Trip to Ancient Egypt

This weekend we went to Luxor, which is the location of the ancient city of Thebes and where all the Ancient Egypt sites are. We took an overnight train to get there from Cairo and spent most of the first day laying around by the hotel pool on the roof. From our rooftop perch we had a great view of the Nile and the Temple of Luxor. Our various teachers had laid a pretty heavy reading load on us for the trip (which for some reason, I don’t mind) and I spent a lot of the day relaxing and reading.

On Saturday, we began our two-day tour experience, and went to the Valley of the Kings. This is the site of 140 something tombs of Pharaohs and family. We were able to go into three of them, Ramses II, Ramses III, and Ramses IX. All of the artifacts and treasures had been removed from the tombs but the walls were still beautifully painted with scenes from Ancient Egypt. Most of the painting centered on death and the afterlife and the greatness of the Pharaohs.

We then went to the Hedu Temple, which was the temple of Ramses III. As was the ancient Egyptian custom, Pharaohs were gods and their temples were extravagant. The palace was adjoined. Most of the temples that we saw were fairly similar in that they had massive columns, a holiest of holies shrine, an altar for sacrifices to the Gods and many edifices and statues. The Hedu Temple was particularly interesting because it is widely believed that Ramses III is the Pharaoh from the Bible. If that is true, then that temple and palace would be the setting for all the visits from Moses and Aaron, the staff turning into a snake and the Let my People Go story. Pharaoh would have watched all the plagues from this site as well. Seeing this also gives a little more clarity on why the Pharaoh was so reluctant to let the Hebrew slaves go. They were building these temples and monuments. Our tour guide told about how long and how hard it was to build each temple with all the columns and stones being several hundred tons. I think now I understand a little bit more about why Pharaoh was so hardened to the idea of losing his slaves.

The next day we visited the temple of Karnak and the Temple of Luxor. Both were once again, extremely impressive and architectural marvels. What amazed me about everything that we saw, was just how much had survived since 1500 BC (when most of all this was built). There is a lot of hieroglyphic writings all over the walls, statues of Gods and Pharaohs’ and many of the structures are completely intact. This is a tribute to the solid stone that it was built from and the amazing quality of craftsmanship that was employed.

After a couple of days of tours, a day and some evenings by the pool, and a thorough amazement for ancient Egypt we headed home to Cairo by overnight train. We have a day to relax and get fully prepared for classes again (which is hours of reading!).

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