|
Egypt
| |
| When
Lake
Nasser began to fill following the completion of
the High Damn at Aswan (built between 1960 and 1971 by the Soviets), many ancient
structures were threatened with imersion. The slowly growing lake behind the
damn would eventually cover them, destroying ancient Egyptian structures
thousands of years old, removing them permanently from history. The
world rallied under UNESCO (between 1964 and 1968) to save many of these priceless
buildings and temples. Here is the story of two such temples, the Temple
of Ramses II and his favorite wife Nefertari. |
The Temple of Ramses II
A man with an ego. |
The Temple of Ramses II, over 2,000 blocks of stone weighing up to 30 tons,
was moved up 231 feet and back 660 feet by an international team of
3,000 specialists. This huge mountain was then built around the
temple. If you look closely, you can see the individual
blocks used to build it. The people in the
foreground give you some idea of the size of the mountain. It is
immense! |
 |
|
|
|
Getting to
Abu Simbel |
| Up at
3am, a bus from our boat to the airport, and then a plane to Abu
Simbel to arrive at Sunrise. Other than Gabriela putting on her
makeup, we all seem pretty happy. Our guide (Omimah), big smile on
the left, explained everything in Italian then in
English. The Italian always took longer...was she was talking
about us? |
|
|
Our Little Tour Group
|
 |
| We
were two lawyers (Gianenrico and Benedetta), a post lady (Claudia), owners of a stationary shop( Davide
and Stefania ), a retired school
teacher cum painter (Garbriela) and her husband (Mario), and a
retired and an active duty naval officer (Paul and Carol). |
|
Carol
at the Temple |
The 3200
year old temple just before
sunrise. Each statue is of Ramses. Standing between his calves are
little tiny statues of Nefertari. Ramses built this massive temple very far up the Nile
to demonstrate to the peoples
of upper and lower Egypt that he was a powerful kick ass kinda guy. |
Benedetta and
Gianenrico
at the Temple
|
 |
 |
 |
Standing at the foot of one of the statues looking up across
one knee gives an appreciation of the immensity of the work. If
you get the chance, do not pass by the opportunity to visit Egypt.
Imagine the thrill of placing your hand on a building 7,000 years
old...the history flows into you. At a time when the rest of the
world was still in diapers, the Egyptians had governments, cities, unions,
art, dentistry, and the structures like this temple. |
| Entering the Temple your first view is four
rooms deep (below). The hall through the first room is
flanked by six statues of, who else? ...Ramses. The farthest room, the one at the back holds
three gods and, who else? Ramses. |
 |
|
 |
| Twice a
year, winter and summer equinox, the sun's position is
such that it shines the length of the passage. On those
two days only, the sun illuminates three of the |
|
| four sitting statues: Ramses and the gods, Amon and Harmakis...but never the god of
darkness, Ptah. Quite a feat for a time when the earth
was considered the center of the universe! |
 |
|
|
The Temple
celebrates Ramses military glory, particularly the battle of
the Kadesch.
|
Ramses woops up on his enemies below and to
the right. Notice his hat. The bowling pin looking
part means that he is the king of the upper Nile, while the
lower part represents king of the lower Nile. Note the false beard in every picture of the Pharaoh.
The Pharaohs were clean shaven but wore false beards, tied on
behind the head, as a symbol of their office.
The god
(below) with key of life in his left hand is Harakhte.
Cool,
huh? You're an Egyptologist now! |
 |
|
 |
| (above) Many enemies, one behind the
other, are portrayed by slight offsets in the relief. |
|
 |
| Above a slave offers a Sara Lee pound
cake to Ramses
(note the hat on Ramses), while below Ramses is offering
bottles of after shave to
the god, Horus. You can tell he's Ramses because, while
he doesn't have the hat, he has the beard. |
 |
|
 |
THE KEY OF LIFE
Carol got the Key of Life from the Egyptian
ticket taker at the entrance to the Temple. The fork of the Key represent the two branches of the Nile, the
closure at the top represents the continuity of life, and the smile on his
face represents the $5 I paid him because the Key of Life does not come cheaply.
|
|
Stefania with the Key of Life |
 |
| For $5, you too can have the Key of
Life...me, I waiting for the Key to
Life even if it costs $10. |
|
|
By the time we left the Temple, the sun had
just topped the horizon, turning the sandstone pink. As the sun rose
even further, the intensity of the Egyptian sun changed the color of the
stone to bright yellow you see behind Carol in the photo above. |
 |
|
NEFERTARI
The Beloved of Mut* |
 |
| *Mut was not
Ramses dog, she was the goddess of life.
|
 |
| This relief
from inside the temple of Nefetari had once been painted with
vivid colors. |
|
|
Nefertari was Ramses
favorite wife. He was so enamored of her that he built a temple to
Hathor which he dedicated to her. Even more interesting is that the
statues of her are the same size and those of him. His ego
eventually won out though because there are four statues of him and only two
of her. |
|
|
Even though someone whacked off her nose, her
beauty is still evident. Ramses may have had an ego problem,
but he wasn't blind.
That's me with the hat. |
|
On to Karnak
|
