Been There Done That Too…

Luxor and the Temples

// November 1st, 1996 // Egypt, Passage To Africa

After lunch at the hotel, we proceeded to visit Luxor and Karnack Temples. We first went to the smaller of the two temples, Luxor. Both temples were finished by Ramses II, though both had been started by previous pharohs. One interesting thing the Pharohs did was any existing statues in the previous Pharoh’s image were “recarved” to the current Pharoh, so all statues look like Ramses II whether they were actually his or not.

Both Luxor and Karnack were dedicated to Amun-Ra, and once a year the statue of Amun-Ra kept at Karnack was paraded down the Avenue of the Sphinx (the broad avenue lined by stone sphinxes that connected the two temples) to Luxor temple, where the priests gathered only the most beautiful and worthy virgins to commune with Amun-Ra, and the citizens brought wine and food and gifts for the God… Needless to say the Priests helped Amun-Ra out a bit and lived like kings and partied like rock stars for the duration of the festival.

Luxor, unlike Karnack, was “reused” in later centuries and the remains of a Muslim temple can be seen at the top of the ruins in the center of the complex. It’s also a very good illustration of how much the ground level has changed over the millenia, both temples, as evidenced by the height of the more recent building at Luxor, were almost completely buried by the shifting sands. Like the Pyramids, there are several theories as to how the temples and their massive walls, columns and statues were built. The most common is that they were built a level at a time, as one level was completed it was filled in with sand and then the next layer was built. After all the layers had been completed they dug out the temple by removing all the sand. No matter how they didn’t, the sheer scale is impressive. The one thing that amazed me the most about all the temples and tombs (except for the Great Pyramids) are the heirogliphic carvings – they’re everywhere! The must have been the ancient Egyptian equivalent of “wallpaper”. Practically every inch of wall and column is solid with them. Not only were they carved, but they were painted after they were carved. Some tell stories, some are just for decoration. There must of been hundreds of people who spent every waking minute of their lives carving and painting. After Luxor we proceeded to Karnack Temple, a huge compound of numerous smaller temples, most dedicated to Amun-Ra or his wife. Several sites within in the temple show up frequently in movies, one of the most famous being an entire room that is filled with huge columns that are shaped like leaves at the top. It’s forest of stone pillars. Throughout Karnack there are thousands of interesting heirogliphics (including some dipicting some rather “over-endowed” male characters). My favorite aspect of this temple was the huge swimming pool! I’m beginning to think the priests had a better life than the Pharoh’s, if not they were a close second. Parties, orgies, free food, their own personal swimming pool, feared and adored by everybody, and none of that defending your throne stuff – not bad.

After our tour of Karnack we returned to the hotel for dinner, complete with an Egyptian Bellydancer who of course made other people in the audience join in. There’s nothing like seeing an elderly gentleman with a fairly wellrounded middle try to belly dance (if only he’d brought his speedos from the ship)… Now that’s entertainment!
Returning to my hotel room I amused myself with CNN, and chasing an unwelcome roommate – a very noisy mosquite. I never did catch her, but she managed to nail me twice!

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