[Seth] Hot Times in Egypt

When the temperature is displayed in Celsius, we Americans sometimes get confused about how hot or cold it is.  So when we saw that the temperature was going to be between 44-47 degrees Celsius while we were in Egypt we knew it was going to be warm but we did not really understand how warm.  As it turns out, 47 degrees Celsius is like standing on the surface of the sun -- for those of us that remain challenged by the metric system, it is about 116 degrees Fahrenheit. 

But we only had a few days in Egypt, so like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (I know, I know, they were in Babylon not Egypt, but I promise the analogy is accurate), we ventured forth to visit the sites of the ancient Egyptians along the Nile.

Even the camels were unhappy with the heat -- at the stepped pyramid in Saqqara

Kate on a camel in Giza

After spending a couple of days in Cairo, we flew south the Abu Simbel.  Abu Simbel is on the shores of Lake Nasser that was created when Egypt built the Aswan High Dam.  The lake was going to submerge a number of Egyptian temples, so in an incredible feat of engineering, two of the temples (temple to Ramses the Great and temple to Nerfertari, his wife) were moved up the bank to a spot above the lake. 

While it is not totally clear why Ramses decided to build these temples so far south on the Nile (there is literally nothing here), the speculation is that he did it to intimidate the Nubians (modern day Sudanese) that were thinking of invading Egypt.  Considering the scale of the statues outside, the carvings under Ramses's feet of his conquered enemies, and the countless paintings inside the temple of Ramses smiting his enemies I think it would probably have worked.

Cannon outside Ramses II temple at Abu Simbel

 Next we headed downriver to visit sites in Aswan, Edfu and Luxor. 

Phillae Temple (dedicated to Isis) from the Ptolemaic dynasty

Light show at Edfu temple (dedicated to Horus)

Egyptian night on the boat we were traveling on -- Beal girls were looking great since there was AC

One of the highlights was visiting the Valley of the Kings where the Pharaohs of 18th, 19th, and 20th dynasties were buried.  We were able to visit King Tut's tomb that was famously discovered intact by Howard Carter in 1922.  When Carter was asked by his patron Lord Carnarvon (side note, Carnarvon owned Highclere Castle that is the stand-in for Downton Abbey, and died shortly thereafter which gave rise the legend of the Mummy's Curse), what he could see when peered into the tomb for the first time he just said "wonderful things."  Well, the tomb itself which now only contains the mummy of King Tut as everything else is in the Cairo Museum was the least impressive tomb that we visited.

Just like Howard Carter, we saw wonderful things in the Valley of the Kings -- just not in this tomb which was relatively small and poorly decorated

The most impressive tomb that we visited was that of Ramses V and VI.  It was lavishly decorated and was 116 meters long descending into the rock (in comparison, King Tut's tomb was only about 30 meters long).   At the bottom is a double burial chamber for the father and son who were both Pharaohs. 

Tomb of Ramses V and VI

We then finished our visit to Egypt by stopping at the temples of Karnak and Luxor.  Happily the temperature had now dropped to about 41 degrees celsius (or 105 degrees celsius) and we had some cloud cover.  

Karnak, by some measures, it the largest religious complex in the world and contains the Hipostyle hall which has to be seen to be believed as it has 134 massive columns (some of which have now fallen) that were up to 70 feet high.  It also contains many (and I mean many) statutes of Ramses II which I suppose is ok since he was responsible for finishing the Hipostyle hall.

Kate and Cannon hanging with statue of Ramses II

Columns in the Hipostyle Hall

Setting sun at Karnak

Two of the 4 remaining obelisks in Egypt are at Karnak temple.

Luxor temple, while not as big as Karnak, was also impressive and at this site are religious structures built by the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Coptic Christians, and a modern operating mosque. 

Temple of Luxor (there were originally two obelisks and the missing one is now in Place de la Concorde in Paris)

Karnak and Luxor were connected by a 3 kilometer long road that was lined with sphinx statues that are still being excavated today. 

Avenue of the Sphinx

On our final night, we had a belly dancer on the boat.  Since it was Ramadan, the law in Egypt forbids a belly dancer from actually showing her belly which I suppose means that we just had a dancer on our boat the last night.  She gave Grace and Cannon lessons on how to dance.  Kate and I deferred since we didn't want to show up everyone with our mad belly dancing skills. 

There was a lot of hip shaking going on . . .

We are now off to Morocco.