cartouche which says, Gary Lawler flanking a drawing of Ramses I receiving the gift of wisdom from Thoth.  I'm hoping that I'll gain some benefit from mere proximity to that divine benediction!

Today's Temple Tromp (at Top Tempo)

3:00 am is when the wake-up call came for today's trip to the Cairo Airport and flight to Luxor, aka Thebes, the ancient capitol of Upper and Lower Egypt.  Getting to the airport took almost as long, even at that early hour, as the flight, itself!  One positive result was our first daytime sighting of the Nile.  Beautiful, at least at this location.

Our on-bus lecture from Mohamed during our journey from the Luxor airport to the Temple Complex at Karnak gave us a pretty good idea of what to look for and at when we arrived.  Temple planning and construction, it seems, had rigid rules that had to be followed.  There had to be a Pilon or entry gate of impressive proportions. Next there had to be an open court adjoining a pillared hall, which led to the Sanctuary.  Elaborations within those perimeters was apparently allowed, especially if you were a pharaoh!  Karnak contains 21 individual temples which were built over 400+ years by 26 kings and one queen.  Today, most of the complex is still in ruins, but, the main temple dedicated to Amun Ra or Re, if you prefer, has been "restored" so that it is possible to get an idea of the magnificence it once displayed.  I am tempted to go into much detail, but the experience has left me humbled by and for my ignorance of ancient Egyptian culture, art, history, etc.  So, I'll simply share the appropriate pix for illustration.

There must be a great Pylon, or entrance gate, followed by an Open Court;  Next comes the Pillared Room and a passage leading to The Sanctuary.  The pictures below display this order at the main temple at Karnak:

The Great Pylon at Karnak

The Open Court

The PIllared Room (this picture does it great injustice!)

The Altar in the Sanctuary

Our leader gave us about an hour to wander around on our own before being loaded back on the bus for the next stop which was the Luxor Temple, a smaller but still quite impressing amassing of sculptured rocks. 

Luxor Temple was begun by Pharaoh Amenhotep III, graced ever so briefly by Tutankhamun, and complete by the ubiquitous Ramses II, whose presence is everywhere in the Egyptian tourist sites.  He (Ramses) assumed the throne at an early age, in his teens, I think, and died at 97, which gave him 70 + years to make his mark, and he certainly did!  Everywhere!  It may have contributed to his appellation, "The Great."  Considering the reigns of most of the ancient rulers, he was clearly quite the serviver, to say the least.

The Luxor Temple has more than a few interesting features, however, that inspire some comment.  Of course it has all the requisite parts.  I've already mentioned that it is smaller and it is better preserved.  It is also centrally located in downtown Luxor and beautifully lighted at night, although I was never able to capture a good enough picture of it's nocturnal splendor.

Pylon and entrance to Luxor Temple

If you look carefully, you can make out a single obelisk at the front of the temple.  The other one, missing for two hundred years is in the Place de Concorde in Paris where it landed as a gift from the Sultan to the French.  We were told that the Sultan, in return for his generosity received a clock which never worked.  Those wiley French!!  All the requisite parts of the Temple are present, but the ages and various uses it has been forced to accommodate over the centuries have left their traces.  Alexander the Great, for example, felt it needed some upgrading to satisfy his Hellenistic inclinations. the Romans used it as a fort during their tenure.  During the Christianization of Egypt in the fourth Century, some bishop or other took over the sanctuary and made it a church, and the Moslems, in the seventh century added a mosque at the entrance, behind the great Pylon.

Inside Luxor Temple

Church door to Luxor Temple's original sanctuary

Mosque built onto Temple Pylon

In ancient time, the Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple(s) were joined by a paved, straight route called the Sphynx Road.  The Egyptian antiquities ministry is in the process of restoring this long unused thoroughfare, dislodging thousand of people and destroying home that have been built on it for centuries.  It was extremely important to the ancient cult for their ceremonies and for easy access for pilgrims visiting their holy sites.  Think of something like the Via doloRosa, or the route down the Mount of Olives.  

The Sphinx Road - Luxor 

 With that, I'm going to close this post.  If you have been following along, and wondered what happened to the entries, this is the answer.  Once we left Cairo, WiFi seemed not to support the band width (?) necessary to continue the making new entries.  By the time we returned to Cairo, it made no sense to try to catch-up in a few hours, and I made the decision to wait until I was back in a better communication space to continue.  There will be more, soon.  I promise.

Peers Peering at Pyramids

Just a word about my traveling companions on this tour.  We seem to be a pretty homogenous group.  There are 16 of us.  Three women and I make up the "singles" contingent.  To be honest, two of the ladies are widows, and from what I can gather, their single status is not something they wanted or particularly embrace.  Overall, we seem to be a pretty compatible troup of retired something or others who are traveling as an intended part of their retirement.  So far, so good.

This was the second day of our excursion, although it is numbered as day 4.  More pyramids, these of a much older vintage, a couple of museums, (where no pictures are allowed) and a nice lunch in an outdoor restaurant with musicians and cats (many cats!) in attendance.

Pyramid #1 was built in the third century B.C. by Pharaoh Snefer, and was intended to be a revolutionary development in the construct of tombs.  Unfortunately, as the pyramid was being built, it was discovered that the pitch of the slope was too steep, and to continue would insure that near the top, the pyramid would collapse.  The architect and engineers returned to the drawing board, and lower the angle by 10 degrees which allowed them to finish construction without mishap.  Snefer, however, was not pleased, and insisted on building a new pyramid, using the information obtained from the first "failure."  The result was the first true surviving pyramid of the type we would recognize today.  The compromised one, I think, was abandoned and not used.  The ancient drama has resulted in two iconic tourist sites, the Bent Pyramid, and the Red Pyramid, both seen below.

The Bent Pyramid at Dahsur

The Red Pyramid (the keeper)

Our next stop was the necropolis of the Old Kingdom at Saqqara.  This cemetery is said to hold the oldest monumental masonry structure in the world!  If I learned my lessons correctly, I believe is belongs to Pharaoh Teti of the fourth century B.C. In close proximity to the burial mound (it can't really be called a pyramid!) is the tomb for his high priest Mereruka and his family.  Although clearly a reconstruction, there were enough original bas reliefs, some with the color still visible, to present the essence of a "nobleman's" burial in the earliest centuries of the Egyptian kingdom.  One unusual event occurred while we toured the priest's tomb.  One of the "guards" approached our guide for a bribe, identifying himself a "corrupt", so that we could take pictures which was strictly against the rules.  Our guide declined, and some of our crowd took pictures, anyway, thus proving that corruption breeds corruption, I suppose.

Teti's mound at Saqqara (oldest monumental masonry structure)

Our next stop was the Imhotep Museum.  Imhotep was an architect and engineer for many of the tombs we viewed, and a museum in his honor was opened to display a stunning array of the artifacts which have come to light through the more recent excavations in the area.  The collection included many small statuettes of gods and mortals, larger sculpture and tools, alabaster jars and bowls and many fragments of reliefs which once adorned desecrated tombs in the area.

Our final pyramid before lunch was the Pyramid of Zoser, and the enormous ceremonial complex that surrounds it.  The pyramid is more widely known, I think, as the Step Pyramid.  Zoser was either the first of one of the first to rule over Upper and Lower Egypt, and made a great effort to demonstrate his power and control through elaborate ceremonies (annually) and massive building projects.  His complex, for example, contains the first ever columns as supports, and the length of this wall separating the complex from the ordinary world was one mile.  Needless to say, his pyramid is unique, too.  So, well done, Zosar!

The Pyramid of Zosar - The Step Pyramid

Lunch was a welcome relief from the days excursions.  Simple Middle Eastern fare, but very satisfying, and the time just sitting was welcomed by all, to say nothing of the proximity of restrooms!

We returned tired and happy to the hotel at 3:00 with enough time for a brief nap before the lecture of Egypt and the Nile at 6:00.  I seems that daily lectures by Egyptian specialists in a number of fields is a daily offering on this tour.  I'll try to absorb as much as my tired brain will handle, confident that there will be no quiz at the end.

I need to get ot bed.  We depart at 4:30 am for Luzor and new worlds to conquer.  I'm going to include a couple of pix that feature things that aren't 3,000 years old.  Egypt is famous for its date production, and we certainly saw ample evidence of it today.

Immediately across the street from our hotel is the new Egyptian Antiquities Museum.  It will be a monumental building and complex when it is finished, and at this point, no one knows when that will be.  We are told, "Everything stopped after the revolution, and no one knows when or if it will resume anytime soon."  This is a phrase which has been used many times in the few days I have been here.  I suspect it identifies a current reality of which most of the world is ignorant.

Geezers in Giza!

Well, here I am in Egypt!  Since I only just finished my previous blog from Utah, there will not be a lot of open space as I start this one.  Nevertheless, my first full day in this ancient and legendary land has inspired me to begin anew to reflect and comment on my perambulations in retirement.

Concern about the functioning of the TSA during the Trump shut-down drove me to plan an early arrival at O'hare.  The reopening of the government occurred too late to change plans, so my arrival there was a full three-and-a-half hours in advance of my take-off time.  It didn't seem worth changing the plan, since I usually require extra time (and human assistance) to navigate the "convenience" kiosks.  Turkish Aird does not have kiosks (Praise the Lord!), and newly recompensated TSA agents appeared to be standing around anticipating my arrival.  So, I had plenty of time at the departure gate to carefully read through the preparation material from Road Scholar, which I had neglected to do during all the previous months.  Boarding proceeded as planned, and after a 45 minute delay on the tarmac, we were off, and ten hours later, arrive in Istanbul.  There was nothing unusual about the flight.  The weather was not cooperative and so we were kept in seat belts for most of the trip, and wonder of wonders, I finally managed to sleep for about three hours of it, a first in my history of air travel!

The flight from Istanbul to Cairo was even more uneventful.  In two hours one can barely take in the crash instructions, fill out entry papers and have a nice meal before preparations for landing have to be made.  I think the time waiting for luggage and travel to the first hotel took longer and was definitely more arduous than the flight from Turkey!

This trip is rated at one level higher than any previous trip I've taken.  I will probably, occasionally,  be reporting as to whether that was a good idea.  Besides the TSA, and my impending dotage, three days before departure my front dental bridge fell out, and was declared unrepairable by my local dentist.  As a consequence, I will be eating on the trip with the aid of massive applications of Poly Grip and Fasteeth!

Our first day was everything one could reasonably expect from a trip to Egypt.  Our hotel is actually in Giza, and a very short distance from the pyramids and the Sphinx.  Day 1 included a camel ride and a tour of a museum which houses the Khufu Solar Boat for transportation to the afterlife only discovered in 1952, along with two others at the pyramid complex, and, of course the Great Pyramid and several of the others occupying their own space in the complex.  Crowds were enormous, and almost as fascinating as the ancient wonders which have drawn us all to this mystical place.  Egypt apparently has a universal allure, as the universe was certainly well represented in the festive throngs, today.

Here are a few pictures that will need no explanation, but, I TOOK THESE (except for the camel one, of course)!

One more thing!

In the last two days of the tour, we covered a lot of ground and water.  Are arrival at Lake Powell which is actually a flooded part of the Grand Canyon, I found out, occurred in the late afternoon.  The quality of the lodging arrangements was a vast improvement over some of the previous stop-overs.  Luxurious, one might almost say!  Meals were served in a large, lovely dining room which over looked the lake, and the food was first rate, finally.

The next morning we were off on a cruise of the lake, which is now several dozen feet lower than it once was, and continues to drop from year to year due to reduced inflows from the Colorado River and less rainfall in the area.  Nevertheless, there is still plenty of water for a very large in interesting lake, filled with scenic canyons and bluffs, cropping up around every turn.  We weren't just on a lake idle, however, we were on our way to one of the natural wonders of the area, and a spot of sacred significance to the indigenous people, The Rainbow Bridge.  To say that it is located in a very remote and hard to reach location, hardly does it justice.  After a lengthy boat trip, we were still required to hike an additional mile (or two) to this natural wonder.  It was worth the effort!

On Lake Powell, in search of the Rainbow Bridge

Here I am at the Rainbow Bridge

The return trip took as long as the trip there, but there was one memorable stop-over at a floating marina which served ice cream.  Second to the Rainbow Bridge, it was the hit of the day.

In the evening we had an opportunity to learn more about Navajo culture and history.  An elder of the nation challenged many scientific conclusions about the origins of the Navajo people, and we toured a Hogan and observed some traditional weaving and carving.  The highlight of the evening, however, was the dancing exhibition offered by three of the tribe's boys, one of whom is a national champion hoop dancer.  In a truly amazing demonstration of skill and artistry, we were all mesmerized for over an hour by the agility and grace of these boys.

The next day, we were off the the North Rim viewing area at the Grand Canyon.  In many ways, this was what I thought would be the high point of the tour, and it was certainly impressive.  However, as has been so often noted, air quality is often a deterrent to a truly spectacular sighting, and that was the case at the time or our visit.  Forrest fires in California were blamed for a definitely haze perspective on the day of our visit.  Even if the air were crystal clear, pictures would not do justice to the scope or majesty of this wonder.  I will simply add a couple of my own, as a closing to this blog, and this adventure.

There was on final and memorable surprise awaiting us as we departed the North Rim heading for St. George, Utah and the return home.  A local snow storm added a final exclamation point to what had been a most enjoyable and educational adventure.

The Wrap-up!

Well, it has happened again!  I'm in a rush to finally finish a blog post, not because it is long over due, but because I am about to depart on another adventure.  So, this summation will be all too brief but it will cover the end of a trip that was altogether wonderfully rewarding and afforded me the opportunity to see a part of the U.S. which I had only seen in movies and on T.V. (when it was still worth watching).

The remainder of the tour consisted of a wonderfully scenic drive through Monument Valley, site of more cowboy and indian movies than anyone can calculate.  It is surprisingly comforting to discover that such natural beauty really exists without benefit of GCI and whatever other high-tech magic drives the movie industry today.  On our way, we visited a wonderful archaeological museum called Edge of the Cedars, which contains the largest collection of intact Ancestral Puebloan pottery in the Four Corners area.  There was also a stop at Goulding's Trading Post, an historic link to the early encounters and exchanges between the Navajo Nation and the white man.

Edge of the Cedars Museum

A Scene from Monument Valley from Goulding's Trading Post

 We were headed in earnest for the Grand Canyon and Lake Powell.  This necessitated a journey through Navajo Land, an example of which is shown below. 

A view of Navajo Land from the bus

It is hard to believe that anyone could successfully live and thrive is such a desolate place.  Yet, history can testify the the Navajo Nation has done exactly that for centuries.

A Different Twist on Arch Conservatism

Our sixth day began early with breakfast (if you would dare call it that) at 6:30 am with bus departure at 7:30.  The ascent from Moab, Utah to Arches National Park is a short but steep on over many switchbacks before reaching the park proper.  I don't know what I was expecting out of the day's itinerary, not much, I suspect, but it turned out to be one of the more compelling adventures of this trip, so far.

Our first stop was at "Windows" a pair of natural arches that afford a look at the rest of the park.  They are labeled, appropriately, North and South Window, and make an impressive introduction to the whole park.

North and South Windows, Arches National Park

The View from the South Window at Arches

The following pictures are a small sample of the fascinating sights that abound in Arches National Park.  It took considerable effort to hike to these amazing natural displays, but, it was always worth the effort.  Once again I was struck by the effects of natural erosion and the remarkable wonders that it can produce.

Triple Arch

Delicate Arch