We pack up to leave the ship, and say farewell to the staff and the beautiful view of the Valley of the Kings. We’re off to the Luxor Museum for a visit.
Hassan tells us what happened after Tutankamun died, that the generals and priests took over, as it continues today. Tutankhamun was the only son of Akhenaten, and the Generals and priests brought him back to Luxor and forced him to change his name and retire the old religion, all at age 9 years. He was a puppet, and the high priest, Ay, was the real power behind the throne. Noting that the mummy mask of Tutankhamun showed his ears were pierced, but he did not wear earrings; for a child to be considered an adult, he must reach 11 years, and the tradition is that while boys wear earrings, men do not. The Noble’s were eager for him to have children, so he married his sister from Nefertiti, and tried to have children, she miscarried twice. She was 11 years old when she married him at age 13. In the tomb of Tutankhamun there are two fetuses mummified, likely theirs. At age 18 he dies, we do not know exactly how. At the first examination in 1922 they noticed a wound in the skull, so the theory was that he was hit on the head. Later with further examination of the body (which remains in the tomb, they bring the examination equipment to the tomb), they found that his thigh was broken, but that seems unlikely because they could treat that. Another examination showed that he had malaria. Hassan is convinced that internal powers killed him, perhaps by poison, before he would be able to have a son.
Tutankhamun was 18 when he died, his widow was 16, so she had to marry the high priest Ay, when he was quite old. This made him the king, and he dies dafter 2 years. She was on her own again, many generals wanted this position. She sent a letter to the Syrian king, the Hittites, the eternal enemies of Egypt, she wrote to him and asked him to send one of his sons, a prince, as she did not want to marry one of her subjects. The king sent her a letter back, which we have, saying he did not believe the offer, that she wanted his son to be killed. She replied and reiterated the offer, and he replies and sends her his son. As soon as he crossed the border, he is assassinated by the army generals. One of these .generals was Rameses I and Horemheb was the other. They had a deal that Horemheb would go on the throne but Rameses would be the heir, and they kept this deal for 18 years. Then Rameses starts the 19th dynasty, but he was old when he came to the throne, so he only ruled for two years. His son was Seti I who came to the throne, and his son was Rameses II who later became the longest living pharaoh. After this, Egypt was always ruled by generals, up to 1952. This is a tradition in Egypt, Hassan notes that people here feel more secure when they are ruled by someone from the army.
We arrive in the Luxor Museum, opened in the 1970s. Egypt established provincial museums to help share some of the collections of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, as well as items that were discovered locally. Here lies the mummy of Rameses I, which was sold decades ago to a Nigerian, who sold it than American collector, whose heirs gave it to the Atlanta Museum, and eventually they gave it back to Egypt in a grand procession. The two huge red granite heads of Amenhotep III flank the entry, one with the crown of upper Egypt, one with the crown of lower Egypt. Both are quite beautiful, and it is nice to see the detail work up close. We see the Cache of Luxor, a group of 24 beautifully preserved statues found in 1989 at Luxor temple. They are indeed in wonderful condition, and it is amazing to think that over 3,500 years of human habitation and construction, these statues were not discovered. Almost all of them are of Horemheb or Amenhotep III. The whole museum is laid out really well with signage in English and Arabic. It is somewhat dark but the artifacts are well-lit, so there is a bit of feeling like being in a tomb of dark sanctuary. We have a whole hour to explore the museum, which is so nice, there is a lot to see.
Outside after the museum, Hassan explains how the obelisks were moved. They were transported first by ship from the upper Nile, then over a series of logs on land to the temple. Then the top is put onto the ramp (which is already there from building the towers) until it rests on the buried tower. They dig and bury the base of the obelisk, and build four walls around the base, lower than the towers, they fill the four-walled room with sand, and they go the the top of the room. They start letting the obelisk down with ropes, until the bottom of the obelisk sits in the sand. The top is tied with massive ropes pulled by four teams of men, with their leader on the top of the tower giving instructions. A small door at the bottom of the room is opened and the sand is pulled out. Meanwhile the top is in motion, and while in motion it is lighter. It is stood upright on the sand, the men are still holding the obelisk from the top. The walls of the room are used to access for carving the hieroglyphs and it is only carved after being erected. Scaffolds leaning on the walls allowed access for carving.
We arrive at the Hotel Steingenberger on the Nile. It is historic and quite beautiful, a large courtyard filled with plants and two restaurants with terraces. Out room is lovely and spacious, and overlooks the Nile, we can just see the Temple of Hatshepsut in the distance, a stunning view. After a short refresh, we head back to the West Bank via boat for a visit with a local farmer for lunch.
We come to the home of a farmer named Achmed. Some of his children and nephews meet us at the boat, and we walk a short way to his lovely white home by the shore. A large table is set out under a palm frond roof, and we all sit down. We begin with a mixed salad of tomato and greens, and bread that is baked in the sun, accompanied by tahini – everything is made from what is grown on the farm, except the rice which comes from the delta. Then comes a steamed zucchini, and cabbage leaves stuffed with rice and fruit, sliced potato with tomato baked in a tagine, okra in a sauce, shredded beef in a tomato sauce, and barbecued chicken. Everything is delicious, and we finish with the small sweet Egyptian bananas and hibiscus tea.
Achmed’s family came from the area near Aswan, and when the dam was to be built they moved here. This West Bank was always flooded, but with the dam, land suddenly became available which several farmers claimed, including his family. In addition to farming with his brothers, he makes furniture from palm trees as his father did. He gives us a demonstration: he uses a hammer made of acacia wood, which is very hard – he has been using this for 30 years. From the date palm he uses both green and dried fronds. He cuts the green with a machete, then skins the green part. He chisels some holes in a green section. He then takes a dry section and splits it, putting the dried section into the hole in the green, after which he will leave it to dry, so the green hole shrinks and holds tight to the dry part. They also make a rope out of date palm leaves, because cotton ropes would get eaten by the water buffalo in a few minutes. Achmed deftly weaves a date palm rope in about two minutes, and we all get to try pulling on it.
We go around the back of the house, where Achmed shows us the young water buffalo kept in an open enclosure behind the house,. A 10-day old lamb runs in and we hear its mother calling it, and one of the children takes it back. Some ducks and chicken are in the next pen, and nearby is a young horse maybe 3 months old. Achmed and the children show us how they grind the dried wheat using a round stone with a wooden turning stick. The large clay oven is fed by leftover stalks from the animal feed, which they leave on the road the be crushed by the cars go by and then burn. The bread is cooked on flat rounds made from egg cartons soaked in water and reshaped. They bake bread every 5 days, 50 loaves at a time, for the extended family. We return to the front of the house, and Achmed lets us come into his very nice home to meet his wife, sister, and sister-in-law, who are cleaning up in the kitchen. We exit through a garden where hibiscus flowers are growing amid citrus trees. We head back to the boat, and enjoy on the way back the story of how Hassan knew a Achmed and how this lunch came to be part of the tour.
In the afternoon a few of us decide to take a walk to the Winter Palace Hotel, a fairly warm 20 minute walk. It is the historic hotel which was once the winter palace of the royal family, a beautiful place, very classic and Victorian in feel, featured in Agatha Christie and Elizabeth Peters novels. We go out to the spacious gardens where it feels 10 degrees cooler. Inside we explore a bit, and settle in the Victorian bar for a drink. It is all dark wood and upholstered dark red walls and comfy wing back chairs, probably much as it was 125 years ago. We walk carefully back to be hotel …. most of this area has few sidewalks, but because it is Friday it mis less crowded than usual.
Our group assembles for a carriage ride through Old Luxor. I think more than a few of us were unhappy with the somewhat neglected condition of the horses in Edfu, who were all very thin and tired. Hassan tells us that the many horses in Luxor are monitored by animal welfare authorities, and drivers are rewarded for taking good care of their horses; they do in fact look healthier, although the donkeys we see pulling carts still look very skinny. Our driver is named Achmed, he is originally from Aswan, are here with his wife and they have two sons. He looks about 18 years old, is very friendly, and seems experienced in driving the buggy.
We drive through a more modern area of Luxor, where every building seems to be under construction of some sort, either visibly unfinished or with piles of building materials out front. We see a man with a donkey cart carrying what looks like 35-40 sacks of concrete, more than we could even fit in our van or a truck. How the donkey pulls this I cannot imagine. We see lots of families on motorcycles, usually the father driving, one child in front of him on the gas tank, another behind, and behind that child is his wife, often in hijab and all black, carrying a small baby; no one wears helmets here. The vans with the open doors rush by us throughout the trip, and the horse seems unfazed by this. Soon we come to the Old Luxor area, where stores and markets line the narrow street – and by narrow I mean the width of the carriage plus one person to squeeze by on either side, which they do. Clothing hangs everywhere, both washing hung out to dry by the apartments above, and many hung across the street attached to a shop display below. All kinds of fruit and vegetables and baked goods are available for sale, shoes, dresses, djellabas, plastic home items, cookware, jewelry, and more. I am a little worried we are going to run over someone, but both Achmed and the folks walking seem to navigate this with ease. There are enormous number of children out, often without an adult, some as young as 3-4 years, and sometimes quite close to traffic.
There are far more women out at this time than during the day. We see a vacant lot where it appears that 7-8 donkeys are feeding and being bedded down for the night. We go through one area which seems quite a bit more poor and run down than the bustling areas we passed earlier. Soon we arrive at the bridge over the Avenue of the Sphinxes, and we pause to see Luxor temple at one end and Karnak temple at the other; it is going to be quite impressive when it opens.
We end our trip at a coffee house where have refreshing hibiscus and lemon drinks, and Hassan demonstrates the shisha, and a few brave souls try it out. We return to the hotel via bus, have a small bite at the Lebanese restaurant in the hotel, and return upstairs to pack for our early departure. We go out on the balcony and enjoy the lights of the Nile below. I would love to come back here sometime.
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