Wadi el-Sebua and Cruising Lake Nasser, 7 October 2018

Wadi el-Sebua and Cruising Lake Nasser

Another early rising, and we take the launch to see two temples on the island. Wadi means valley, Sebua means lions. After the rainy period before the dam was built, lions would cone down here, and often the chariots of the kings were accompanied by lions, which were trained for hunting. Hawks are circling us  lazily overhead. This temple is approached via an avenue of sculptures of a body of a lion and the head of the king, a sphinx, which eventually became a god by the New Kingdom. This avenue has pairs of statues leading to a temple, just as today a procession is often preceded by pairs of motorcycles, for protection and to give glory to the person coming behind. At this temple we will see the Nubian Rameses II, fashioned by the sculptor with Nubian features. Based on the Rameses mummy, we know that he was tall, over 6’, and slender. There are two tribal types in Nubia, tall and slender, and shorter and plumper with a rounded face. The ones we often see working in this area are the rounder ones, and this this appears in the features of the king. This site was saved by the Americans.

In 1902 there was a small dam here and a small lake. These temples were partly covered with water every summer for a bit. Also, Christians had taken over some temples from the Romans and put Christian iconography inside the temples. In 1810 they tried to catalog some of the carvings, which were being ruined by the water. By 1960, the temple was moved up to save it. The Egyptian desert is mostly sandstone, in Nubia, red sandstone. The basic colors used in temples were blues both navy and turquoise, black, red, white, and green. Every temple was painted inside and outside, but only the insides remain. As we approach the Avenue, we can see that the faces of the sphinxes clearly have the round-faced Nubian features, when it is the head of the  king and the body of the lion it is the Sphinx. When it is the head of the god and the body of the lion, it is a statue of the god, under which is the king, under the god’s protection.

All Egyptian temples have the same design: an avenue approach, then two pylons or two towers to announce whose temple it was (the king). The carving on the outside shows the king overcoming his enemies, on the one side with Amun-Ra, on the other pylon with Horus. We ascend the red sandstone steps to the pylons then we enter the open court, with two colonnades of statues but no roof, this is the area for commoners to pray and make their offerings. This is as far as they could go, from here on it is for priests and royal family only, according to their rank, further into sanctuary are higher ranked. The statues were carved from the same stone as the columns. As we ascend, the floor goes up and the roof goes drown, and it gets darker until it is completely dark in the inner sanctuary. We enter the hypostyle hall with double pillars on each side, which would have been covered by slabs of stone for the roof. Because this part of the temple was converted to a church, this hall was covered with plaster and painted with Christian scenes, thus the white we see is the remainder of the plaster. The early Christians defaced the “pagan” Egyptian scenes. When Ptolemy II came to Egypt, he brought the Egyptian and the Greek priests together to get a solution. They made up Zuesabbis as a combined god for each religion, this got people to respect the reliance of the Greeks, and the style of temples etc. stayed the same. When the Romans came, they realized the best way to keep people quiet was to expect the local religion rather than. Try to change it. Then by 59 AD, St. Mark came to Egypt to preach, the Romans martyred him, then more people converted of Christianity, and persecution began, so people began to hide in the semi-abandoned temples.

We now enter the vestibule, with wall scenes and the cartouche of Rameses II. Part of the top cartouche read “I am the strength and justice of Ra.” The lower  reads “I am the son of Amun-Ra and Ra,” which transliterates as Ram-eh-ses. The wall scene shows Rameses holding an arm with a hand on which is burning the incense, offering to three gods plus Rameses himself. Then we go into the inner sanctuary with a niche for the god, with Amun-Ra and Rameses on the main wall, but the statues were chopped off by the Christians and plastered over with St. Peter.

We leave the temple and take a flatbed trailer behind a tractor up the steel hill to the next temple (Barney and some others take the donkey cart and hike up the last part). A flock of storks on on the plains below are feeding, and we pause outside the temple in the shade. This is a Greco- Roman temple, the period 300BC-30BC being Greek, 30BC -700 AD being Roman. Once Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire by the 4th century, the struggle over whether Jesus was only  god or human and a god, was driven by a debate between two priests. In Alexandria, this began a schism, and Egyptian Christians were persecuted by the Roman Christians. The old religion of Egypt died out, and the Egyptian Christin monks came out to the desert and made the temples into churches. In some temples we see black soot on the ceiling from cooking fires where the hid and inhabited, in others they defaced the “pagan” scenes. The most fanatic people are those who convert, so they defaced the scenes to show their devotion, and because they were scared of the power and magic of the ancient religion, thus the defacing stops the magic of the old religion. The Greco-Roman temples are the same style as the Egyptian, just a different period. This temple was dedicated to Tefnout, a lion goddess. The story had to do with a destruction, saving by a holy person, and then regeneration. The legend is that Ra’s eyes became lapis lazuli, face turned to gold, body to silver, while he was sleeping, people found it funny, the god was disturbed by their making fun of him, he went to his father to complain, his father says kill them all, Ra asks his father how. His father Nun (?) says send your left eye which appeared as the lioness, people saw the lioness and they disappeared. Then Nun said send your other eye, Hathor, no one is afraid of the cow, she tuned into Tefnout  she spent the day killing most of them. At the end of the day, she reported back to Ra. Ra decides to forgive the rest of them, tells her not to go back, Ra says leave them. He goes back to his father, who says we will ask some gods to help them. The gods start handing out of thousands of jars of beer, and others were sent to Nubia to get the red sandstone. They grind the sandstone and mix with beer, they poured it over the earth, Tefnout drinks the red beer until she was full and collapsed, thus they save the humans. She suspected and she realized she was tricked, she decided to kill any humans she could find. Ra is worried, goes to his father again. Nun says send her husband to calm her down, her husband was the god Thoth god of wisdom he said no I’m not going alone. They couldn’t calm her, they promised her a temple wherever she rests, so she rested here and a temple was built. This temple was a collaboration between Ptolomy III and the Nubian king.

The temple starts with the two towers with the king smiting enemies. We enter the entrance of the towers with the wings of the hawk with the sun disk and the cobra. But the rest has disappeared as did the hypostle hall. Only fragments and the vestibule and the sanctuary were found. Inside the vestibule are vultures in the ceiling, and fragmentary scenes to the king and the triad of gods, including the lioness. Over the king is the cartouche with the title “the Great House,” indicating his title instead of his name, as we say “the White House said…”. Per plus oh became pharaoh in Greek. This title started with the New Kingdom. Hassan noted that when he did his Master’s degree he studied the crowns of kings, but there was very little information, and they were never in tombs. The crowns we see are only for specific ceremonies. The generic title served to welcome any king, as it would take a long time for news to travel from Alexandria to this area, 1200 kilometers away.

Inside we view the vestibule, with the first bas-reliefs. The outlines were drawn by assistants, then the master would come to correct, then they do the carving work. The bas relief is harder to do and more expensive, as you cannot correct, thus most were carved into the wall rather than raised bas relief. Here Tefnout is holding an ankh and a lotus flower like a staff which is prosperity. Here Horus is a child, shown because he is naked, sucking his finger and with a side lock of hair, next to his mother Isis.

In the inner sanctuary, we see that gods and kings had thin tails down the back. They knew that animals were potentially stronger than humans, saw that animals had tails and thought that this gave animals power, so by adding a tail it gives the king more power, and gods had tails as well. Even when seated, the kings and gods show the tails. A huge stone box would have had wooden doors enclosing the statue of the god. Each section would be closed except to those who were allowed in that sea.

Our final stop is a Roman temple in the time of Augustus, brought from 35 kilometers away from Moharaka villager, which name means the hottest area. There are no Egyptian Pharaohs here, only different styles of capitals of the pillars, lotus, a set of three rings, and something that looks like papyrus.

A quick boat ride back, and then time for a shower and some hand washing. The whole bathroom is now covered with laundry; yesterday’s laundry came back beautifully fresh and folded, but we are too late for the laundry pickup today. Barney goes for the tour with the bridge and the captain and I do some writing.

We reassemble for a talk on Islam by Hassan. Tradition and religion control much of lives of people, often more control by tradition than by religion, and this is true everywhere. Often people confuse traditions with religious behavior, and each group thinks this is the only right way to do things. When someone preaches, those doing the preaching put their own ideas into what is said. In every religion people over time divid themselves into small sects. Each minor sect can be quite fanatic about how they do things, and accuse everyone else of doing it wrong. There are 1.6 billion Muslims, 2.4 billion Christians in the world now.

What is the meaning of the word Islam? Submission to God, and all monotheistic religions are like this. There is submission in Christianity, and submission in Judaism. The greeting of Muslims is A-Salaam Aleikum, which means peace upon you, to which is returned Aleikum a-salaam, this is the revelation of peace. Islam as a revelation came to Mohammad in Mecca, by the age of 40 he receives the revelation God through the angle Gabriel, on a mountain. Gabriel gave him the revelation of the Holy Koran. He continued to receive revelations over the next 13 years. At first Mohammad was persecuted, as in that area the religion was Bedouin, with mostly animist and a few Christians and Jews. In this world, everyone was either a master or a slave. In Islam, everyone was equal, so this was a threat to the established order, thus the persecution. While there were verses in the Koran about killing the infidel, there were also verses saying that killing an innocent soul is killing everyone on earth. And if you save an innocent soul, it is as if you have save every soul on earth. Religion guides people to being pure and good, but greed comes into religion and we get fanaticism and people who think they are the only ones who are right.

Mohammed receives the Koran over 13 years and he and his people were persecuted in Mecca, he and his followers had to emigrate to Medina, where they lived peacefully and Mohammed preached Islam. After the death of Mohammad, his successors did not write down the Koran, but his successors’ successors did write it down, taken from what people had memorized and learned internally, thus it became a holy book about 20 years after Mohammed died. Islam has five pillars: 1) the belief or creed: there is one god which is Allah and Muhammad is his prophet, which means they are monotheistic. There is one god but 99 descriptions, such as the nightly, the powerful, etc., any of these could be a name for Allah. There were many prophets in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with different ways to correct the ways and traditions. Muslims thus have to believe in every Christian and Jewish prophet that came before. The story of Moses in the Koran is more detailed than in the Torah, mentioned in the Koran 82 times. Jesus is mentioned in the Koran more than 30 times, Mary is mentioned as Virgin Mary more than 20 times, Mohammad is mentioned 3 times in the Koran. The second part of the creed is that Mohammad is his prophet, yet also he is human. The main difference between Christianity and Islam is that for Christinas Jesus is god while for Islam Jesus is a prophet. The creation of Jesus from the Virgin Mary is the same miracle as God making Adam from clay. For Muslims, Jesus is not dead, but alive; the body was crucified and the soul went to heaven. Muslims believe in the Christ and the Anti-Christ, the Anti-Christ acts like a prophet and will do miracles to get people to follow him, then God will send a prophet back to earth to kill the anti-Christ and unite the world under one religion. Muslims believe that Jesus Christ is coming back to be the one to fight the Anti-Christ, to save the world. Mohammad says god will send my brother Jesus back, and that we should follow him. The media provides the wrong image about Islam, based on political purposes. Mohammad says prophets make a chain of rings, each prophet makes a ring in the chain, Mohammad is the last prophet in the ring until Jesus returns.

Second pillar is prayer: they pray five times a day, to be in touch with god all during one’s waking hours. The idea is that this would keep one on one’s best behavior, in contrast to praying only once a week, etc. the prayer is only a few minutes long. You can pray anywhere, you do not have to go to a mosque but if you go to a mosque to pray it is more rewarded, as it is more rewarded if you pray in a group. Women are exempted from going to the mosque to pray because of duties of taking care of children. Friday at noon is the main prayer of the week, when most people go to mosque, which is a day off for Muslims. If one cannot go to the mosque to pray, one can just say the prayer inside.

The third pillar is honest living, a charitable system. God creates us and god gives us everything, and those who have more are expected to give to those who have less, and idea common to every monotheistic religion. This is called alms-giving, which is 2.5% of net profit of income to the poor. Muslims give this first to poor relatives, second to poor neighbors, third to any poor person or to a mosque or organization which redistributes it. This becomes dangerous when a mosque collects money that should go to the poor but instead it goes to political organizations, to buy weapons and wage violence etc. it is easier for the rich to give to the mosque because they tend to not know poor people personally. We are asked to say “Allahu Akbar” when we see something beautiful, to stop our evil spirit or envy from damaging something beautiful. In Islam, there should be no vandalism because the rich build the roads and the schools etc., so Allahu Akbar stops the feeling of envy. Charity is about building a safe society. Even the poorest people help others.

Fourth pillar is fasting, the month of Ramadan, from dawn to sunset, no eating or drinking or sex or temptation. Every religion has some type of fasting to create a way to observe and have obedience and self control. Being the controller of myself shows strength, this is one of the highest parts of religion. One can pretend to fast, but real fasting is known only to you and to god, not to show off to others. Exceptions are children, pregnant women, breastfeeding women, the sick, the elderly, people traveling. For someone with a chronic illness, they are exempt, but for a short illness like a cold, or traveling, one can make up fasting after. If you cannot fast, you can pay for someone to be fed for 30 days.

Fifth pillar is the pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj. People circle the Kaba’a seven times, because Koran says Abraham reconstructed Kaba’a, after it had collapsed. Who built the first Kaba’a? The angels built it, for humans to gain forgiveness, because the angels predicted that men would create violence. They circled the throne of the god seven times for forgiveness, and the pilgrimage to go around Kaba’a seven times is for forgiveness, just as Catholics have confession. Doing the hajj means one’s sins are washed away, and people are not supposed to sin again and then go back to Mecca, it is supposed to be a one time thing. For people who cannot afford to go to Mecca, they are forgiven.

Q & A section:
In the Koran, an infidel is someone who believes differently, which goes both ways between people. This term was used to describe people who were fighting Muslims, some who were pretending to convert to Islam. If people came to the Muslims and stayed for a while, pretended to believe while they were actually studying army situations, then left to attack, the withdrawal from Islam was considered an infidel situation.

Sharia law: Sharia means law, which regulates various subjects such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, etc. At this time, there were no prisons, no jails, so punishments were done directly, now these exist so the more extreme punishment (cutting the hands of a thief) are not needed. Some people have kept their minds in the 7th century instead of modern times. Growing a long beard, women being covered, is like going back to the 7th century, not contemporary. The wives of Mohammed were asked to cover up (like Virgin Mary), and this was translated to have all women cover up. There is really no face covering required in Islam. At the Hajj in Mecca women have to uncover their faces. This is where social traditions come in. In the time of masters and slaves, slave girls had to go topless to be known as slaves, mistresses covered up to show rank. Slaves were not allowed a religion, but if they convert to Islam they are freed. If someone buys a slave and frees him/her, that is a great reward from god. If a slave woman was freed, she would cover up, and even exaggerate this, thus various ways of covering by women.

When oil money came to the Gulf, people who went from Egypt to Saudi Arabia to work, they are in a more conservative situation and had to adopt these conservative, Wahhabi traditions. Today Saudi Arabia is moving away from these conservative traditions. In the 1930s, when the Saudi Kingdom was created, Abdul-aziz Al-Saud had the army power and the income from that, Wahabbi had the religious power and the income from that, and they kept it separate. Prince Muhammad bin-Salman is now taking his country back from these splits and income, and there is a great battle underway in Saudi Arabia right now.

What is the difference between Sunni and Shia interpretations? Sunni means traditional, following the traditions of Muhammad.The word Salafi means traditional, people who follow the Sunni even more conservatively. Shia means out of the flow, going a different direction. Muhammad moves from Mecca to Medina, lots of followers there, they need organization and administration, a government. Mohammad as prophet does not want them to do civilian things from a religious point of view. The civilian governor was called caliph. As Mohammed is dying, his followers ask him to name a successor, he said “you choose.” There is no priesthood and no disciples.  After he died, they choose. Those who moved from Mecca to Medina were Mohammed’s friends, and the people of Medina welcomed the people who came from Mecca. More than one name was shouted to replace Muhammad, they named an old man who only lived only a few years. Then after he dies this comes again. Omar is from the friends of Mohammad, a very strong man, he becomes caliph for 11 years, the best years for Islam, but life was still hard. He was assassinated in the mosque while he was praying. Then two names were shouted, Ali who is Muhammad’s cousin, and the other was Ottoman, a rich man from the side of the hosts. Ali was not chosen, Ottoman becomes caliph, he installs nepotism. He was assassinated. The name of Ali comes again, and he is seen as pious but life would be difficult under him. Another of the hosts promised luxury. Malawi (?) from the hosts is named caliph, he claims his part of the empire, and Ali claims his part. One part is in Mecca and one part is in Syria. Malawi comes to conquer Mecca. The two sides were almost meeting in battle, they sought peace, each side deputized someone to speak on their behalf, Ali chooses a decent man named … , Malawi who is cunning names a cunning man to represent him. They are locked in a room until they have an agreement, if they do not have an agreement they would both be killed. They come out with the conclusion that both would have power. The cunning man urged the decent man to go first, says we decide to have Ali have power, the cunning man said to choose Malawi. Most of Ali’s camp heard only the choice of Malawi, but some insist on Ali, felt they were cheated, they are called Shi’a. Battles ensue, and Ali is killed, but they do not give up, they chose his son to be caliph who refuses, they chose the younger son Hassan who also refuses because of bloodshed, the younger son is poisoned, then Hussein the youngest son is chosen as Caliph, and they battles continue. Hussein dies, and his two sons have different followers, but it stays within Ali’s family who was Mohammed’s cousin. Each generation there is more division, now there are 12 sects of Shi’a, each different with a different leader. Sunni and Shi’a is a political split, not religious. The Shi’a need a spiritual leader, so there are various leaders of various sects who tell people what to do. Sunni do not have a spiritual leader to tell them what to do, but most fundamentalists and terrorists gangs come from the Sunni sects Salafi and Wahabbi, to which belong  al-Queda, Daesh, Muslim Brotherhood, etc.  Each sect thinks they are the ones going the right way and others are wrong. All religions say we are the best, and no one say we are second best. All people seek peace, and when people say we are the only right ones, they mean to keep others from heaven.

In the afternoon we see a film about saving the Nubian temples from the 1960s. We take a rest after that as it is till very hot out, later have dinner and pack to leave early the next morning.