Karnak and Pyramids

January 22, 2007

Luxor, Egypt

Yesterday we visited the temple complexes of Karnak and Luxor. They are truly a sight to see. The Karnak temple complex spans an area of about 60 acres, being gradually added on to over time. The first entrance pylon is huge, but it is only the beginning. After you pass in the gate between these areas, you see a huge square that is lined by giant pillars. And even further in the distance is what is called the grand hypostyle hall, supposedly the biggest hall of pillars in the world. The central pillars are so thick that it took nine of us students to fit around the outside, and they were so tall! They were covered all around the outside with reliefs, which Hashem proceeded to explain to us, and how the ancient Greek graffiti ended up over 10 feet high on the columns. It turns out that for a long time this temple complex was covered with a great amount of sand, and where they were writing was actually at ground level. I could not believe how much the sand shifted, but today when they talked about the sphinx being completely covered up to the neck in sand I could believe it. You see evidence of the shifting sand everywhere.

We wandered through the thick forest of columns, marveling at their size and impressiveness. It was as the tour guide said, everything that the ancient Egyptians built was both large and elegant. But especially large. We exited the court and entered into the only area in Egypt where there are two obelisks standing. One belonged (or was finished) by Ramesses II, who tended to take a lot of credit for things that he did not actually build, and the other by Queen Hatshepsut. The most impressive things about this building is that they were made of one single piece of granite, which was excavated in Aswan and then shipped up the river to the site on Luxor.

We walked throughout most of the temple complex, going outside and to the sacred lake, where the water was moved in by canals to this part of the temple. The water was used for purification, but in this setting it looks like a welcome oasis from the scorching looking brown sand and stone. The oddest part of the whole experience was the stares that we got from the Egyptian men. Our tour guide told us that they were perfectly harmless, but they kept asking to take pictures with us! I don’t know why they would want a picture of American tourists, but some of us humored them, much to our own awkwardness. The Egyptian vendors are so forward, and persistent. They will approach you and not leave you alone until you either buy something or escape to a bus. Its all rather exhausting.

We went to Luxor next, which is the smaller of the temple complexes, but looks to my mind more complete because it two huge statues of a pharaoh guarding the entrance. If you look on the sides of the temple inscribed are pictures of the pharaoh taking people captive, and smiting them down with a huge club. The rest of the temple is much more delicate seeming than Karnak, but no less impressive, especially since it seems to have been in continuous use by a number of religions. Just inside the entrance pylons is the foundations of a Coptic church, which is actually about 12 feet in the air at the level of the older foundations of the building when the Luxor temple was submerged in sand. A mosque has been placed on top of that, and near the back of the temple is the remains of the apse of a catholic church, complete with frescoes of saints, laid right on top of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Alexander the Great also inscribed himself here, and his cartouche and sculpture can be seen in the inner sanctuary of the temple.

The rest of the day I spent feeling really sick. I don’t know if it was something I ate or drank or perhaps a virus, but I am still reeling. The plane flight from Luxor to Cairo was horrific and the only enjoyable part was watching the boys on the trip play Frisbee with the security guards in the airport, who were quite amused. They clapped whenever someone dropped the disk and even joined in the game, with the result of breaking a smoke detector. Ah well.

So last night the only thing I did was go to the fabulous hotel, which is intricately decorated with middle eastern looking architecture, and sleep.

Cairo—the Pyramids and the Sphinx

When I woke up this morning I felt like I had been hit by a train. I could only stand up for short periods of time, I felt dizzy and my stomach hurt and all I wanted to do was sleep. It was only by sheer force of will that I made it down to breakfast, and even then my eyes and my stomach rejected everything I saw. But, we were going to the pyramids today. There was no way I would miss that.

Luckily for me, our bus was broken down, and we had an extra hour before we had to leave. I went back to the room and slept, and woke up feeling much better. I could survive the pyramids after all.

The pyramids themselves emerge out of the dusky skies at Giza like a mirage. We are driving along the highway, looking at these dirty mudbrick apartment buildings, and like a dream of the past, they appear. They dominate the entire skyline; three huge ghosts. We get there, and I cannot believe it. The PYRAMIDS! They are so massive it is hard to stand at the base of them and see edge to edge. Now more than ever I cannot believe that these were constructed without the help of modern technology. The blocks are massive. The only thing that marred the experience for me was the vendors, who would try to trick us tourists into buying things by saying “no charge, gift from me” and then once you had taken the item would ask for money. Or they would offer to take a picture of you on a camel, which happened to Stewart, and then the camel would stand up and ride off and you would have to pay for the ride. They conned 25 pounds off of Chris and Brad, and Brad almost got lifted onto a camel against his will. That is the one crazy thing about Egypt. No one is upfront about pricing.

We got to go inside the second pyramid, down to the burial chamber, which is located deep within the bedrock. The trip is very eerie. You enter this small passage which is only about 4 feet high, and crouch, gripping the side rail for dear life, as you find your way down into the heart of the pyramid. At times the passage would expand to standing height, but by and large it was cramped and hot. The air smelt old and felt like it was lacking oxygen and by the time we entered the large tomb area we were glad to be able to breathe. How the Egyptians carved, let alone brought the sarcophagus and goods into the chamber without fainting I cannot imagine. I felt like I could have been trapped there and entombed along with the Pharaoh himelf. After a cramped and too long climb, we reached the surface, grateful for air and light, and it was back on the bus and to the sphinx.

The sphinx is set into a depression in the land, so at first glance it seems to be much smaller than it actually is. Once we entered in the temple complex next to the sphinx we could truly appreciate its size. The valley temple itself is impressive—constructed of massive blocks of granite, it uses no mortar but instead interlocks the stones to keep the building from falling apart. These blocks had to be carted all of the way from Aswan to the Nile delta…

And the sphinx itself looks rather worn. The nose was believed to have been shot off by Napoleon Bonaparte, and people have dug into the body of the sphinx looking for some mysterious hidden treasure. Still, the size and majesty of the thing is astounding.

What a day! After returning to the hotel, we journeyed to a small pizzeria close by and split a large pizza. Ambrice, Jess and I decided that we were going to shop for scarves, so we wandered our way into a local shop and managed to find some beautiful ones. Scarves and jewelry seem to be the best products that Egypt makes, and at the exchange rate of 6:1 anything that we bought was relatively cheap. Although I think we probably could have bargained for a better price, all three of us were sick of haggling, and were happy to pay the inexpensive price that the woman working there was willing to offer us. One of the gentleman in the shop introduced himself as a doctor, and talked to us about where we were from and what we were doing in Egypt. Ambrice was on a mission to find a hookah smoker, and the man showed her how to work the thing. These types of tobacco smokers are all over Egypt. Continuing on our way, we ran into the oddest side street. It looked like a strange scene from a movie—clothes hung on garment racks, on the doors and in the windows of the streets, and in the streets. There was nothing else for sale except for these western style clothes. It was a massive goodwill store that had been turned inside out. As we walked, us three very American girls got stared at in all kinds of ways, and since none of us could read the numbers since they were Arabic, we simply wandered until we got too nervous about the impending darkness and headed home.

It is almost impossible to cross the street in Cairo. You have to step into oncoming traffic and look hard at the approaching car and hope that it stops in time not to kill you. Used to cross walks and lights etc, we shrieked as we ran across the three lanes of traffic on each side. Luckily, we made it home safe and sound, did our homework, and fell asleep.