Day Four: Luxor, Karnak

April 21st, 2008

Super early in the morning on day four we met our Abercrombie and Kent rep in the hotel lobby and were transferred to Cairo airport for a flight to Luxor, in the south. As soon as we landed we met our NEW Abercrombie and Kent rep, along with our new Egyptologist, and we piled into a van and drove to the Temple of Karnak on the East Bank of the Nile.

The Temple of Karnak is one of those places I think everyone has to see if they go to Egypt, because it was THE temple back in the day - the one all the pharoahs wished to leave their mark on. So it's huge, I mean HUGE. Bigger than Notre Dame cathedral. Each pharoah added something, an obelisk or statues or new buildings...

Dedicated to the god Amun, it's famous for its great hypostyle hall, its still-full sacred lake, the colossus of Ramses II and the Obelisk of Hatshepsut. I spent a lot of time wandering around in ruins in Egypt last week and the truth is, most of the temples are very similar to each other - Sandy and I call it Alta Fjord syndrome - you can become so used to beauty and majesty when it is all you see that it stops affecting you emotionally. It's hard now for me to recall my visceral reaction to this first temple. Mostly I just remember the HEAT! It absolutely flattens you. The egyptologists stroll from patch of shade to patch of shade in the lee of the broken walls and columns and the tourists scurry after them across the sunny ground like cockroaches trying to get out of the light before a boot comes down.

And I remember feeling really sad - generations of different religions and cultures have traveled through these places, changing them - defacing them - destroying the images of the gods that were not their gods out of pique or fear. But in places there are the faces of the gods they missed - and they are beautiful. Anyone must regret that reminder of what has been lost...

The first thing you see is a long guarding line of ram-headed sphinxes, flanking the processional way to Karnak Temple. Between their paws stand small statues of Ramses II.

This honor guard was meant to run all the way from the Nile to the first pylons of the temple. You enter through the pylons into the first court; which is surrounded by columns with papyrus capitals. Most of the columns in the temples of Egypt have capitals ending in either papyrus or lotus flowers - the papyrus and lotus being symbols of the Upper and Lower Kingdoms of Egypt. In the first courtyard stands the lone surviving column of the Pavilion of Taharka - this thing is enormous. Behind the first pylons stand a pile of half-melted mudbricks - evidence of the mudbrick ramps they used to erect the temple and stand the columns up.

There is also a Colossus of Ramses II - a giant granite statue of Ramses the Great.

Behind him you can see the papyrus capitals of the columns. Then there is the Great Hypostyle Hall. There aren't any words big enough to describe it so pictures will have to do.

In total there are 134 standing columns in the Great Hypostyle Hall, each 23 meters tall. Remaining also are two obelisks, one built by Tutmose I and the other by his daughter, the queen Hatshepsut - Egypt's most successful female pharoah.

Hatshepsut is an interesting story. She ruled for three years as regent for her very young step-son. Then evidently, with an acquired taste for power, she dispensed with the pretense and had the high priest announce that she was the divine child of the gods, nursed by Hathor like the young god Horus, and fit to rule Egypt in her own right. She even went so far as to wear the false-beard of the pharoah. Her mummy was only recently identified, thanks to DNA testing.

There's a giant statue of a scarab on a pedestal - people circle it 7 times for luck.

I love scarabs! I love the idea of the giant dung beetle pushing the sun across the sky - planting it at night in the ground or in the mouth of Nut or whatever. Fantastic.

Next to the scarab is the sacred lake - all the temples were connected to the Nile by underground pipes and there was always a sacred lake where the pharoah could purify himself before entering the temple. The one at Karnak is special because it's still full.

After we left Karnak, we traveled back to the cruise ship for lunch, and then boarded a motor boat to travel to the West Bank of the Nile to visit the Necropolis of Thebes - the Valley of the Queens, the Kings, and the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut known now as Deir El Bahari.

I'll write about that later!