Luxor: West Bank

We arrived in Luxor late Friday night but without a hitch. We’re staying in a very quaint bed and breakfast called Mara’s hotel. It’s owned by an Irish woman who has decided that Egyptian history is her calling in life. She welcomes visitors into her hotel and tells them the stories about pharaohs and temples that an Egyptologist wouldn’t tell you…some of which are quite outrageous. But the hotel is a nice change of pace from Cairo and the constant “service” I was receiving at the hotel in the city.

I’ve realized that I don’t care for the over-the-top kind of customer service that one receives in a 5 star hotel. I really don’t like other people cleaning my room, insisting on picking up my bags, opening up doors, or taking away my breakfast in order to wipe off the yogurt that has spilled along the side of the bowl. All this stuff really stresses me out and I didn’t realize it until today when I left Cairo and arrived in a calm bed and breakfast; I just felt at ease right away…no one’s following me around and trying to “help” me…I can do it myself THANK YOU VERY MUCH! But seriously, I’m not that kind of person and I have a limit of how much “comfort” I can really handle before I get annoyed with the person for treating me like a child. I mean, I just travelled across the world with all this luggage and managed splendidly.

The B&B is very nice. They bring you breakfast to your suite at the time you request. Mara arranges all your tours with a business that she trusts and reputable guides, so you don’t ever have to pick up a phone or do any guess work….this is good since none of us in our party speak any Arabic.

Saturday morning we go up early to see five sites. The Valley of the Kings, Al-Deir Al-Bahari temple, Habu Temple, Ramses Moses Temple, and Deir al-Madina. The Valley of the Kings is a huge mountain valley in a desert where generations of Pharaohs have been buried ( the famous King Tut is kept there). We were not allowed to bring cameras into the burial grounds because the ancient paintings on the walls could be ruined by over exposure to camera flashes. So I took notes! We visited the tombs of Horemheb, Set I and Ramses III.

The afterlife was so important to ancient Egyptians that as soon as a Pharaoh came into power, they started carving out his tomb. The Valley of the Kings has 62 tombs of Pharaohs, and archaeologists believe there are more that haven’t been found. Most of the pictures in the tombs had nothing to do with the Pharaoh’s actual life, but instead told stories about what he would experience after death and what gods he would meet along his journey. Most likely, any pictures you saw of Egypt in text books growing up were of these tombs. The Gods that seemed to be of the most significance along our journey were:

Anubis—God of mummification
Hathor—God of Love and pleasure, represented a cow or a woman with cow horns and a sun disk on her head.
Horus—Falcon God of the sky and son of Isis and Osiris
Isis—God of magic and protector of her “brother-husband” Soiris
Nut—Sky goddess—she’s one of my favorites because she swallows the sun each evening to give birth to each morning
Osiris—God of regeneration, ruler of the underworld
Ra--Supreme sun God—other gods merge with him to enhance their powers

Egyptians would spend years digging out and decorating them. The tombs, whether deep or long, went far into the mountain. If a pharaoh died young, often the tomb was not finished for him; this is what happened with King Tut and most likely the only reason that his body was found intact. King Tuthmosis (King Tut) died at 19 years old and his tomb was not nearly finished, so they swapped his tomb for one that was significantly less glamorous, belonged to an Egyptian noble, but was ready. There have been many instances of grave robbers in the Valley of the Kings, and because King Tut’s grave was so small, it was easily hidden from both excavators and robbers alike. He is the only Pharaoh intact in the Valley of the Kings for this reason. The rest have been moved to the Egyptian museum and others.

Why rob a dead body? The mummies were sent to the afterlife with riches both on their bodies and within it. They also had huge gold masks placed on their faces. So if you could find an ancient Pharaoh mummy, you hit the jackpot! Mummification was just used to keep the body well preserved. They believed that after the body was dead, the soul would come looking for it eventually to reunite. Obviously, the soul would prefer to have the body well kept once it returned.

Here’s the recipe for a good mummy!

Leave in desert for 30 days to dry out
Remove brain from the nose or the back of the skull
Take the internal organs out of the body through the side of the stomach—place in jars for safe keeping!
Let soak in salt water
Stuff with riches and amulets—place some on top of the body as well.
Wrap in white linen
Place large gold mask on his face (so his soul can find him!)
Place mummified body in a small box—preferably a wooden box painted with gold.
Then put that box in a slightly larger box and repeat 5 more times. The last box is the sarcophagus.

Most people were buried and mummified this way—even if it wasn’t as decorative. During our trip we visited both the valley of the nobles and the valley of the artisans, Deir al-madina (the people who worked on the tombs and the temples in Luxor).

Our group also visited two spectacular temples Habu temple and Hatshepsut temple. Habu Temple, although it does not have a grandiose story, does look like something out of this world. It was started by Hatshepsut , but she died before she could finish it; it was finished by Ramses III (btw, there are like a million Ramses. Ramses II built the most temples, but he comes later). Hatshepsut was the second wife of a Pharaoh; the first wife died leaving a son. When the Pharaoh died his son was too young to rule, so Hatshepsut was supposed to be an interim ruler until her stepson came of age. Of course, she became greedy and sent him off somewhere so that she could rule alone as queen. I don’t recall whether she died first or he came back first, but either way, you’ll notice that on her temple all pictures and carvings of her face have been scratched off—in some instances her entire body removed. When the stepson came back, he took over and was pissed! Her cartouche was also erased; a cartouche is the name of the Pharaoh in hieroglyphics….sort of like a signature stamp that they felt the need to put everywhere!

These temples (especially Habu) were absolutely breathtaking. I took a million pictures and still don’t think there’s any way to show the immensity of what I saw in those temples. The artwork goes onto the ceilings and the pillars, and it’s so detailed. Most of these temples were started by one Pharaoh and when the next one would come along, he or she would continue to expand it. They literally spent thousands of years building them and perfecting them. When you step into one you are immediately overwhelmed. I can only imagine how they must have looked in their own time.