The Third Day: The Valley of the Kings and the Temple at Karnak

The villa where Howard Carter stayed when he discovered the tomb of Tutankhamen and all the extraordinary treasures it contained. This is located just inside the desert, a ten minute drive from the scene in the previous picture.
see all photos »

Because we were delayed at the airport the day before, we spent the morning of the third day of our tour in the Valley of the Kings, where the pharoahs of the New Kingdom were buried. The valley is west of the river, where the sun sinks at night  and in the Egyptian belief system, this is where the souls of people go after death. Therefore, it follows, this is where the pharoahs and other important people, indeed  everyone, should be buried. And this is where the tourists swarm.

The site of the most recent discovery in the Valley of the Kings, right across a footpath from the tomb of Tutankhamen. The artists of ancient Egypt were so prolific that even after three thousand years of robbery and destruction, new marvels are still being unearthed.
see all photos »

Our bus drove farther up into the hills that I had  imagined and it was drier and more desolate than I had imagined. How did the grave robbers find this place? They did, of course. We drove by the villa where Howard Carter stayed when he was excavating the tomb of Tutankhamen, high and dry on a hill by the side of the road. Nothing there, but nothing.

The pictures tell it all

There is an odd natural structure high above the Valley of the Kings, dominating it, and it's roughly in the shape of a pyramid. And up there too, way up, were men just sitting, looking down. You  had to look closely to notice them, but they  were there. Security, I assumed.

Another view of the site of the new discovery. Five or six sarcophagi and about 20 funerary jars were uncovered, though the people buried there have not yet been identified. Since they are in the place where pharoahs were buried, it is assumed they were important.
see all photos »

We could not take pictures inside the numerous tombs of the pharoahs, so there is nothing I can show of what we saw. The paintings  on the walls were remarkable, and there was one jerky tourist who took pictures anyway. She was  told to stop, but the guard did not confiscate her camera, as he could have, and a little later I could see the flash again. This damages these priceless 3500 year old paintings. May the pharoah's curse get her.

We met the archaeologist  in charge of the latest discoveries. See the pictures and captions. The scene was straight out of an Indiana Jones movie.

The archaeologists from the University of Memphis who are working on the excavation. This is the first major discovery there since the Tutankhamen treasures were unearthed. Dr. Otto J. Schaden, the Field Director of the project, is on the left.
see all photos »

The Temple of Hatshepsut, the most powerful woman of Ancient Egypt, is an architectural masterpiece, as stunning in reality as it is in pictures, partly because of its placement, set up against a vast cliff with tombs carved into the cliff face and this marvellous temple like a jewel in its setting. Hatshepsut's statues smile, an Egyptian Mona Lisa.

In the afternoon, we visited the Temple of Karnak, the largest temple in ancient Egypt where each pharoah added a statue, maybe an obelisk, perhaps an addition to the structure. In one case a man who was not a pharoah was allowed to put in his own statue, presumably to share in the eternity of the pharoahs. Now there is a perk!

The entrance to one of the many rock-cut tombs in the Valley of the Kings. The walls are covered with extraordinary paintings.
see all photos »

This is the biggest temple in the world, it just kept growing and growing. It's in ruins, of course, but worth seeing. Do not, by the way, do NOT, take the carriage ride to the temple.  The demands for money we found offensive, and spoiled any pleasure we might have gotten from it.

After the temple, we returned to our boat,the Miriam, and waited for the German tourists who were stuck in the airport at Cairo. Towards dusk the boat left without them, and they joined us farther down the river.

Hieroglyphs at the entrance of one of the tombs. From this point on, no photos are allowed to prevent the paintings from being harmed.
see all photos »

One of our most memorable experiences was sitting at the front of the  boat on the top deck sailing down the Nile with Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens, directly in front of us. When Sirius reappeared on the horizon to the south, the ancient Egyptians knew the annual flood was coming that would spill over their fields and fertilize their land. Sirius reappeared every year, and so did the flood.

Up to our right was the constellation Orion, the resting place of Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead. The Egyptians did not fear death, they figured it was not the end,if they did things right. We pulled into the lock at Esna around midnight, in the dark, sliding in quietly and mysteriously among the other boats to wait our turn to go through the lock. We went to bed.

The Persians conquered Ancient Egypt and then adopted some of their practices. A Persian tomb at Dier el Bahri.
see all photos »

Egypt is photogenic. The pictures and their captions with this journal tell it all, really.