Egypt, Luxor and Karnak – Part 2
- At September 17, 2023
- By Jessica
- In Travel
0
Called the "Hundred-Gated City" by Greek Historian Homer, Luxor is set on the east bank of the Nile River. It is a pretty city with a French flavor. The city was once known as Waset, then as Thebes, now as Luxor, which means "City of Palaces" in Arabic. As Thebes, it served as the capital of Egypt's "New Kingdom." Today, the Nile hugging promenade of the City is lined with beautiful colonial hotels and some of the world's most ancient and significant ruins. Many consider this city, watched over by graceful single-sailed feluccas plying the Nile, one of the world's great open air museums. In the center of town, the vast ruins of the Temple of Luxor, dating back to 1392 BC, sit like the Plaza Hotel does in New York - just part of the scenery! The sprawling Temples of Luxor and Karnak on the east bank are linked by the ancient Avenue of the Sphinxes.
Ram head = health
Lion body = symbol of power.
On the west bank, in the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, lie the tombs of Egypt's great pharaohs. The ancient Egyptians stopped building pyramids as royal tombs after thieves stripped them bare opting instead to bury their royalty in secret tombs in Thebes, today's West Bank of Luxor.
To walk among these testaments to time, history, and civilization is a profound experience. To stand, perhaps, in the same spots where Ramses II, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Cleopatra may have stood.
During the time of the 18th dynasty, when Akhenaten was pharaoh, approximately 1351-1334 BC, he changed the religion from polytheism to a monotheistic system worshiping only the God Aman-Ra (God of the Air and the Sun). He created a holy triad: Aman-Ra, Mut, Khnoso, with Khnosu being the moon god and Mut being the sky goddess. Think about that - Akhenaten was the inventor of monotheism. The Egyptians have a theory, so far unproven, that Joseph of multi-colored coat fame, and known to be vizier to a pharaoh around this time, may have planted the idea of monotheism in Akhenaten's mind. Some Egyptologists believe that Joseph and Akhenaten were the same person! Anyway, Akhenaten made Karnak the center of religion but the Egyptian high priests didn't like this new idea of monotheism and ran Akhenaten out of town. He reestablished his kingdom in Amarna. The high priests hunted him down and murdered Akhenaten and destroyed Amarna. The renowned beauty Nefertiti was his wife. Nefer = beautiful one Titi = her name. (The wife of Ramses II was Nefertari - more on her later.) Akhenaten and Nefertiti had no sons, only two daughters. One daughter was married to nine year old King Tutankhamen. After killing Akhenaten, the high priests put King Tut in the position of King, moved the capital back to Luxor, where Tut ruled for ten years. He was controlled by the priests who killed him when he came into adulthood.
What followed was, in essence, a religious coup, placing a former high priest as Pharaoh - King Ay. An army general, Horemheb, killed King Ay and became King. In essence, a military coup. The son of Horemheb was Ramses I. King Siti I, whose tomb we describe in Part 3, was the son of Ramses I. Successive kings were from the military, including the famed Ramses II who reigned for 67 years and died at age 90.
Ramses II was married to Nefertari who was Nubian. Ramses II was the most famous of the 11 Ramses. Ra = (sun god) msw = beloved one. He "dethroned" the high priests, constructed many buildings and monuments, had 53 wives, 111 daughters and 67 sons.
Karnak Temple was built over 2000 years by generations of pharaohs. The 62-acre Temple of Karnak was dedicated to the god Aman.*
* Alternate spellings are Amon, Amon, et al. Same god.
The great " Hypostyle Hall," a colonnaded court for priests and nobles, is a forest of 134 giant pillars. It takes your breath away.
There is also a section of the temple for commoners to make their offerings and a Sanctuary only for the high priest and the Pharaoh where they present the offerings collected from the populace to Aman-Ra.
Fun Fact: Straight beard on iconography means king is alive. If curved beard king is dead.
Fun fact: Each cobra in iconography represents a kingdom. One cobra, king is from one part of Egypt. Two cobras, the king is ruling both north and south Egypt. Three cobras, the king rules north and south Egypt plus Nubia/kush.
The Ankh, which is omnipresent, is a symbol of long life and eternity.
Egypt in a Nutshell
- At September 10, 2023
- By Jessica
- In Travel
- 0
Some of you may know that Jessica is working on a new novel called The Goddess Conference. Parts of the book take place in biblical times throughout the Middle East and a sizable chunk takes place in ancient Egypt. This part of the cruise is especially important because writers need to see, hear, touch, smell, and taste what they are writing about to be credible.
Egypt is bordered on the north by the Mediterranean, on the east by the Red Sea, Gaza, Israel, and Palestine*, in the west by the Sahara Desert, Chad, and Libya, and in the south by North Sudan and Nasser Lake, the largest artificial lake in the world created by the building of the Aswan Dam in 1971. Egypt is a beautiful country, far greener and more bucolic than Jordan or Saudi Arabia. A palm tree paradise.
We disembarked just before 8 AM. We were met by three people for our private tour: a PhD Egyptologist called Wael, whose English is perfect, a tour coordinator, and a driver.They were very happy to hear Jessica is 31 percent Egyptian. She wore her hajib. On our 145 mile journey to Luxor, which included dozens of security checkpoints and armed "tourism police," we passed lots of desert, home to gold and silver deposits including a 3500 year old gold mine from the time of the Pharaohs. We then passed by multiple farming villages where they grow sugar cane, wheat and alfalfa. The farms are irrigated by a natural tributary of the Nile. After the Mississippi, the Nile is the world's longest river. (Sorry Jeff Bezos, not the Amazon.) One of only a few rivers on Earth that runs south to north, its importance to the survival of Egypt is legendary. Due to the Nile's reverse flow, Upper Egypt is south (represented by the lotus) and Lower Egypt is north (represented by the papyrus.) We highly recommend the book River of the Gods by Candice Millard about the search for the source of the Nile. Non-fiction that reads like a thriller.
Fun fact: We see so many unfinished occupied houses without roofs. Why? Because no roof, no real estate tax.
Luxor's population is approximately 320,000. They enjoy special status as the "real Egyptians." 65 percent of all Egyptian treasures of antiquity are found in Luxor. This represents 32 percent of all the treasures of antiquity in the whole world. Wow! Even more amazing is that 68 percent of what is estimated to still exist has not yet been discovered. Our tour guide said he remembers eating at many restaurants in Luxor that are gone because the earth they sat on was concealing the Avenue of the Sphinxes or other antiquities and has since been excavated.
Even small villages have multiple mosques. All the women we saw are dressed devoutly in full burqa. Egyptians love to eat meat on Thursdays year round. Lots of pop-up butchers.
Here's 7000 years of history compressed into a virtual thumb drive:
The history of Egypt is broken down into dynasties. This really means periods, not specifically ties to royal dynasties as we understand them.
Pre-dynastic Egypt of 7000 years ago was a grassland coming out of the Ice Age. It got progressively drier until only the Nile River Valley supported life.
Dynasties 1 - 3 represent the "Early Period" starting 5000 years ago. The first Pharaoh was King Minie who united the two "countries" of Egypt into one.
Dynasties 3-7 began at the end of the third dynasty around 2,500 BC with King Joser. This marked the beginning of the "Old Kingdom." It was also known as the "Pyramid Period" and was based in Giza.
The 8th - 10th dynasties, from 2500-2200 BC, represented the first of several "Intermediate Periods" marked by inter family fights and invasions that weakened Egypt.
Dynasties 10 -15, from 2200 - 1800 BC, were known as the "Middle Kingdom." It was based in Amarna.
The 16th - 17th dynasties from 1800-1150 BC represented another "Intermediate Period," when Egypt was weak. This was the time when the Hyksos tribes invaded Egypt from Asia.
The 18th dynasty, from 1520 BC started the "New Kingdom." This was considered the Golden Age of Egypt and encompassed the 18th-20th dynasties. This period ended in 1200 BC.
Another "Intermediate Period, Dynasties 21 and 22, lasted 200 years. 70 kings ruled Egypt together for 70 days trying to contain the conflicts until 1000 BC.
During these conflicts, Egyptian Kings captured Libyan and Nubian tribesmen and forced them to be soldiers. Ironically, this gave rise to the Libyan Dynasties, 23-24, for 250 years up until 750 BC. Give a guy a sword and teach him how to use it and eventually he'll use it on you!
Along the same lines, Dynasties 25-27 were dynasties with Nubian Pharaohs.
Dynasties 28-30 are considered the "Late Intermediate Period," which suffered many invasions by the Persians who ruled Egypt from 750 BC - 332 BC. This is known, appropriately, as the Persian Age.
In 332 BC Alexander the Great from Greece said to the Egyptians, "I will save you from the Persians." He ruled Egypt from 332 BC - 323 BC. Alexander founded Alexandria (after himself of course) and created there a master library in Greek, which attracted scholars from the entire empire. This marked the end of Dynastic Egypt, the end of the Pharaohs, and the beginning of the Greco-Roman period in Egypt. The Greeks had 13 King Ptolemys and one lady Pharaoh - the famous Cleopatra (who was actually Cleopatra #7). The Greek period lasted for 180 years. See below for why the Greek period ended....or read about it in your copy of the Rosetta Stone.
The Roman period began with Mark Antony in 117 BC and lasted for 365 years. When the Romans ruled they defaced all the monuments of the Pharaohs. In 42 AD, Saint Mark (no relation to Mark Antony) brought Christianity to Egypt because he and other followers of Jesus were persecuted by the still polytheist Romans. Egypt was a Coptic Christian country from 41 AD - 641 AD while still a part of Roman Empire. Between the last Roman King in 280 AD and Ottoman rule from 1778-1980, Egypt was ruled by a succession of Royal Muslim Families, mostly from Iraq. The French briefly occupied Egypt from 1799 -1802 during which time they discovered and later deciphered the Rosetta Stone (more on this later) and the English defeated the French in Alexandria. Egypt was a British Protectorate from 1882 - 1952 with a sultanate. In 1952 King Farouk was king of Egypt and Sudan and the last King from the Ottoman time. He was deposed by the Egyptian military, in a revolution led by Nasser. Muhammad Naguib, whose mother was from Sudan, was Egypt's first president, but only served a few months before being arrested by Gama Abdul Nasser, who "served" as Egypt's president from 1956-1970. Sudan was so furious about the ouster of Naguib that they seceded. From 1952 - 1970 Nasser, a "hidden" dictator, was kept in power with military support. Nasser expelled all the Jews and nationalized their businesses as well as the Suez Canal, which resulted in a war in 1956. We strongly recommend the book Out of Egypt by Andre Aciman for more on this subject. When Nasser died of a heart attack, Anwar Sadat became president of Egypt from 1971-1981. When Sadat was assassinated, 1981-2011 Hosni Mubarak was president from 1981-2011. He was called a "modern pharaoh." Mohamed Morsi was president for two years. Abdul Farrah El-Sisi is currently president since 2014. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi was just in the news for cutting a secret deal with Putin to produce missiles for Russia.
Phew!
One of Napoleon's soldiers, Pierre Bouchard, discovered the Rosetta Stone during the French Campaign of 1798 - 1801. In it, Ptolemy V recorded the revolution against his father Ptolemy IV who for the first time imposed taxes on the Egyptian people. Prior to that Egyptians only made offerings.
Ptolemy V recorded these travails, which effectively ended the Greek period in Egypt, in three languages: hieroglyphics, Demotic (the Egyptian language during Greek times, and Latin. Using the Rosetta Stone, Jean-Francois Champollion was able to translate the hieroglyphic alphabet in 1822. The Rosetta Stone now sits in the British Museum in London where we plan to view it in May.
Egyptians are trying to reclaim their antiquities including the Rosetta Stone, the Obelisk on the Place de La Concorde (Ramses II) in Paris, and Cleopatra's Needle (Tutmoses) in Hyde Park, London. Your thoughts?
Two Sea Days coming up and Egypt was such a rich experience that we will spread our reporting over three days. Stay tuned for Karnak, The Valley of the Kings, and The Valley of the Queens.
