الخميس، 31 مارس 2011
Luxor Portal - Investment Brief
Luxor Portal - Investment Brief: "Starting in January 1st, 2005, the city of Luxor has embarked on a major renovation project aimed at developing the city to become the first and largest open air museum in the world. The fact that the city of Luxor is home to one third of the world’s archeological treasures was certainly the propelling factor in getting the necessary funds to proceed on such an ambition project."
Luxor Egypt - Festivals
Luxor Egypt - Festivals: "Abu Elhagag FestivalThe most striking event of the ceremony is the two day street festival that includes music, dances, horse races, stick [....]"
Luxor Egypt - Festivals
Luxor Egypt - Festivals: "Religious FestivalsThe universe of the ancient Egyptians had three parts: earth, heaven, and the underworld. The earth was a flat disk with Egypt at its center, surrounded by foreign lands and deserts[....]"
LUXOR CULTURE
Upper Egypt—the Nile Valley from Aswan at the First Cataract north to al-Lisht, near the entrance to the Fayyum—was divided in dynastic times into twenty-two administrative districts called sepat by ancient Egyptians and nomes by the Greeks. Nomes varied greatly in size, and their wealth depended upon how much agricultural land they possessed and what natural resources lay nearby.
The first nome, at Aswan, for example, was rich in building stone and profited from bordering the gold lands of Nubia. The second and third nomes, whose capitals were at Edfu and Hierakonpolis, respectively, boasted agricultural land but little else. The fourth nome, headquartered at Thebes and named Waset, boasted rich farm land, mountains of fine limestone, and proximity to trade routes that led to oases in the Western Desert, gold mines and mineral deposits in the Eastern Desert, and wadis leading to the Red Sea.
The first nome, at Aswan, for example, was rich in building stone and profited from bordering the gold lands of Nubia. The second and third nomes, whose capitals were at Edfu and Hierakonpolis, respectively, boasted agricultural land but little else. The fourth nome, headquartered at Thebes and named Waset, boasted rich farm land, mountains of fine limestone, and proximity to trade routes that led to oases in the Western Desert, gold mines and mineral deposits in the Eastern Desert, and wadis leading to the Red Sea.
But Thebes was not just rich in natural resources. What made Thebes the capital city of Egypt in the New Kingdom was its people: independent, spirited, militarily talented, and increasingly devoted to a local god called Amen, whose cult encouraged those attributes. Little more than a village of mudbrick huts in the Old Kingdom, by the New Kingdom Thebes had become the richest, most powerful city in the ancient world, home to the largest religious structures and most spectacular tombs and palaces ever built.
The banks of the River Nile at Thebes are broad, extending more than three kilometers to the east and west. Every year in summer, the Nile rose and overflowed its banks, covering the river valley with twenty to thirty centimeters (eight to twelve inches) of water for about six weeks in August and September. That water carried nutrient-rich silts that settled as the flood waters slowed, each year leaving behind another millimeter of fresh, rich soil and carrying away accumulated salts. As the waters receded, seed was sown broadcast across the freshly-irrigated fields and three to six months later crops were ready to harvest. Little wonder that ancient Greek visitors spoke in awe of this landscape and were convinced that the gods had blessed the Egyptians beyond all humankind. Nowhere in the ancient world did agriculture seem so easy as in Egypt.
The rich Nile floodplain produced abundant fruits and vegetables, but their variety was fairly limited. Emmer and barley were the principal grains and were used for making bread and beer. (For reasons still unclear, wheat did not appear until Graeco-Roman times.) Leeks, onions, and garlic were grown, as were lentils, chickpeas, fava beans, lettuce, and from the late New Kingdom, olives. Dates, figs, sycomore figs, pomegranates, various melons, sesame and safflower (for oil), and a few herbs and spices were raised. Grapes were made into several varieties of wine. (Red wine was the favorite drink of the Old Kingdom, white wine the favorite of the New Kingdom.) The only sweetener available was honey. Cattle were raised for milk and meat; sheep, goats, rabbits, and pigs were common, and the available fowl included ducks, geese, pigeons, and quail, but not chicken. Fishing and fowling, frequently depicted in tomb paintings, supplemented domesticated food sources. Flax was grown for the making of linen and gardens devoted to flowers were common at almost all social levels. Many foods that we take for granted, such as the potato, tomato, maize, citrus fruits, and sugar, were unknown and, indeed, would not be introduced into Egypt for several thousand years. Rice and water buffalo were unknown until about the fourteenth century A.D.
Agriculture came to Egypt from the ancient Near East around 5000 B.C., first appearing around the Fayyum, then moving southward, reaching the Theban area about a thousand years later. We know little about its subsequent development there until the New Kingdom. Then, Thebes provides us with a wonderful collection of texts and tomb paintings detailing many aspects of the agricultural cycle. For example, we have been able to track commodity prices through the Rameside period; the mechanics of land tenure and crop yields; and the shipping, storage, and redistribution of foodstuffs. Tomb paintings such as those in the tomb of Nakht (TT 52), show the techniques of ploughing, sowing, irrigating, harvesting, threshing, and storing of crops.
As long as the Nile flood was neither too low nor too high, crops grew in abundance, often producing sizeable surpluses. The summer flood pattern that typified dynastic times was established by about 12,000 B.C. But during the next millennia, “Wild Niles” flooded the valley with several meters of water in some years and barely a centimeter or two in others. In dynastic times, elaborate efforts were made to track and predict the Nile flood, and Nilometers were built at various places along the river to monitor its rise. Such information was crucial: several times in dynastic history floods were insufficient to grow adequate crops and the result was famine. At other times, high Niles wreaked havoc, destroying dikes, canals, and villages. In the reign of Rameses III, for example, a series of low Niles brought several years of social and economic chaos.
The annual deposition of Nile silts was heaviest along the banks of the river, less so as the waters moved nearer to the desert edge. The result was that the Nile Valley gradually took on a convex cross-section. Levees along the river were the logical site for building settlements since the higher land there was usually safe from flooding and unsuitable for growing crops. Over time, however, as the mud-brick villages built here or on small mounds within the flood plain were abandoned or destroyed by high floods, settlements were eventually buried deep beneath layers of silt. That is why archaeologists even today know relatively little about the domestic architecture of ancient Egypt and so much about its funerary and religious architecture. Tombs, meant to last for eternity, were cut in stone in dry desert wadis where their preservation could be assured. Temples, built of stone but requiring regular accessibility, were erected on desert lands near the edge of the cultivation. They generally have survived, too, although their numerous outbuildings, usually constructed of mudbrick, have not.
Great limestone cliffs rose near the edge of the cultivable fields on the west bank at Thebes, and it was into those hills that both royal and private tombs were dug. But limestone was not used for the building of temples. They were constructed of sandstone which had to be dragged from quarries such as Jabal al-Silsila, 140 kilometers south. Granite from Aswan, basalt from the Red Sea Hills, and alabaster from the Western Desert were also transported to Thebes for the construction of doorways, lintels, obelisks, and statuary. The deserts were also a source of stone for jewelry and inlays, and produced turquoise, gold, jasper, galena, malachite, emerald, amethyst, and lapis lazuli, among others.
Egyptians were keen observers of their natural world and regularly depicted it in their tomb paintings. Lying in northeast Africa, at the crossroads of several different natural areas, Egypt has always been richly populated with many species of animals. It is largely from the meticulous paintings of nature we find in Theban private tombs that we can reconstruct the natural environment of New Kingdom Thebes in such detail. Egyptian artists, who presumably worked from a kind of artist’s guidebook, took great pains to clearly represent species and even sub-species of plants and animals. For example, paintings of kingfishers carefully distinguished Alcedo atthis from Ceryle rudis. The special features of the White Pelican are drawn differently from those of a Dalmatian Pelican. Such accuracy is also to be seen in representations of Nile fish, wild and domesticated animals, flowers, grasses, and trees.
The Nile Valley today is still a beautiful and magical place, and one should take the time to enjoy its many attributes. Few things are quite as pleasant as sailing at sunrise along the west bank of the river. There, especially in the autumn during the annual southward migration, dozens of species of birds can be seen, from herons and pelicans to bee-eaters and sunbirds. It is not unusual on a November evening to see flocks of a thousand birds or more flying low across the fields, searching for a place to spend the night.
Walking, or riding on horses, camels or donkeys through West Bank fields is equally rewarding, especially on cool winter afternoons. The crops are different today than in ancient times, of course, and sugar cane and wheat predominate, but the overall experience is nearly the same. All is quiet except for the call of a bird or the distant braying of a donkey; clean, fresh air carries the faint aroma of basil; tiny puffs of dust rise from a nearby path as an unattended donkey trots along the familiar route home. Palm trees and the tops of distant hills rise above the fields and wisps of smoke rise from village bread ovens. A stroll along the footpaths that crisscross the broad fields and lead to small mudbrick villages is an experience to be savored.
Much of the West Bank still retains a bucolic flavor, although new buildings of red brick and concrete, satellite dishes, tourist shops, and paved roads are springing up along the Nile and farther west at the desert edge. In another five or ten years, the character of the West Bank will have disappeared and one will have to travel outside Luxor’s tourist zone to enjoy rural Egypt. Such changes have already overtaken the East Bank. Luxor today is a bustling, noisy city, filled with tourist hotels, gaudy bazaars, and coffee shops that blast pop music into crowded streets. Children shout, determined to sell cheap trinkets to tourists. Two statistics tell the story: thirty years ago, Luxor had two paved streets; today they are all paved. Twenty years ago, Luxor boasted only five taxis; today there are hundreds.
We know little about the layout of the Nile floodplain at Thebes in the New Kingdom. It is possible to trace the boundaries of several natural irrigation basins, but the location of villages, paths, and canals is largely conjectural. Among the few archaeological features known in the cultivation, the southernmost is Birkat Habu, a huge artificial harbor dug in the reign of Amenhetep III for the celebration of his first and second sed-festivals. To its north, also within the cultivation, lay that king’s memorial temple, its first pylon fronted by the famous Colossi of Memnon. At the northern end of the Theban Necropolis lay an ancient village called Khefet-her-nebes and, adjacent to it, the memorial temple of Sety I. Artificial canals ran through the fields, connecting small harbors dug before the many memorial temples built here.
The desert on the West Bank is another matter. Not only do we have the remains of ancient structures, we also have found an ancient papyrus that lists in geographical order the temples and houses that were built along the edge of the cultivation. From such data, we are able to divide the West Bank into several archaeological zones.
Adjacent to the cultivable land, a low, sand-covered strip of desert extends from the northern end of the necropolis to the southern. It varies in width from only a few meters (about 10 feet) to nearly three kilometers (1.8 miles). At the northern end lies an area called al-Tarif, site of several hundred Old and Middle Kingdom tombs. To its south, immediately adjacent to modern cultivation, lies a string of memorial temples, starting with that of Sety I and continuing southward with those of Amenhetep I and Ahmes-Nefertari, Hatshepsut, Thutmes III, Merenptah-Siptah, Amenhetep II, Rameses II, a son of Thutmes I, Thutmes IV, Merenptah, Rameses IV, Amenhetep son of Hapu, Thutmes II, Ay, Tutankhamen, Horemheb, and Rameses III. The Dynasty 18 palace of Amenhetep III is located at the southern end, and nearby stand the Ptolemaic temple at Qasr al-’Ajuz and the Roman temple at Dayr al-Shalwit, which mark the southern end of the Theban Necropolis.
Several small hills lie scattered within this low desert area, each of them pockmarked with the entrances to numerous small tombs known generally as the Tombs of the Nobles, or private tombs. A few date to the Old and Middle Kingdom but most are from the New Kingdom. They number in the hundreds, but only a few have been cleared or opened to the public. At the northern end of the necropolis is Dira’ Abu al-Naja whose tombs are primarily of Rameside date. Near the road to Dayr al-Bahari stands al-’Asasif, housing about forty tombs, and al-Khokha, with about sixty. Shaykh ‘Abd al-Qurna is a long, narrow hill with close to a hundred tombs. Qurnat Murai, beside the road into Dayr al-Madina, has seventeen.
Behind these small hills stand the sheer cliffs of the Theban mountain. At their base stand several memorial temples, the best known of which are the three at Dayr al-Bahari belonging to Mentuhetep I, Thutmes III, and Hatshepsut.
Within the Theban hills proper, small wadis were used for the burials of Egypt’s New Kingdom royal families and the workers responsible for digging and decorating their tombs. The workmen lived and were buried in Dayr al-Madina. To its south lies the Valley of the Queens and, between those two sites, the so-called Valley of the Dolmen. Several Coptic monasteries were also built in this area. The Valley of the Kings, actually two valleys, the East and the West, lies farther north and west, at the base of the highest point in the Theban hills, called al-Qurn or “The Horn.” Many other areas on the West Bank are home to archaeological monuments, but most remain unstudied, unpublished, and inaccessible to tourists.
On the East Bank of the Nile lie the major temple complexes of Karnak and Luxor, as well as the ancient city of Thebes, now buried beneath the modern city of Luxor.
Most tourists to Thebes spend only one day on the East Bank and one day on the West Bank. But the sites here are so numerous and of such interest that, if at all possible, more time should be devoted to both sides of the Nile. At the very least, on the West Bank one should see tombs in the Valley of the Kings, a selection of the tombs of the nobles, Dayr al-Bahari, and Madinet Habu. The number of monuments to be visited in each of these areas can be extended to fill all available time, and to the list can be added the Valley of the Queens, Dayr al-Madina, the Ramesseum, and the temple of Sety I. On the East Bank, Karnak alone deserves a full day or, better, two mornings, and one should spend a couple of hours in Luxor Temple and the Luxor Museum of Ancient Art. A day spent walking through West Bank fields and villages, stopping often for tea and conversation, or hiking over the Theban Hills to admire the spectacular view, can all be high points of a visit here
LUXOR TODAY
Luxor Today
Luxor Governmental Decree
|
LUXOR HISTORY
Thebes “Ancient Luxor “
At the early date, the Fourth Egyptian Nome—the Theban Nome—boasted three principal villages. Armant, called Hermonthis by the Greeks, stood on the West Bank of the Nile, near the nome’s southern border. It was the nome capital until about the Fourth Dynasty. On the East Bank two other villages were of importance: Tod, which lay in the south, and Medamud, in the north. Until the Middle Kingdom, the city of Thebes was little more than an inconsequential cluster of rude huts. The Theban Necropolis was in use, however: nomarchs were buried here from the Old Kingdom onward, probably because of the quality and accessibility of its limestone bedrock. We know of five nomarchs’ tombs in the West Bank area of al-Khokha, and several others father north in al-Tarif. (None is open to the public.)
In Dynasty 9, leaders of Heracleopolis, a nome about 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of Memphis, declared themselves rulers of all Egypt and seized control of Memphis and the royal court. The major threat to the Heracleopolitans was the leadership of the Theban nome, who backed up their competing claim to authority with military forays against Heracleopolitan holdings. For fifty years, Theban rulers including Intef I, Intef II, Intef III, and the succeeding series of rulers named Mentuhetep devoted themselves to building Thebes and expanding its control over Egypt. Nebhepetra Mentuhetep I, for example, worked in Dynasty 11 to create a strong, Egypt-wide bureaucracy with its capital at Thebes. At first he called himself the Divine One of the White Crown, implying that he controlled Upper Egypt, and then Uniter of the Two Lands, meaning that he ruled all of Egypt. At Dayr al-Bahari, he built a mortuary temple and tomb of new design that served as the inspiration for Queen Hatshepsut’s memorial temple five hundred years later. Scenes in his temple provide early evidence that the Thebans were elevating to prominence a little-known local god, Amen, who would soon surpass the nome’s principal deity, Montu, in wealth and power.
Luxor Islamic Era:
Luxor was a small Village under el-Koss District “ the Capital of upper Egypt after starting the Islamic Era, then it was controlled by Essna City then a city under Quena Governorate.
Human beings have lived at Thebes for at least half a million years. The first discovery of Paleolithic tools in Africa was made in the 1850s on the hillsides above the Valley of the Kings, and today hikers still find chert hand axes, scrapers, and drills lying about on the surface. Paleolithic weather was wetter than that of today, and wild grasses growing in now-arid valleys attracted rabbits, gazelle, ostriches, and other game, plentiful food for the bands of hunters and gatherers that lived here. The Paleolithic population in Upper Egypt was small and culturally conservative. Even after the coming of agriculture around 5000 BC, the hunting of small game and the gathering of wild plants continued to play a major role in Upper Egyptian culture.
Neolithic agricultural settlements lay scattered along the Nile, especially between Hierakonpolis in the south and Abydos in the north. For example, a few kilometers downstream from Thebes lay the large Neolithic village of Naqada, site of a sophisticated pre-literate culture. Examples of its beautiful pottery and stone crafts can be seen in the Luxor Museum of Ancient Art. Evidence of the Neolithic at Thebes itself is skimpy, probably because Nile silts now cover ancient sites. Equally rare are traces of the Early Dynastic (Dynasties 1–2) habitations.
The Egyptian Old Kingdom saw the development of pyramids at Giza, mastaba tombs at Saqqara, an increasingly sophisticated and codified system of writing and literature, and brilliant art, elaborate expression of religious beliefs, the growth of science, complex political and economic structures, and an expanding population. Together, these factors combined to make the Old Kingdom one the most impressive periods in human history. But these developments mostly took place in a limited geographic area extending only about fifty kilometers (thirty miles) south of modern Cairo. Farther south only a few sites, like Elephantine and Abydos, shared these defining attributes of civilization. Thebes was apparently not one of them.
At this early date, the Fourth Egyptian Nome—the Theban Nome—boasted three principal villages. Armant, called Hermonthis by the Greeks, stood on the West Bank of the Nile, near the nome’s southern border. It was the nome capital until about the Fourth Dynasty. On the East Bank two other villages were of importance: Tod, which lay in the south, and Medamud, in the north. Until the Middle Kingdom, the city of Thebes was little more than an inconsequential cluster of rude huts. The Theban Necropolis was in use, however: nomarchs were buried here from the Old Kingdom onward, probably because of the quality and accessibility of its limestone bedrock. We know of five nomarchs’ tombs in the West Bank area of al-Khokha, and several others father north in al-Tarif. (None is open to the public.)
Toward the end of the Old Kingdom, the strong central authority of Egypt’s capital city, Memphis, began to crumble due in part to the inertia and stagnation that had slowly come to characterize the long reign of Pepy II. As the court’s authority declined, local nomarchs quickly moved to assume its powers, and by Dynasty 5, Egypt’s central bureaucracy had been replaced by local dynasties that paid little attention to events beyond their borders. Their lack of a broad power base, coupled with a series of disastrously low Nile floods, resulted in the eventual collapse of these nomarchies, and Dynasties 7 and 8 were little more than a rapid succession of short-lived and competing rulers. Officials’ tombs were no longer built near the king’s pyramid complex in the Memphite nome. Instead, nomarchs chose to be buried at home, and provincial styles in art and architecture offer graphic evidence of the central government’s demise.
In Dynasty 9, leaders of Heracleopolis, a nome about 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of Memphis, declared themselves rulers of all Egypt and seized control of Memphis and the royal court. The major threat to the Heracleopolitans was the leadership of the Theban nome, who backed up their competing claim to authority with military forays against Heracleopolitan holdings. For fifty years, Theban rulers including Intef I, Intef II, Intef III, and the succeeding series of rulers named Mentuhetep devoted themselves to building Thebes and expanding its control over Egypt. Nebhepetra Mentuhetep I, for example, worked in Dynasty 11 to create a strong, Egypt-wide bureaucracy with its capital at Thebes. At first he called himself the Divine One of the White Crown, implying that he controlled Upper Egypt, and then Uniter of the Two Lands, meaning that he ruled all of Egypt. At Dayr al-Bahari, he built a mortuary temple and tomb of new design that served as the inspiration for Queen Hatshepsut’s memorial temple five hundred years later. Scenes in his temple provide early evidence that the Thebans were elevating to prominence a little-known local god, Amen, who would soon surpass the nome’s principal deity, Montu, in wealth and power.
One of Mentuhetep’s successors was responsible for an unfinished temple-tomb complex in a small cirque half way between Dayr al-Bahari and Dayr al-Madina. Court officials of the time, most notably Meketre, built tombs nearby. Meketre’s tomb contained a number of elegant wooden models of daily life that are among the treasures of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Mentuhetep III was an apparently illegitimate ruler quickly succeeded by his vizier, Amenemhet, the son of a priest from Elephantine. He claimed the throne as Amenemhet I, first king of Dynasty 12, and immediately moved his court from Thebes to a site thirty kilometers (eighteen miles) south of Memphis called Itj-tawy, the modern al-Lisht. Thebes continued to be a principal religious center—the Temple of Amen at Karnak had been enlarged by each of the Dynasty 11 kings—but Itj-tawy remained Egypt’s administrative capital for the remainder of Dynasty 12.
Amenemhet I’s successors continued to enhance Egypt’s economic well-being and contributed to the growing prominence of the priesthood of Amen. His son, Senusret I, paid tribute to Amen by building at Karnak, and his White Chapel, now in Karnak’s Open-Air Museum, is one of ancient Egypt’s most beautiful buildings. Amenemhet II expanded foreign trade and military activities in both Nubia and in western Asia, and his successor, Senusret II, created extensive agriculture lands in the Fayyum. Senusret III cut a channel through the Nile’s First Cataract to speed economic and military expeditions south into Nubia, and Amenemhet III expanded trade even further. Much of this new wealth went to Thebes and its temples.
Amenemhet I called himself a “Repeater of Births,” that is, the founder of a renaissance, and it is certainly true that he and his successors brought about a remarkable revival of Egyptian culture and society. Agricultural expansion put thousands of hectares of new lands under cultivation. This produce, as well as significant increases in foreign trade and tribute, brought immense wealth to Egypt. The results were dramatic: literature thrived in Dynasty 12 and there were great advances in the sciences. Arts and crafts, especially sculpture and architecture, achieved new aesthetic heights. Dynasty 12 lasted two hundred years and was one of the richest and most creative periods in Egyptian history. But it ended with the death of Amenemhet IV, who lacked a male heir and who was therefore succeeded by his sister, Sobekneferu, perhaps the first woman in ancient Egypt to be crowned ruler. She ruled for just three years before western Asiatic tribes collectively known as the Hyksos, “Rulers of Foreign Lands,” seized control of Lower Egypt. Their occupation marked the beginning of what Egyptologists call the Second Intermediate Period.
The Hyksos had been moving gradually into Egypt for over a century, not at first as conquerors, but as servants and settlers. As their numbers grew, they took control of large tracts of agricultural land and sought to establish their own government in the Delta. As they pushed farther south, the Theban nome under Seqenenra Tao II declared war against them. He was killed in the ensuing battle and succeeded as king by his son, Kames. At first, Kames controlled only Upper Egypt from Elephantine to Cusae, a town near modern Asyut. But he quickly pushed northward into the Delta, and successfully attacked Avaris (Tall al-Daba’a), the Hyksos capital near the site of the modern Suez Canal.The Hyksos brought many new innovations with them into Egypt, including new techniques of pottery making, bronze working, and weaving. In warfare, they introduced the composite bow, more efficient swords and daggers, and most importantly, the horse and war chariot. These presented a formidable challenge to the Egyptian army, but the Egyptians persevered and slowly gained ground. Kames continued to pound at their armies, and after his death, his brother and successor, Ahmes, pushed to final victory. His military success against the Hyksos was coupled with the rapid reconquest of Nubia and its gold mines, and the invasion of Sinai, southern Palestine, and Crete. Ahmes was lauded as the founder of Dynasty 18, and because of his reputation as a military leader, he was deified and worshipped at Thebes well into the Rameside period.
After Ahmes’s death, his son, Amenhetep I, rapidly consolidated his father’s political and military gains. The skillful administration established by the new king led later generations to declare him patron deity of the Theban Necropolis. Amenhetep I’s tomb is thought to be the first royal tomb to be built apart from its memorial temple. Thutmes I married Amenhetep I’s younger sister and succeded him as king. The new king’s military campaigns in western Asia and Nubia were so successful that Egypt extended its control into foreign lands over 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) up the Nile and 1,500 kilometers (900 miles) east to the banks of the Euphrates River. The royal architect, Ineni, continued in office and supervised the king’s substantial building activity at Karnak and the construction of his tomb, perhaps the first tomb to be cut in the Valley of the Kings. New theological texts appeared during the king’s reign, including the Imydwat and the Litany of Ra, and the god Osiris assumed an increasingly prominent role in Egyptian theology.
The older sons of Thutmes I predeceased their father and the throne fell to his third son, Thutmes II. One of the new king’s first acts was to make his half-sister, Hatshepsut, his chief royal wife. It was a decision that would have far-reaching consequences. Thutmes III, the son of a minor wife of Thutmes II, was only six or seven years old when his father died. Because of his youth, Hatshepsut was appointed regent. Within two years, however, she had herself crowned king of Upper and Lower Egypt in an elaborate ceremony described in her memorial temple at Dayr al-Bahari. Texts there proclaimed that she had been born of the gods, and ignoring the reign of Thutmes II, claimed that she was the direct and legitimate heir of her father, Thutmes I. Thutmes III continued to be referred to as if he and Hatshepsut ruled jointly, but for all intents and purposes, Hatshepsut had pushed him into the background and taken control of the country. Apparently one of her principal advisors was her architect, Senenmut, who had served as the tutor of her daughter, and who called himself “the greatest of the great in all the land.” Before his death in the seventeenth year of her reign, he had overseen the building of her memorial temple at Dayr al-Bahari, arguably one of ancient Egypt’s most beautiful monuments, and made extensive additions to the Temple of Amen at Karnak.
When Hatshepsut died after twenty years on the throne, Thutmes III finally became sole ruler of Egypt. One Egyptologist called him “a Napoleonic little man”—he stood only 157 cm (five feet two inches) tall—and militarily his reign was one of Egypt’s most energetic. Over sixteen campaigns in western Asia alone restored lands lost during the more pacific years of Hatshepsut, and in Nubia he solidified Egyptian control as far south as the Fourth Cataract. Memphis was the administrative and military capital of the country during his reign, but Thebes continued to receive special attention as its religious center. The king ordered major construction at Thebes, and his additions to the Temple of Amen at Karnak are among the most extensive ever built there. His tomb, KV 34, is elaborately and beautifully decorated. The tombs of his officials (that of Rekhmire is a good example) are among the finest in the Theban Necropolis, filled with scenes that proudly display tribute from Egypt’s growing empire.
Amenhetep II and Thutmes IV continued this military tradition and both led expeditions into Nubia and Syria. They were great supporters of art and architecture, built extensively at Karnak, and dug impressive tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
Amenhetep III, son of Thutmes IV, came to the throne while still a child and arguably contributed more to the growth of Thebes than any other king in Dynasty 18. Although he led many expeditions abroad, Amenhetep III is best known for his work at home. There was a deliberate emphasis on the past, and archaizing styles resulted in many changes in the plans and decoration of tombs and temples. He ordered substantial additions to the temple of Amen in Karnak, including the Third and Tenth Pylons, and to the Temple of Mut. He built a great palace, Malqata, on the Theban West Bank and beside it dug a huge harbor nearly 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) long and 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) wide, used for religious celebrations. He dug a superbly cut and decorated tomb in the West Valley of the Kings (soon to be opened to tourists). But his most impressive
monument must surely be his memorial temple, Kawm al-Haitan, on the West Bank, the largest memorial temple ever built. The Colossi of Memnon that stand at its entrance are among the largest monolithic statues ever carved. Amenhetep III and his queen, Tiy, were deeply involved in theological and political discussions which gave increasing emphasis to the solar cult and the divine nature of kingship, and they laid the foundation for the traumatic religious changes wrought by their son, Amenhetep IV.
Amenhetep IV, who changed his name to Akhenaten in the fifth year of his reign and moved his capital from Thebes to the new city of Akhetaten (Tall al-Amarna), introduced profound changes in Egypt’s art, architecture, written language, and especially, religion. Temples to traditional gods were closed; the writing of the word ‘god’ in the plural was forbidden; aspects of the solar cult were combined and worshiped as the Aten, the solar disk. The king and his family were also given unusual divine status. Thebes suffered because of the temple closures and the move to Akhetaten, and few monuments were built at Thebes after. An exception is an enormous temple to the Aten he built east of the Temple of Amen at Karnak, blocks from which can be seen today in the Luxor Museum of Ancient Art. Equally important for art historians is the beautifully decorated tomb of the vizier, Ramose, begun under Amenhetep III and continued under Amenhetep IV/Akhenaten.
Akhenaten may have been succeeded by a certain Smenkhkara, but we do not know with certainty who this person was or for how long he (or she) might have ruled. The next successor was Tutankhamen, perhaps the adolescent son of Amenhetep IV/Akhenaten, whose tomb in the Valley of the Kings housed the most spectacular collection of objects ever found in Egypt. Its discovery in 1922 guaranteed that Tutankhamen would become the best-known king in all Egyptian history, even though his reign was short, his activities unremarkable, and his Theban building projects few in number (at Luxor Temple, for example).
Tutankhamen’s regent, Ay, became ruler when the boy-king died. We know little about him except that he is shown on the wall of Tutankhamen’s burial chamber performing the king’s Opening of the Mouth ritual, and he was buried in a tomb (perhaps originally intended for Tutankhamen) in the West Valley of the Kings.
Ay in turn was succeeded by a general of the army, Horemheb, the first ruler in over fifty years to build extensively at Thebes. He added to the Temple of Amen at Karnak, often re-using blocks taken from the temple of Akhenaten. His tomb in the Valley of the Kings is one of its most impressive. Horemheb was the last king to use Thebes as an administrative capital, and he boasted about how he had reformed the bureaucracy there by appointing not simply men of high rank “to judge the citizens of every town,” but men “of perfect speech and good character.”
Horemheb’s deputy, the army officer Paramessu, succeeded him and took the name Rameses I. He ruled from the Delta town of Tanis, leaving Thebes to continue as a religious center but not as a secular capital. Rameses I is often considered the first king of Dynasty 19. The kings of this new dynasty took names compounded with those of the Lower Egyptian gods Ra, Seth, and Ptah, not with the names of Upper Egyptian gods Amen and Thoth that had been prominent in royal names of Dynasty 18.
The son of Rameses I, Sety I, conducted several military campaigns in western Asia. As a matter of convenience he too resided in the Eastern Delta, but he devoted substantial wealth to religious buildings at Thebes. His memorial temple on the West Bank and his tomb in the Valley of the Kings became models of design that were highly praised and emulated by later kings. His additions to the Temple of Amen at Karnak, especially the Hypostyle Hall and the decoration of its outer north wall, are among the finest examples of art and architecture to be found in Egypt. Sety I also established the Valley of the Queens as a royal necropolis, and his mother was buried in the first tomb to be dug there. His successor, Rameses II, continued military activity on a grand scale, although there is good reason to believe that he greatly exaggerated his prowess as a military commander. Indeed, many Egyptologists consider some of his boasts to be outright lies. But as a builder, there is no doubt that Rameses II excelled. He may have emphasized quantity over quality, but his monuments were intended to impress and in that they succeed brilliantly. In Nubia, he ordered the carving of two gigantic temples at Abu Simbel. At Thebes, he ordered a huge and spectacular tomb for his wife, Nefertari. He completed work on the Hypostyle Hall at Karnak; added to Luxor Temple; built for himself a glorious memorial temple, the Ramesseum; and finally carved two huge tombs in the Valley of the Kings, one for himself and another, the largest tomb in the valley, for several of his many sons. His reign of sixty-seven years is ancient Egypt’s second longest, and the king lived well into his eighties at a time when the average Egyptian male died before forty-five.
It was his thirteenth son, Merenptah, probably already well into his fifties, who finally succeeded Rameses II. The new king resided at Memphis and undertook several military campaigns in Nubia and in western Asia against the Sea Peoples, Libyans, and Sardinians. At Thebes, he is best known for his tomb in the Valley of the Kings and his memorial temple, which reused hundreds of statues and blocks from structures nearby. The Israel Stela, in which the name of that people is mentioned for the first time in an Egyptian text, was written during his reign and installed in his memorial temple. Some claim that Merenptah was the pharaoh of the biblical Exodus, but there is no evidence for this.
Sety II, a son of Merenptah, was crowned king after the brief reign of a usurper, a Viceroy of Nubia named Messui (who changed his name to Amenmeses) who gained control of Upper Egypt. But the supporters of Sety II easily thwarted the attempted take-over and Sety II ruled for about six years. His tomb is open to the public; that of Amenmeses, KV 10, is currently under excavation.
When Sety II died, his son Siptah was still a child and Sety II’s wife, QueenTausert, served as the young boy’s regent. When Siptah unexpectedly died, she then served as sole ruler for two years, supported by the chancellor Bay, a Syrian who wielded great power in the Egyptian court and who was rewarded with a tomb in the Valley of the Kings (KV 14; closed to tourists). She was succeeded by Setnakht, a man of unknown origin who, unusually, usurped and enlarged her tomb.
The only significant New Kingdom ruler after the death of Merenptah was Rameses III, son of Setnakht. Rameses III modeled his reign after that of Rameses II; he named his sons after the sons of Rameses II; and he built a memorial temple, Madinat Habu, that followed the plan of the Ramesseum. He erected a shrine in the First Court of the Temple of Amen at Karnak and began work on the Temple of Khonsu, again following the style of Rameses II. But the similarities between the two kings’ reigns are superficial. Unlike Rameses II, Rameses III faced serious economic problems: early in his reign commodity prices quintupled and workmen from Dayr al-Madina, complaining that they had not been paid for months, went on strike. Charges of corruption were successfully leveled against important court bureaucrats. Rameses IV, the king’s son and successor, later compiled a list of the donations he claims his father made to Egypt’s many temples, perhaps an attempt to counter arguments that Rameses III was an uncaring monarch who had ignored the needs of his subjects. But there is little doubt that Rameses III’s inefficient and increasingly corrupt reign was a major cause of the troubles Egypt was facing.
One of Rameses III’s minor wives, Tiy, even conspired with priests and officials to murder the king and have her son installed on the throne. Rameses III was already seriously ill, and the plotters were determined to name his successor. But the conspiracy was discovered, Tiy and the others were tried, found guilty, and forced to commit suicide. Rameses III died before the trial ended and his rightful heir, Rameses IV, ascended to the throne.
The remaining eight Ramesside rulers of Dynasty 20 witnessed the decline of ancient Thebes. Marauders stalked travelers in Upper Egypt, civil wars brought chaos to Thebes, and bureaucratic corruption was rampant. Even thefts in the Valley of the Kings were tolerated for a time because the loot they produced helped to offset rising inflation and economic depression. At the beginning of Dynasty 20, a Nile flood of such severity hit Thebes that three thousand men were needed to repair damage to Luxor Temple. By its end, more corruption scandals so rocked Thebes that a sixty-six day trial resulted in the cancellation of the Opet Festival, one of the country’s most important religious ceremonies. Still, Ramesside rulers continued to be buried in the Valley of the Kings and some of their tombs are large and of considerable interest. The tomb of Rameses IX, for example, is elaborately decorated with a prodigious number of religious texts. Priests of Dynasty 21 oversaw the safeguarding of royal mummies, taking them from their plundered tombs in the Valley of the Kings and hiding them in caches elsewhere (in DB 320 and KV 35).
During the reign of Rameses IV, the administrators of the Theban priesthoods had become hereditary appointments whose growing authority posed a serious threat to the king. When the last Ramesside king, Rameses XI, died, most of Egypt was ruled from the Delta site of Tanis. Thebes, in contrast, was controlled by the High Priest of Amen at Karnak and his extended family. The rulers of Dynasty 22 gradually took control of the Temple of Amen at Karnak and appointed their relatives as High Priests of Amen, thereby taking control of Upper Egypt. In Dynasty 23, the Divine Adoratrice of Amen at Thebes became the nome’s principal authority, a situation that continued until Egypt was made a part of the Persian Empire in Dynasty 27. The wealth of the priesthood of Amen can be seen in the enormous size of the tombs some of them built in the Theban Necropolis. The Dynasty 25 and 26 tombs of Montuemhat (TT 34) and Pedamenophis (TT 33) in al-’Assasif, for example, are labyrinthine collections of subterranean corridors and chambers.The end of dynastic history saw a brief revival of indigenous Egyptian authority in Dynasty 30, but it was short-lived. Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 BC, adopting Egyptian customs and adding to monuments at Karnak, Luxor Temple, Dayr al-Madina, and other sites in the Theban nome. Subsequent rulers brought about agricultural reforms that greatly increased productivity and allowed Egypt’s Late Dynastic population of about four million to double by early Roman times. Building activity continued at Thebes during the Graeco-Roman period. But the city’s great distance from Alexandria assured that it increasingly became a backwater, and frequent feuds between local villagers and their foreign occupiers meant that Upper Egypt did not benefit from reforms as much as the Delta. Thebes, ‘The Model for Every City’ no longer played a significant role in Egyptian arts or politics.With the coming of Christianity, numerous monasteries, convents, and churches were built in Thebes and their remains can still be seen on the West Bank at Dira’ Abu al-Naja, Dayr al-Madina, and elsewhere. (See also the examples of arts and crafts from this period in the Luxor Museum of Ancient Art). The coming of Islam may have initially had less of an economic effect because Thebes lay south of Wadi Hammamat and Wadi Qena, two of the four principal routes of pilgrims to Mecca and traders to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean (the other two lay further north). Indeed, it was not until the coming of European tourists in the nineteenth and more especially in the late twentieth century that Thebes again rose to be an economic and cultural power in Egyptian society.
Luxor Today
Luxor Governmental Decree
|
Thebes Egyptological Work
More than two thousand Greek and Latin graffiti carved on tombs in the Valley of the Kings indicate the interest of classical travelers in ancient Theban monuments two millennia ago. Even in dynastic times, the Egyptians themselves had showed a fascination with Theban history, and several kings boasted of conducting research and excavations in order to accurately restore ancient monuments.
In classical times, Diodorus Siculus described Thebes as a great city filled with “huge buildings, splendid temples, and other ornaments ... more opulent than the others in Egypt or anywhere else.” Even then, Theban monuments were being carried back to Europe where they were admired for their size, beauty and mysterious hieroglyphs.
But surprisingly, all that interest in Thebes, even the knowledge of its location, disappeared from Europe for over fifteen hundred years. From the fourth to the eighteenth century, almost no mention is made of Thebes in European texts and there is no evidence that more than a handful of Europeans even visited the site. This may have been due in part to the inaccessibility of Upper Egypt for political or practical reasons.
It was not until 1726 that a French Jesuit, Claude Sicard, relocated and correctly identified Thebes. Other travelers followed. A Danish engineer, Frederick Norden, drew sketches of Theban temples in the 1730s. At about the same time, an Englishman, Richard Pococke, drew a map of the Valley of the Kings and briefly described eighteen tombs he visited there. The accounts of Thebes published by these early travelers and the Egyptian objects that made their way into European collections once again fired the European imagination. Tourism, exploration, and collecting slowly began to revive.
James Bruce, for example, visited in 1769 and explored the tomb of Rameses III in the Valley of the Kings. It became known as Bruce’s Tomb after his publication of its scenes in 1790. Bruce also visited Madinat Habu and wrote a description of the techniques ancient artists had used to decorate its walls.
By far the most significant early expedition to Thebes was that of Napoleon’s army, which arrived in Egypt in 1799. The 130 scholars that accompanied the army were charged with making a detailed record of the country. One of the French scholars, Vivant Denon, described the awe his soldiers felt when they first saw Thebes: “At nine o’clock, in making a sharp turn round the point of a projecting chain of mountains, we discovered all at once the site of the ancient Thebes in its whole extent; this celebrated city, the size of which Homer has characterized by the single expression of ‘with a hundred gates’... The whole army, suddenly and with one accord, stood in amazement at the sight of its scattered ruins, and clapped their hands with delight.” Their work was published between 1809 and 1828. Called the Description de l’Egypte, one of its elephant folio volumes was devoted to drawings of Theban monuments and provided the first accurate record of Theban sites to appear in Europe. Hundreds of plates recorded architecture, relief decoration, and painting in tombs and temples, and accompanying volumes of text described what the scholars had seen. Even today, the Description can profitably be consulted by scholars because much of what it contains has vanished, victims of erosion, vandalism, and theft.
As interest in ancient Egypt grew in Europe among scholars, decorators, and collectors, other records of Theban monuments appeared. Jean-François Champollion, who had published the key to the decipherment of hieroglyphs in 1822, visited Thebes in 1828, accompanied by an Italian colleague, Ippolito Rosellini. They recorded scenes and inscriptions in the Valley of the Kings, Madinat Habu, the Ramesseum, and several nobles’ tombs. Emile Prisse d’Avennes published a collection of elegant watercolors of tomb paintings in 1847. Other artists, too, painted Thebes: Alma Tadema (1836–1912), David Wilkie (1785–1841), Edward Lear (1812–1888), John Frederick Lewis (1805–1876), and most importantly, David Roberts (1796–1864). Some of them published very accurate paintings of Theban monuments, others produced scenes of ancient Theban life that were purely flights of fancy.
Of all the teams to record Thebes, the Prussian expedition of Carl Richard Lepsius was the most ambitious and the most accurate. Lepsius led an epigraphic expedition in 1842–1845. He spent much time at Thebes, and his publication, Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien (1849–1859), immediately became an indispensable reference for scholars. Detailed and remarkably accurate, it still is a primary research tool.
Giovanni Belzoni visited Thebes between 1816 and 1821. During the course of digging in the Valley of the Kings, he discovered six tombs, including those of Mentuherkhepshef, Ay, Rameses I, and Sety I. He also worked in the memorial temples of Amenhetep III and Rameses II (the Ramesseum) and carted off many objects to England, including several huge statues. Belzoni’s techniques were primitive: “Every step I took, I crushed a mummy in some part or other,” he wrote at one stage. But his London exhibition of impressions from walls of the tomb of Sety I was extremely popular and contributed greatly to ancient Egypt’s popularity. So did the hugely successful book by Amelia Edwards, A Thousand Miles up the Nile (1877), a beautifully-written personal account of Egypt and its monuments.
The Englishman John Gardner Wilkinson worked at Thebes in 1824 and 1827–1828, recording with great skill scenes of daily life on the walls of nobles’ tombs. The book he published, The Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians (1837), is a tour de force that reconstructs in anthropological detail aspects of ancient life from kinship to cooking, chronology to costume. It was also Wilkinson who first established the numbering system still used today to identify tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Later, Norman (1875–1941) and Nina de Garis Davies continued this recording tradition, producing beautiful copies of private tomb paintings. (The originals are now displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York). Meticulous and highly detailed epigraphic surveying was developed by the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago and has been used by them at Thebes since 1924 to record inscriptions and scenes in the temples of Madinat Habu, Luxor, and other Theban monuments.
By late in the nineteenth century, photography was used to record Theban monuments, first by such famous photographers as Francis Frith and Maxime du Camp, later by the highly skilled photographers Felix Guillmant and Harry Burton. The latter was the photographer for Howard Carter’s clearing of the tomb of Tutankhamen.
Early excavations of Theban sites were rarely more than the careless work of villagers or the hasty searches by Europeans for objects to install in Europe’s many new museums. Richard Pococke complained of the cavalier treatment of the monuments by local villagers: “They are every day destroying these fine morsels of Egyptian Antiquity, and I saw some of the pillars being hewn into millstones.” Champollion boasted that by shipping Theban monuments back to France he was performing a noble act: “One day you will have the pleasure of seeing some of the beautiful bas-reliefs of the tomb of Osirei [Sety I] in the French Museum. That will be the only way of saving them from imminent destruction and in carrying out this project I shall be acting as a real lover of antiquity, since I shall be taking them away only to preserve and not to sell.” Other collectors included Henry Salt (1780–1827), whose collections formed the core of several of Europe’s major museums, and Bernardino Drovetti (1775–1852), who collected for the Louvre and the museum in Turin.
These early collectors usually worked with the knowledge and permission of the Egyptian government. But by 1858 it was clear that greater control over Egypt’s antiquities was necessary if the sites were to be protected. The Egyptian government, at the urging of Auguste Mariette, a French scholar, established a national museum and shortly thereafter, a national antiquities service. The export of antiquities was not banned by the new service (that did not happen until the 1960s) but it was more strictly controlled, and attempts were made to guard and protect principal archaeological sites.
Over the next several decades, the new Antiquities Service employed several committed and talented people. Eugène Lefébure (1838–1908), for example, came to Egypt in 1881 after a career in the French Post Office. Consumed by an interest in Egyptology, he set out to record the texts in tombs in the Valley of the Kings. His two-volume publication, Les Hypogées royaux de Thebes (1888), was the first attempt to systematically record that famous site. A few years later, men like Victor Loret devoted several seasons to the excavation of tombs in the Valley of the Kings (in 1898–1899). Loret’s excavation techniques were primitive by modern standards, but he and others added many more tombs to those already known in the Valley of the Kings.
Since the mid-nineteenth century, the quality of archaeological work at Thebes has been steadily improving. In the Valley of the Kings, for example, one can cite the work of Edward Ayrton, Arthur Weigall, and Howard Carter.
Carter (1874–1939), self-trained in England as an artist, had come to Egypt in 1892 to work with Flinders Petrie. Seven years later, he was appointed Chief Inspector of Antiquities in Upper Egypt and immediately began work in the Valley of the Kings. His artistic talents and insistence on meticulously recording what he uncovered set a high standard. They served him well when, after a sometimes tumultuous career in the Antiquities Service, Carter discovered the entrance to the tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922. It is arguably the most famous archaeological discovery ever made, and one that demanded almost infinite patience to clear and record.
The French have worked at Karnak almost continuously since 1899, the year part of the great Hypostyle Hall collapsed due to weakened foundations. They have undertaken excavation and publication as well as highly important engineering and conservation projects. The Open-Air Museum at Karnak, in which several important monuments have been reconstructed, is a tribute to their admirable work.There have been other excavators whose work has made significant contributions to our knowledge of ancientThebes. Ernesto Schiaparelli (1856–1928) excavated the workmen’s village at Dayr al-Madina, bringing to light thousands of ostraka that tell us more about daily life in ancient Egypt than almost any other source. Uvo Hölscher excavated around the memorial temple of Rameses III at Madinat Habu in the 1930s, making it possible to trace in detail the history of the Madinat Habu complex. Herbert Winlock and his colleagues from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York worked in the Dayr al-Bahari cirque from 1911 to 1932 on some of the most important excavations ever made at Thebes.
Visitors to the West Bank of Thebes today can still see the headquarters of these expeditions. Howard Carter’s original house stands behind the offices of the antiquities inspectorate; his later house lies in a grove of trees at the north end of the necropolis. German House, reputedly burned down by the British at the start of World War I and again at the start of World War II, has been rebuilt west of the Ramesseum. The original Chicago House, headquarters of the University of Chicago, is now the Marsam Hotel, behind the memorial temple of Amenhetep III. (Its current headquarters are on the east bank of the Nile, in Luxor.) Metropolitan House, headquarters of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and later of the Polish Mission to Dayr al-Bahari stands before the memorial temple of Dayr al-Bahari. The home of Norman and Nina de Garis Davies lies about two hundred meters to its west. The house of the American businessman Theodore Davis, who funded many expeditions early in the twentieth century, lies near the start of the dirt track into the West Valley of the Kings, a satellite dish incongruously mounted beside the front door.
Today, there are many projects working at Thebes, but few are there to excavate. Instead, they are projects to record, clear, stabilize, and conserve the fragile remains of its tombs and temples. Such measures are overdue and the need for them is rapidly increasing. Over eight thousand tourists visit the West Bank sites every day and that number is expected to rise to twenty-five thousand per day within a decade. The development of conservation measures and plans for site management are urgently needed if ancient Thebes is to survive. Egyptologists are finally aware of the serious threats to the monuments, and it is hoped that these new projects will ensure that ancient Thebes will survive for another five thousand years.
الأربعاء، 30 مارس 2011
Egypt Luxor Photos Slideshow
Egypt Luxor Photos Slideshow: "TEST TripAdvisor™ TripWow ★ Egypt Luxor Photos Slideshow ★ to Luxor, Cairo and Giza. Stunning free travel slideshows on TripAdvisor"
LUXOR TRIP-HOTELS IN LUXOR-HOW TO GO TO LUXOR-CHEAP TRIP TO LUXOR-VERY CHEAP HOTELS IN LUXOR-LUXOR EGYPT
Several spectacular 3500 year old sites are in and around Luxor. In the middle of town is Luxor Temple built by Pharaoh Amenophis III. Several kilometers to the north is the Temple of Karnak, built and added onto over a 1500 year period starting with the Pharaohs of the New Kingdom (1580-1085 B.C.). Across the Nile River on the West Bank are the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens, areas with ancient tombs once containing mummies and valuables for the Pharaoh’s afterlife.
Downtown Luxor
Downtown Luxor on the East Bank of the Nile River is where the cheap accommodation and restaurants are. Tourists strolling around town are repeatedly accosted by locals trying to sell things: a hotel room, a horse-carriage ride, shirts, postcards, a restaurant menu, a felucca ride, etc. Peace is walking a block without someone yelling, “Hello! What’s your name? Where are you from? Come into my store!” Sometimes when countering their insistence with “La, la, la. Emshee! (No. no, no. Go away!)”, they aggressively accuse, “Why are you so rude?!” There’s no way to win.
During our time in Luxor, we managed to view the perimeter of Luxor Temple at night (entrance is E£ 20, E£ 10 with student card), and learn about ancient Egyptian mummification at the Mummification Museum (entrance is E£ 20, E£ 10 with student card). Because the mummification ritual and symbols are explained at the museum, a visit prior to viewing the tombs on the West Bank is recommended.
Temple of Karnak
About 5 kilometers north of town is the impressive Temple of Karnak. The length of the site is 1.5 km (almost a mile) and the width is 800 meters. In the course of construction and successive additions, each Pharaoh tried to outdo his or her predecessors. Carved pillars 2 meters in diameter lift enormous blocks of carved and painted stone high into the air. Obelisks reach for the sky and giant intimidating statues stand guard at doorways. Admission is a well spent E£ 20 (E£ 10 with student card).We were sick and weak to walk from town to Karnak, so we found a local minibus. The cost is E£ 0.50 per person, and it stops at the entrance. After viewing the site, we wanted to ride a horse carriage back to the hotel. The initial asking price was E£ 25, but when the carriage drivers understood that we’d pay E£ 10 or ride the minibus, one driver readily accepted. Along the way, we had to convince the driver to take us directly to our hotel without detours to trinket shops where he collects commissions. “I pay you E£ 10 if we go straight to the hotel. I pay you nothing if you stop somewhere else,” we had to repeat to him 3 or 4 times. Reaching our hotel, we handed the driver a E£ 10 note. He tried the oldest trick in the book. Taking the E£ 10 bill, he quickly switched it with an E£ 1 bill and said, “No, not one pound. You must give me ten pounds.” We told him to get lost, which he promptly did. Find me an honest Egyptian, please!
West Bank
The West Bank of Luxor is an orange rock mass into which tombs of Kings and Queens were dug for 500 years. The extremely motivated and energetic could potentially see the West Bank on their own. The heat of the arid rocky desert and the lack of information at the site are the two biggest reasons to opt for a guided tour. The strength of the sun was intense to the point that we needed a guide to direct us to the more interesting tombs. On our own, we would have wilted and died in the desert.
The most well preserved and worthwhile tomb we saw was the Tomb of Nefertari. Tickets for this tomb alone are E£ 100 (E£ 50 with student card), and admission is limited to 150 people per day for a maximum 15 minute stay. Since tickets must be purchased on the day of use (advance purchase is impossible), some locals make a living purchasing the daily supply of 150 tickets and selling them on the black market. They line up early each morning before the ticket office (located on the West Bank) opens at 06:00. Since the earliest possible time for a tourist to cross the Nile to the West Bank is 05:30 – surprise, the government controls the bridge opening time and regulates boat crossing times – procuring a ticket on your own is only possible first thing in the morning prior to sellout. Tour guides phone in their Nefertari ticket orders to the professional resellers the night before, and for the cost of the ticket plus E£ 10, a tourist can almost be guaranteed a ticket. Naturally, the prerequisite to ordering a Nefertari ticket through a tour guide is paying for a full-day tour upfront.We arranged to join a tour to the West Bank through our hotel, Oasis. Oasis collects the tour fee in advance, keeps their cut, and telephones a local tour guide. People on our tour were from 3 hotels and – surprise again – they all paid different prices.
Our tour guide called himself “Moonshine”. He explained history and wall paintings thoroughly prior to showing each site. Overall, we were very satisfied with him, especially when he handed us our “black market” tickets to the Tomb of Nefertari. Moonshine’s one fault is, like all Egyptians, selling things on the side for commission. Although he claimed innocence when asked by a fellow traveler whether he’d waste our tour time in trinket shops, towards the tail end of our tour, Moonshine took his group to a shop with alabaster stone carvings and another selling papyrus paintings “not to buy, just to educate.” Naturally, during his presentation he’d say, “and if you want to buy any of these authentic pieces, you get a discount with our tour.” We can’t fault any of these people for trying to make a living, but we wish they would be upfront about the tour itinerary.
Within the Tomb of Nefertari, the paintings are detailed, colorful, and remarkably intact for being 3500 years old. Guidebooks and our guide say they haven’t been re-painted, that they’re original. Comparatively, the paintings in most of the other tombs in the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens are faded, completely eroded in many areas, and sometimes blackened by soot from cooking fires by local settlers before the advent of tourism. The other colorful and unusually decorative tomb is the Tomb of Amenophis II.