A Tale of Three Villages

Today we got to experience and learn some things of daily life here on the West Bank that few tourists ever get to see. Jane (remember our lovely tour guide and hostess here at the flat) took us out to meet some friends in the area. She first took us to meet her friend Mohammed, a guide to the ancient sites, who lives in Old Gurna. We got to visit with him and his family (his mother, wife and four of his six children) at their 150 year-old family home that is built into the hillside at the Valley of the Nobles. His home is spacious and cheery with outdoor space and several rooms, including an ancient tomb! The tomb part of the house is used as a kitchen and for keeping their pigeons (a regular part of the Egyptian diet) and general storage. Mohammed gave us a tour of the house and his daughters served us shai (tea). We had a nice visit that was clouded only by the knowledge that within a week they will be evicted and their home will be destroyed.

The Egyptian government has been trying to remove the people from the village of Old Gurna since the 1930’s. The government claims that they are trying to protect the tombs and antiquities, but that is a bit hard to believe when you see the bulldozers (not a common or fine archaeological tool) they are using to tear down homes and tear up the hillside. Rather, it is suspected that the government would like to “clean up” this highly touristed area so that foreigners and tourists don’t have to see the poverty of the common people of Egypt. Even then the clean up never happens, and the evicted homes are left in piles of ruble and trash. It was so odd for us to sit in this 150+ year-old, soon to be demolished home, knowing that if such a thing existed back home in California, every effort would be made to preserve such a structure of antiquity. Here, not only is this community and its own unique history about to be destroyed, but the people have absolutely no say in the matter.

Mohammed knows more about ancient Egypt and archaeology than all of us put together and makes his living giving tours in his area. Now he and his family will be assigned to a new government house out in New Gurna. It is a fraction of the size of their present home and will have to do for the nine people that live together. (Definitely no room for pigeons or donkeys.) It is also several (maybe 5) kilometers from where Mohammed makes his living. Now he will have to walk that far every day or incur the added expense of finding transportation. Add to all this, the fact that New Gurna has a decidedly “government housing project” feel to it, and you have a very sad situation indeed.

After leaving Mohammed and his family, we headed over to New Gurna to meet a widow who, along with her son, is one of the first to occupy the new government housing. She had the “privilege” of being the showcase house and so was equipped with furniture when she moved in. Jane was relieved to find that she still has the furniture (unlike the nearby playground that was built for good publicity, but has already been torn down). Her house was clean, simple and small. The kitchen is so small that the refrigerator has to live in a bedroom. It is sufficient for two. Sardines for nine.

After leaving New Gurna, we stopped at the village of Hassan Fathy, a small development built in the forties and named after the famous Egyptian architect who designed and built the structures. This was the first attempt at providing alternate housing for the people of Old Gurna. He studied the family and village structures of Old Gurna in an attempt to design housing that made sense for the people. He used traditional materials (mud brick) and beautiful Nubian design that allowed for appropriate heat in winter and comfort and ventilation in summer. The homes have indoor and outdoor spaces, room for pigeons and space for living. He even designed a built-in platform for a bed that provided protection from scorpions via a trough of water that ran alongside. A young woman, whose grandfather was the first to move here in the forties, showed us around her home which doubles as a museum. Included in the design for this village were a mosque, a schoolroom and storefronts. Because the people of Old Gurna primarily make their living off the tourist trade, they needed a place to sell their wares to tourists. It was a brilliant design in every way except that the tourists didn’t stop here at this spot along the road to the Valley of the Kings. The government did nothing to recognize this new location and the tourist industry didn’t bother to take notice either. Very quickly, most of the families that moved to Hassan Fathy went back to Old Gurna, reoccupying their mostly demolished homes. This was where the business was. The schoolroom of Hassan Fathy may never have even been used! The people of Old Gurna continued on with continued pressure and persecution over the decades. Now it seems their time there on the hillside has really come to an end.

It’s easy to lose perspective in a place like this. When one sees the amazing structures and art of the Egyptians from three and four thousand years ago, the first century Roman ruins mixed in look funny and new. The graffiti of Champoleon from the early 1800’s hardly looks like history, and a 150 year-old home seems quite disposable. But, if we stop and think about how we view the short history of America or California, or I consider how attached I feel to our home that we’ve only lived in for 12 years, we begin to have a more human view on it all. Isn’t the history of Old Gurna, or the relatively short history of Hassan Fathy, and even the soon-to-be-history of New Gurna a story worth telling too? I think so. I’m sure Mohammed would agree.

Mohammed's Old Gurna Home
Have a look around Mohammed's beautiful home in Old Gurna.



Hassan Fathy Museum Video
This video tells of the life and work of Hassan Fathy and was put together by a family that live in one of the homes he built here near Al-Gezira about 60 years ago. You can contact them if you like at hassanfathymuseum@hotmail.com

Sarah Jane Loses Her First Tooth

And in the Hall of Festivals at Karnak no less. She’s been working on it for a while now. She found success today at Karnak! It was so exciting that she didn’t even wince (not to mention it was barely hanging on by a thread). We celebrated with chocolate (may help facilitate the loss of more in the future) at Hatshepsut’s Obelisk. It turns out that the Tooth Fairy visits Egypt as well and pays out in Egyptian Pounds with a pretty good exchange rate.

Where’s Willy?

Amen, Amen-Ra, and Min. Unabashedly these Egyptian gods morph and appear in the ithyphallic form over and over again throughout the Luxor region. Over the millennia modest-minded Christians and Muslims carved the business off of many of these reliefs. Some managed to escape this mutilation. This god is everywhere. Sometimes his hand is down, and all is well. But if his hand is up, so is his willy. It was meant to demonstrate the pharaoh’s potency in this life and the afterlife. I’m not sure how it worked out for the pharaoh, but for my kids, playing “Where’s Willy?” really helped them endure with great strength the long days of tromping through temples. One day while visiting Karnak we decided to have a competition. Leah, Sam, Sarah Jane, and Emma counted 92 willies. Now that’s potency!

Karnak: Supersize Me!

I guess I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into when we decided to visit this area of Egypt. In our local southwestern United States culture, Luxor is most commonly associated with a cheesy plasticized casino in Las Vegas. In my mind Luxor and Karnak were the same place. And maybe in a sense they were. People have lived in the area since prehistoric times. Temple structures were built here as early as the 3rd Dynasty (Old Kingdom). It’s kind of like the temples at the Karnak enclosure outgrew their real-estate, leaving pharaohs and the priesthood nowhere else to build. So they started building up other sites in the area and connecting them to Karnak. It was the religious power hub of the ancient world, growing in importance from the Middle Kingdom and reaching its apex in the New Kingdom.

Karnak is so huge that you could fit ten of the largest European cathedrals inside it. The enclosed area covers 1.6 square miles. Its temple to the principal god of the region, Amen-Ra, is the largest religious structure ever built. It is a bit like the proverbial “House that Jack built,” with each successive pharaoh adding on his or her own set of temples to their favorite gods. There is little rhyme or reason to the layout and it feels as though every square inch of this walled worship center is covered, sometimes several layers one on top of another, with temples and shrines. The wealth and power of the times cannot be overstated. During the New Kingdom, priests at the Temple of Amen had over 81,000 slaves and servants (about the population of the city of Santa Barbara), 421,000 head of cattle, 691,000 acres of farmland, and 65 cities. When Ramses III was pharaoh, the temple received over 70,000 pounds of gold and over 2,000,000 pounds of sliver. Dude! That’s a lot of baksheesh!

Two aspects of Karnak need to be mentioned specifically. The Hypostyle Hall was designed to look like an enormous papyrus pond, complete with Nile River water flowing across its floor in the summer months. The idea was to recreate the “primeval mound” of Egyptian mythology from which all of life began. There are 134(!) massive stone columns carved and decorated to create this marshland. The problem is that of perspective. You need to imagine yourself the size a mouse in comparison to a bundle of life-sized papyrus. The room was built for giants. We all agreed that we could easily spend the entire day here just gazing around this room from the comfort of a reclining beach chair with an endless supply of shai.

The second standout piece was the obelisk of Hatshepsut. It stands just a short ways outside of the Hypostyle Hall and can be seen from just about any place in Karnak. It is one solid piece of granite standing 97 feet tall and weighing over 323 tons. When it was finished she had it sheathed in electrum, a mixture of gold and silver. Can you imagine the brilliance of this piece in the never-ending sunshine of this area? There used to be two of these. After Hatshepsut’s death, her successor Tuthmosis III, tried to hide her accomplishment by having these beautiful obelisks walled up in stone. I, for one, am glad that he did. By covering them in stone he helped preserve them. Well at least one of them. The other was later destroyed and scattered around the Karnak grounds.

There is so much to see here that I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking. Sam said it well again on this day. “It’s even more too much! But I think I’m getting used to it.”

Karnak Temple

Luxor Temple

Luxor Temple and the temple complex at Karnak are the two East Bank sites in Luxor. We visited Luxor Temple first and, given how overwhelmed we were, we are so glad that we did. When we went to Karnak a few days later, our minds were blown even more! (At least we were a bit more prepared for Egyptian sensory overload.) I don’t feel like I can fairly communicate how amazing these structures are. I think Sam said it well (over and over again that day at Luxor Temple) when he said, “It’s too much! I think I feel sick from how amazing it is!” We all walked around agog at the size, beauty, quantity and uniqueness of each part of this ancient Temple.

Before even entering the temple itself, there is the Avenue of the Sphinxes, a pathway with sphinxes on either side that leads up to the Temple entrance. Today, around 70 sphinxes stand along a few hundred meters, giving us a good idea of the former glory of this path that used to have 1000 sphinxes stretching all the way to Karnak 2.5 kilometers away. Before the sphinxes, it was a canal connecting Karnak with Luxor Temple. An obelisk made for Ramses II stands outside the first pylon (first wall of the Temple). There used to be a second obelisk, but that one has been in France since the 1830’s when Napoleon’s wife asked, “If you go to Thebes, do send me a little obelisk.” Between the sphinxes and the obelisk stands a small chapel to the Roman Goddess Serapis. Hadrian erected this in the 2nd century when the Romans occupied the Temple grounds as an outpost. The Roman columns of this small chapel and the clearly Roman statue look kind of “cute” next to the grandeur of all the Egyptian art and architecture. Back over by the Obelisk there are also some pretty amazing statues of Ramses II. And then there are the carvings and reliefs outside of the first pylon too. We hadn’t even entered the temple yet and our heads had begun to throb.

Just inside you can see how a mosque has been built into the ruins of this temple. We visited this small mosque of Abu al-Haggag. It is entered from outside the temple complex and has a wonderful view down into the temple courtyard. The mosque was built in the 14th century, and illustrates well how these sites can be layered with so much history.

Passing through the different halls of the this temple complex, we were continually in awe of such well preserved colors here, massive columns there, intricately detailed reliefs in yet another place. We couldn’t believe the story of the cache of some of Egypt’s most well preserved statues being found under the floor of the sun court. (We were able to see these amazing pieces in the Luxor Museum several days later.) The kids enjoyed games of finding their favorite gods among the carvings. Each time we passed into a new room or hall, we were stepping a little further back in time. This was a temple that was built and added onto by several pharaohs and even Alexander the Great and then the Romans over the course of more than 2000 years.

At the back of the temple complex, in one of the oldest sections, we were able to see some amazing sections of “newer” Roman art depicting the emperor cult. These were scenes you could picture seeing in Rome, but something I had not expected here in Egypt. When they occupied this temple, the Romans made this section a place for them to worship their own gods. We could see how they had applied a layer of plaster right over the ancient art and hieroglyphics and then painted their own gods and worship scenes.

We enjoyed the layers of history -one on top of the other, and the discussion that inspired. Sam only saw the Roman work as a defacing of the Egyptians’. It didn’t make sense to him why there were archeologists involved in restoring that bit of Roman artwork. He thought they would do well to scrape it all off to reveal again the original Egyptian art. Great discussions about what makes one piece of art more valuable than another. Good to ponder the merits of preservation or restoration. But ouch, our heads hurt!

Luxor at Night

Tombs and Temples Part 1

Cairo has the pyramids, and aside from King Tut, they seem to get the lion’s share of the attention when one reads about Egypt. But here in Luxor it’s the tombs and temples that tell the story. In comparison to the temples, the pyramids seem so simple; I can almost grasp the magnitude of their construction and function. But with the temples and tombs I’m left with a bigger picture of the complexity of this ancient culture. The sheer number and size of them overshadow my memories of the pyramids. This was a grand place and time in Egypt’s history. For our first excursion out Jane took us to one lesser-known pharaoh and two noble’s tombs. We later visited the temple of Seti I.

We taxied our way over to the Valley of the Kings, and instead of heading up the well touristed canyon of the famous boy pharaoh, we drove further back a lonely, desolate wash to the tomb of Ay, the man who became pharaoh after Tut. Along the way we picked up the tomb guardian (the man with the key) and a tourist-police officer for our protection. The terrain here is amazing; I would visit here just to look at the rocks and hillsides. At a bird’s eye view it’s easy to see these canyons as old washes. In a past geologic age (and now when it rains once in every fifteen years or so) huge quantities of water must have run down this mountainside. Judging by the looks of the land now, you would never guess that water ever touched this soil. It looks a bit like a mix between Death Valley, Bryce Canyon, and the Moon. It is a place of death.

Ay’s tomb is at the back of the wash and is reached by walking down a series of steep stairs about 130 feet into the side of the mountain. The nice thing about visiting this tomb is that it is almost identical to Tutankhamen’s tomb but without the crowds. We had the tomb to ourselves for about 45 minutes. Jane talked us through the story of Ay’s brief pharaohship. It is a great story, one that I have been following over the years. Tut was only nine when he became pharaoh. His father, Akhenaten had changed the religious focus to the worship of Aten, and in so doing offended the religious establishment and power structures. Ay, who was an official in Akhenaten’s court and uncle to young Tut, no doubt held great sway on the young pharaoh’s decisions. Tut’s main accomplishment during his reign was restoring Egypt’s traditional religion. I don’t believe this was Tut’s decision. Tut was born Tutankhaten not Tutankhamen. His name was changed after his father’s death and the re-establishment of the traditional beliefs. I may be totally off, but I believe that Tut was an Aten worshipper to the end. There are many images of him bathing in the rays of Aten from his royal treasures; even his thrown has him and his sister/wife, Ankhesenamun (born Ankhesenaten), enjoying the presence of Aten. At any rate, it is believed that Ay more than likely killed or had Tut killed. In order to gain the thrown, he needed to marry Ankhesenamun. Apparently she was not too keen on this and wrote letters to the Hittite king (a long time enemy to Egypt) asking for him to send her a prince to marry. In the letter she wrote that she was loath to marry a commoner, a pretty clear reference to Ay who was not a royal and his intentions. After a couple of letters the Hittite king sent a son to marry Ankhes, but he was murdered on the way somewhere along the border of Egypt. There is further evidence that Ay married Ankhes, a ring showing both their cartouches together. Shortly after the Hittite letters all reference to Ankhes is lost. When Ay dies three years after the death of Tut, it is Ay’s first wife Tiy who is painted on the walls of this tomb. In order to gain the thrown Ay may have murdered Tut, the Hittite prince and Ankhesenamun. My son Sam thinks that Ay may have murdered Akhenaten as well. Power, corruption, murder, intrigue, sounds like a great novel. (Photos of tombs in the Valley of the Kings is strictly forbidden. These photos from Ay's tomb are from the Tour Egypt website, a great resource on Egyptian culture and history)

On this day we also visited the tombs of Roy and Shuroy. Both of these are in an area known as Tombs of the Nobles. Shuroy was chief of the incense burners in Karnak during the 19th dynasty. His tomb was built for he and his wife Wernefer. It contained examples of apprenticeship painting: simple, unfinished or misshapen pictures, some left in their rough draft red paint or with little detail. Next door was the tomb of Roy, a royal scribe to King Horemeheb (18th dynasty after Ay) This tiny tomb was also meant for both he and his wife, Nebtawy. The ceiling is not smooth like those of the kings, but is rolling (it’s not easy smoothing out solid limestone) and painted like a carpet. There are many interesting scenes of the couple from their daily life as well as preparing for their journey into the afterlife.


The last place we visited this day was the Memorial Temple of Sety I. Sety was father to Ramses II and unlike his famous pharaonic son appears to have been rather humble. Of the numerous shrines dedicated to gods in this complex, the shrine to Sety is relatively small, in the back, and only accessible by exiting the main structure. By this placement, perhaps Sety is making a statement as to his importance in the greater picture of life. It was here that we reinacted (with costumes even! -thanks Jane) what it may have been like for the Pharaoh Sety I to greet visitors at his window of appearances. I got to be Pharaoh and Megan, my queen. Jane was the royal handmaiden, Leah a Hittite princess, Sam a royal keeper of the zoo, Sarah Jane a priestess of Amun, and Emma (what do you know?) the Barbarian Chief! These are all scenarios that really happened and can be found recorded at other temples in Luxor. In ancient times, a canal connected this temple to the Nile. During a celebration known as the Beautiful Festival of the Valley processions traveled this canal by boat across the Nile to Karnak a couple of miles away. Like many of the temples around here there is a hypostyle hall (a hall with papyrus bundle stone columns simulating a papyrus thicket - the center of the Egyptian creation story). While there are many incredible reliefs, the site is suffering from water erosion at an alarming rate. Farmers can and do farm year round; this has raised the water table tremendously. The absorption of water and salts into the limestone is easily visible. While we were there we witnessed several register pieces in the dirt around the pedestal of a sphinx that had eroded recently. Sad. Something needs to be done. Maybe regulation of agriculture in areas of ancient sites? Development of better water drainage in these areas? Difficult questions to address since so many in this area make their living on agriculture.

Donkey Day! Luxor's West Bank

We are currently staying in Luxor. To be more exact, we are staying on Luxor’s West Bank just west of Al-Gezira at Flats in Luxor. It is a great place, which means a large, clean, well-equipped apartment, patios, a pool, pool table, and the added bonus of great local advice from owner Jane Akshar. Jane is a Brit who fell in love with Egypt and an Egyptian, married the latter and now runs the best flats on the West Bank. It has been great getting to know her. Her knowledge and relationships with the locals are priceless.

We took Jane’s advice for our first day out and toured the areas overlooking the West Bank. This was a three-hour tour (no Gilligan’s Island singing please) riding on DONKEYS! Donkeys are cool, smooth riding, compact workhorses - I mean work-donkeys. Everybody here uses them to pull carts and travel about. It seems every yard/field has at least one. Our kids loved them. Yeah, the vistas on our ride were breathtaking, but the last three days have been filled with discussions as to whether or not we could have a donkey in our backyard at home.

Jane arranged for us to mount our trusty steeds on the road just outside our flat. Emma rode with Megan, but the rest of us had our own beasts of burden. We trotted on down the rode past farmland full of sugar cane and some sort of alfalfa for animal feed. We passed through a bit of village and again traveled through farmland. It’s really green where the Nile used to annually water and fertilize the land. Now unfortunately, since the Aswan Dam, the watering and fertilizing of the land is “man regulated” and the farmland is perpetually green. I will try to explain in a future blog why this is so unfortunate.

Our first vista was of the Colossi of Memnon, two enormous enthroned statues of Amenhotep III that are about 60 feet tall. They look pretty lonely. The huge funerary temple that once surrounded these seated figures has dissolved over the years in the moisture of the Nile’s flooding. Turns out most of it was built of mud brick and sandstone, and the centuries of Nile inundations eroded it away. It was also robbed several times by his successors who reused the good parts. Now these massive statues act as greeters to the temples and tombs of the West Bank.

Our road from here gently tilted uphill, and we entered instant desert. We headed off-road up a trail that skirts the rim of canyons of some of the most impressive sites on the West Bank. Our first view was of Gurna, a colorful old village of people who have lived among the tombs for centuries. These people are the guardians of the tombs of the area. The Egyptian government is attempting to relocate them. It is an ugly political mess. When I learn more about it I’ll write more.

Our donkeys continued up the hill passing the Deir al-Medina (ruins of workmen’s village) to our right and the Valley of the Queens to our left. We couldn’t really see much of the valley, but the remains of the workmen’s village were really interesting. We will go back there to explore.

Our donkeys continued to climb. They really are amazing creatures. At the top of the ridge our trail skirted the cliffs above Hatshepsut’s temple. The views from here were breathtaking both in the grandeur of the temple as well as in the several hundred foot drop of the shear cliff just inches away from our donkeys’ hooves. The rock formations here are beautiful as well, a literal moonscape of rock, sand, and cliffs. We dismounted our donkeys and waddled around about like old cowboys to give our donkeys a break on the descent.

Our guide led the donkeys on down the trail ahead of us. To our left was the Valley of the Kings. We didn’t know it at the time, but it was there. With no signs to point the way, lots of trails to follow, and being told by our guide to take our time, we soon became lost. Not really lost, just way off track. We continued down, sort of, and eventually were found wandering way off track by our guide. He was getting a bit worried about how tardy we were and went looking for us.

We stopped for refreshments just below Hatshepsut’s temple, participated in a little alabaster haggling, and began the journey home with the Ramesseum (Ramses II temple) on one side and the town of Old Gurna (tomb guardians) on the other. From here we took a shortcut through the sugar cane fields and farmhouses to bring us back home. It was an incredible way to get an idea of how the area is all laid out.

Donkey Day! Luxor's West Bank

Slow Train to Luxor

On Saturday we took the train to Luxor, 400 plus kilometers (and ten-plus hours!) south of Cairo. Purchasing our tickets was an adventure in itself -challenging the language skills of both the woman at the ticket office and us. We came away knowing our time and date of departure, but a bit unsure of what train we’d end up with. We still don’t know what train we got! It was either first or second-class, but we’re hoping it was second and that we can book a 1st class train going back. The price was right though, at less than $8 per person.

We had amenities like seats that can recline a bit (and swivel when your neighbor puts his foot on the back of it) and windows with blinds and curtains that almost closed -and lots of vendors cruising the aisles with all manner of travel necessities like nail clippers, peanuts, and a plastic fish-on-a-string necklace. There was supposed to be AC, but that didn’t seem to pan out, so we were just thankful that it’s January and not July. They sell more tickets than seats, so it was a bit crowded. And I won’t do more than mention the bathroom - straight down to the tracks!

Thankfully we had a very sweet Egyptian family sitting behind us. They had four daughters and everyone was, once again, happy to give Emma all their attention. They saved the day on this epic ride. The mother must have played peek-a-boo from behind our seat for over an hour straight. The girls were all happy to listen and talk with Emma even though nobody understood the other. Emma took advantage of the opportunity to be a complete ham -all the way to Luxor. By the time we arrived, there were dozens of hugs and kisses to go around. Thank goodness for these sweet and friendly people. Sam and Sarah Jane still assert that they are glad Emma is in the family to deflect all the attention from them onto her. Most of the time, Emma likes it this way too.

Emma Makes New Friends