Thanksgiving Break, Whoo!: Day 1

My recent blogging frenzy is a direct result of deciding to stay up all night (well, sort of) prior to my 3 AM departure for Luxor on Tuesday morning. By the time we arrived at the airport in Luxor, I was seriously regretting this lapse in judgment, although the sweets Dan bought from el-Abd, an excellent bakery in Midan Taalat Harb, made the morning a little bit easier. Upon our arrival at the Sonesta Moon Goddess, we learned that our first day's schedule had been rearranged to allow us a few hours of sleep prior to our first excursion, an announcement which endeared our tour guide to us for life.

After four hours of blissful, healing rest, we enjoyed a huge buffet lunch (and some LE12 Coca-Colas) and set out on motor boats for the west bank to tour the Colossus of Memon, the Temple of Hatshepsut, the Valley of the Kings, and the Temple of Luxor. I am still in awe that we managed to cram all of that into a single day, and without feeling like we had insufficient time at any of the monuments.

The Colossus of Memon consists of two seated statues of Amenhotep III, the last remains of his funerary temple. They are really tall, and not particularly well preserved. Needless to say, it was not that exciting.

Our second stop was the Temple of Hatshepsut, a funerary temple for the female pharaoh. Even at a distance, the temple is quite impressive - the lone man-made structure rising out of the desert cliffs - but the history and the power struggle underlying the temple, and Hatshepsut's reign itself, are even more amazing.

Hatshepsut dedicated the temple to Amun, the sun god, in an attempt to secure the legitimacy of her reign. Most temples of the New Kingdom period (all the monuments we saw on this tour were New Kingdom or Greco-Roman) contain a room known as a mummesi, or birth room, which depicts the pharaoh being born out of the union between the queen and the god Amun, thus suggesting that the pharaoh is of divine birth. Although Hatshepsut was not the first female to rule Egypt as pharaoh, political turmoil surrounding her reign most likely led her to feel that such an assertion of her divine right to power was necessary.

Hatshepsut's temple is only a short boat-and-bus ride away from the Valley of the Kings, through a winding road carved out of the surrounding mountains. After a brief orientation at the visitor's center, where we saw this sweet model of the valley's layout, we hopped the tourist tram to the entrance. Caprill and I sprung for the LE50 tickets to see Tutankhamun's tomb, in addition to our regular three-tomb ticket, and I'm definitely not sorry that I spent the extra money (even with the declining dollar).

We first ventured up to the tomb of Thutmosis III, Hatshepsut's step-son and successor. I say up, since after a brisk walk through the valley to get to the tomb, one must climb up the equivalent of two flights of rather rickety metal stairs to get to the entrance, and then descend the equivalent of three flights to get into the tomb itself. And let me tell you, it was totally worth it. The paintings in the tombs - all of them - are so much better preserved than I ever would have imagined possible, and Thutmosis III's is considered one of the best examples of funerary text art in existence. After that, Caprill and I hit Ramses I and Ramses III - where, LE18 later we had some photos inside the tomb (below) - and finally, Tutankhamun.

Our guide, Dr. Kareem, had warned that for LE50 we might be disappointed by Tut's tomb, but I thought that I'd be more likely disappointed later if I didn't go - or at the very least, I'd rather regret the money. I definitely didn't. Information about the reign of the Pharaoh and the layout and significance of the tomb is posted outside each entrance; at Tut's, they also had those classic black-and-whites from Carter and Carnovan's expedition. I breezed past these on the way in, but was surprised on the way out at how clearly I could tell exactly where all the stuff I'd seen at the Egyptian Museum so many weeks before had once been strewn.

We brought up the rear coming out of the Valley, and made our last stop of the evening at the Temple of Luxor. Luxor was one of a pair of temples - the other being Karnak - dedicated to the trio of Amun, Mut and Chons. During annual fertility festivals, statues of Amun and Mut would be brought downriver from Karnak for visitation. Carvings outside depict the various military victories of Ramses II and Amenhotep III, and inside show these pharaohs revering their gods.

Part II: Karnak and Adventures on the River Nile.