Luxor: Hell-adjacent???

Luxor became a major city starting with the 11th Dynasty, around 2050 BCE. Its height came around 1500 BCE and lasted about 400 years, encompassing the 18th, 19th, and 20th Dynasties.

The ancient Egyptians called it Waset, meaning “city of the sceptre.” The Greeks called it Thebes, and the Arabs named it Luxor (“palaces”).

A lot of Egyptian kings are buried here. Over the last two days it felt like maybe this was a shortcut to hell. Yesterday it hit 111 degrees Farenheit (43 Celsius). I don’t actually think the pharaohs believed in hell; I believe they expected to be reincarnated. But if they were wrong, this might well be the doorway to hell.

It’s Sunday morning as I write this. We flew here from Cairo on Friday and have visited a number of the important historic sites. We have one more site to visit before we leave Luxor later this morning.

I’ll give a quick rundown, since I’m behind and I don’t have much time before I have to get to breakfast, get packed, and be ready to go. And I know I won’t finish this morning. I will pick up wherever I leave off while we are sailing up the Nile this afternoon 

I’ll also limit this post to just a few photos, since I know internet on the boat will be slow. You can find the rest in my Google albums.

Luxor Temple

Our first stop, Friday evening, was Luxor Temple. Dating from around 1400 BCE, it’s one of two important temples on the east bank of the Nile. (The other, Karnak, is the one we are visiting this morning.) It’s actually just a short walk from our hotel, the Winter PalaceWinter Palace.

It would be more accurate to describe Luxor Temple as a temple complex. There are sections built by different pharaohs over different time periods. Alexander the Great built a section. The Romans did as well, and in 395 CE this was converted to a church. In the 7th century the Arabs built a mosque on top of the ruins of the church.

All told, Luxor Temple served as a center for religious life for 3,400 years. But as the city grew during the Middle Ages, the temple came to be buried under silt and debris. Serious excavation began in 1960.

A road lined with sphinxes and statues connected Luxor Temple to Karnak Temple, 2.7 kilometers away. Layers of sand buried the road over the centuries. Discovered in 1949, restoration took seven decades. The Avenue of the Sphinxes opened in 2021. A total of 1,057 sphinxes and statues lines the avenue.

Dinner with Mansour and his family

We had a lovely evening with Mansour, his wife Azza, and their family. We shared stories and photos, we ate a delicious dinner together, and we discovered that our shared humanity far outweighs our cultural differences.

Hot Air Balloon

Four of our group decided to participate in this optional activity on Saturday morning. I did it last year in Capadoccia. Here there weren’t as many balloons, but there were more interesting things to see from above — a couple of temples and some large statues. The photo at the top of the post is one of the temple we saw.

Temple of Queen Hatshepsut

There were three temples at this site. Two are in ruins, but the original one is fully restored. 

Hatshepsut was the wife of Thutmose II (her half brother). When he died, his two-year-old son (her stepson) became pharaoh, and she became regent. Later she declared herself pharaoh; she was the fifth pharaoh of the 18th Dynasty. She ruled from 1479 BCE until she died in 1458.

After her death her stepson, Thutmose III, who apparently held a grudge against her, proscribed all references to her reign. Then and long afterwards, the temple suffered serious damage.

My phone said it was 91 degrees while we were visiting the Temple of Hatshepsut. We were still 20 degrees below the forecast high for the day.

Valley of the Kings

Our next stop was the Valley of the Kings. Sixty-five known tombs are here, underground burial chambers of kings from the 18th, 19th, and 20th Dynasties, dating roughly from 1539 to 1075 BCE.

“Tourists” have visited some of the tombs since antiquity. The discovery of others 

The temperature climbed to over 100 by the time we got here. And contrary to expectations, it was significantly hotter in the tombs we visited than in the open air. Plus the tombs were very crowded.

It’s one thing to want to take pictures at popular sites like this. But I do not understand, and struggle to be patient with, people who insist on being part of their photos. Wearing elegant outfits entirely unsuitable to the heat and sun, many were taking “glamour shots” of each other, or selfies, not even looking at what we traveled great distances at great expense to see. They would stand in front of the wall paintings, making it impossible for everyone else to get an unobstructed view. I found it very frustrating.

I also found the tombs to be magnificent. We visited a total of four.

As I was saying, we visited a total of four tombs at the Valley of the Kings. Here’s a rundown in chronological order (not of my visits, but of their reigns):

KV 62: Tutankhamen

King Tutankhamen reigned at the end of the 18th Dynasty; his death marked that dynasty’s end. He reigned from 1332 to 1323 BCE, starting at the age of 9 until he died at 19.

Tutankhamen’s father, Akhenaten, had enacted significant religious changes in the form of Atenism, worship of a supreme god, Aten, among the pantheon. Tutankhamen restored traditional polytheistic practice.

The tomb of King Tut, discoverd in 1922 by Howard Carter, is important because it is the only tomb that was found nearly intact. All the others had undergone plunder by grave robbers in ancient times. The extraordinary opulence discovered in the tomb includes his solid gold sarcophagus and death mask, which we saw earlier at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

KV 16: Ramesses I

Ramesses I, the first pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty, reigned for only about two years in the late 13th century BCE. He was the father of Seti I and the grandfather of Ramesses II, two of the powerful rulers of this golden era in ancient Egyptian history.

The tomb of Ramesses I is under 100 feet in length and descends steeply into the limestone bedrock.It was discovered in 1817.

I was impressed by the deep blue color of the wall paintings, which depict scenes from the Book of Gates.

KV 11: Ramesses III

Ramesses III was the second pharaoh of the 20th Dynasty. He ruled from 1186 to 1155 BCE. For various reasons, mostly not of his making, his reign marked the beginning of a decline in the cultural sphere of ancient Egypt. He was assassinated in a plot hatched by one of his secondary wives who hoped her son would succeed him, rather than his chosen successor, Ramses IV.

We’ve already encountered Ramesses III early today. Remember?

His tomb consists of several corridors, a total of 617 feet in length, leading to the burial chamber. It was started by his father, but was abandoned when it inadvertently broke into another earlier tomb. Ramesses III restarted it, shifting the axis and extending it in a different direction. It has been open since antiquity.

The walls of each corridor and of the burial chamber have illustrations from different funerary books. 

KV 2: Ramesses IV

Ramesses IV was the son and successor of Ramesses III. In spite of the plot to assassinate his father, he was able to assume the throne, and he executed the conspirators.His reign lasted six years, from 1155 to 1149 BCE.

His tomb has been open since antiquity and contains a great deal of ancient graffiti. It is about 290 feet long. The decorations come from a number of ancient funerary texts.

Souk

By the time we finished at the Valley of the Dead, all I wanted to do was collapse in my air conditioned hotel room. We did have a group dinner at a restaurant, and I took a walk in the evening to visit the Souk (marketplace).

Egyptian vendors are aggressive and persistent. They would yell at me to come in their shop. “Excuse me,” they would repeat over and over, seemingly peeved that I was ignoring them. I did venture into a few shops, but I didn’t buy anything. Ironically, had they just left me alone, I would have been far more likely to check out their merchandise, which varied from tacky souvenirs to hand-crafted items, jewelry, and textiles.

Karnak

The Temple Complex of Karnak consists of a vast array of structures: temples, pylons, chapels, The name “Karnak” may come from Arabic, but there is no historical evidence as to the etymology.

Karnak is huge. It was crowded with tourists, but because it is so big, it didn’t feel nearly as crammed as Luxor Temple.

Construction began during the 12th Dynasty, in the 20th century BCE, and continued right up to the first century BCE. The majority of the structures date from the 18th, 19th, and 20th Dynasties, between the 16th and 11th centuries BCE. The pharaoh who seemed to be most celebrated in the art decorating the walls was Ramesses II, who reigned from 1279 to 1213 BCE, more than 65 years.

Even though we got there before 9am, and there are no tombs, it still was hella hot. One of our group passed out twice. Mo got a wheelchair brought to her, and she is doing a little better this afternoon.

There was some truly impressive decoration, both sculptural and in painting and carvings.

I’ve run out of time. You’ll have to check out the rest of the photos on your own.