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Egypt Moblog #8 – Temples of Karnak, Luxor Temple and Luxor MUseum

Sorry I couldn’t write since I wasn’t feeling too well the past 3 days.

Day before yesterday, we went to the Temples at Karnak. Our guide Ikram has 27 years experience as a tour guide. She was amazing.

Temples of Karnak, one could say, was the spiritual extravaganza of the ancient egyptians. It is so huge that one has now way of perceiving its size either by reading or by seeing pictures.

These temples were built over a 1500 year period started in the middle kingdom. Most of the work was done in the new kingdom.

At the entrance to the complex is a series of ram headed sphinxes on both sides of the entrance. Apparently, this sphinx studded road all the way to the Nile.

You see the massive pilon (this is the name given to the 2 walls at the front of these temples). This one was done in the 30th dynasty by Nectanebo I.

Once you inside you reach the world’s largest hypostyle hall with 134 columns representing a papyrus forest. The roof has fallen but some are still there including the hieroglyphic inscriptions. Then we saw a temple with a series of Amenhotep III statues standing on either side of the temple corridor. We also a similar set of statues of who else Rameses II. Then we saw one special standing Rameses II which had a smaller statue standing before him – our guide said it is Nefertari his fav queen but another guide said it is his daughter who was also his wife!
But the woman’s statue is still beautiful making us wonder how beautiful the person would have been in real life.

Then we saw the Amun temple – or the Temple of the Theban Triad – Amun, Mut (amun’s wife) and Khonsu (moon god).

We also saw 2 obelisks built by Hathepshut one of which is still very well preserved.

Interestingly the Amun Temple has a big sacred pond (equivalent of a Hindu temple tank). Our guide told us that they also had the tradition of dedicating young girls to the temple.

Cartouche – a signature in hieroglyphic script specifies the name of the king, queen etc. Rameses II’s cartouche is the most seen one because he had the habit of stamping his cartouche everywhere even those that he didn’t build!

Then we reached the Luxor temple. Here in front of the 2 pilons there were 2 obelisks – only one is still standing and the other one is in Paris, France.

In front of the Luxor temple is the avenue of sphinxes – this time with human head. The Luxor Temple was connected to the Karnak complex via a long road a few kilometers long and the entire avenue was lined with these sphinxes.

The pilons I observed for the first time (blame my poor observation) resemble a inverted trapezoid shape with the entrance in the center. It is somewhat like if you just looked at the Gopuram of Kapaleeswarar Temple in Mylapore with an entrance carved to the center of it without the structure below the Gopuram. Our guide said this pilon concept is to symbolize the mountains and the rising sun as the entrance in between.

We then entered the temple and there is a mosque inside but it is at an altitude. It turns out that at the time the mosque was built the temple below had not been excavated.

Inside we have a hypostyle hall with 14 columns. The chapel has a special enclosure built by Alexander the Great – we could actually see Alexander’s cartouche. The temple itself was built by Amenhotep III (the king who is represented by the Colossi of Memnon we covered earlier) from the 18th dynasty.

In the hypostyle hall’s walls you can see reliefs showing the Opet Festival – during this time every year, Amun, Mut and Khonsu (the theban triad) travel to the Luxor temple marked by festivities and dances.

In this temple, we see what is called the Birthing room – the queen is in front of Amun Ra and is touched by Amun Ra and becomes pregnant.
Then she gives birth to the pharoah – god Khnum creates a baby and its shadow on the potter’s wheel. When the boy attains a certain age, a relief shows purification rites being done (a la Baptism rites).

After this we went back to our hotel and took some rest. Then we headed back into the town to see the Luxor Museum.

Lots of artifacts including some well preserved mummies. We saw some artefacts from the Middle Kingdom – in fact Akhenaten’s strikingly different facial features are fascinating. Incidentally, Akhenaten (father of Tutankhamun) tried to move the people to a monotheistic religion with the god Atum. It is still the same Sun God but he wanted only one god. But this religion didn’t last very long because as soon as Tutankhamun ascended the throne he switched it back to the old pantheistic religion.

The museum was pretty good overall.

Yesterday we flew back to Cairo and spent the afternoon in the Coptic Cairo area.

More to come…

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Egypt Moblog #7 – Temple of Hathepshut, Colossi of Memnon + Mummification Museum

Yesterday after the Valley of Kings, we visited the Temple of Hathepshut.

It is dated to 1400 BC and the facade is remarkably well preserved. It has 2 chapels on either side – one for goddess Hathor, the cow goddess and the other for Anubis, the jackal god. .

Hathepshut was a queen who ruled for 30 years and prevented Tutmoses III from the throne. Later Tutmoses gained the throne, married Hathepshut’s daughter and erased Hathepshut’s name from everywhere. But Hathepshut cleverly engraved her name with the offerings to gods and so a few of these weren’t erased! She also created a legend that she was the daughter of Amun Ra (the main god – Sun) and also dressed herself as a man – all this to rule as a pharoah.

Then we saw the Colossi of Memnon – Memnon being the name Greeks gave. These huge statues in seated posture are of Amenhotep III from the 18th dynasty. The statues are in real bad shape having suffered a lot of damage from vandals, tomb robbers and also the earthquake of 26 BC.
These statues could possibly have served as the inspiration for Rameses II’s colossi in the Abu Simbel which we covered earlier.

We came back to the boat, took some rest and went back into the town of Luxor to see the mummification museum.

The museum has the various instruments used and the whole process has been explained here. There is also a well preserved mummy of a high priest and a few animal mummies like baboons, crocodiles etc.

The Egyptians through a trial and error process cracked the mummification process around 2600 BC.

First they cut the body on the left flank and extract the lungs, intestines, stomach and liver. These were then placed in the 4
canopic jars usually made of alabaster – protected by 4 sons of Horus – liver jar by Imesti (human head), Qebehsenuef, falcon head forintestines, Duamutef, jackal head for stomach and Hapy, baboon head for the lungs.

They left the kidney behind because it was not accessible easily and of course they needed to leave the heart behind for the final judgement, which we covered earlier. The most interesting thing, for all their advanced stuff, is that they didn’t consider the brain to be anything important! They used a sharp instrument inserted through the nose and whisked the brain into a liquid and extracted it out.

It is not clear how they drained the blood or did they not?

Then they put saw dust and into the internal cavities. Then they covered the body and the organs in Natron salt for 40 days. Then the body was washed with oils, spices and resins and then the body was wrapped in linen placing more salts and saw dust. They also placed amulets in each layer with appropriate recitations of holy texts by the priests.

After this the mummy was placed in decorated coffins which was then placed into a decorated sarcophagus with the canopic jars.

They also placed small statues of the deceased called Ushabtis into a wooden box. These Ushabtis are there to take the place of the diseased during various encounters in after life.

They also placed mummified animals, treasures, replicas of furniture, dresses, sandals etc to be used during the journey in the after life.

Once the process was complete, when the mummy is ready for the funeral procession, they do a ceremony called “Opening of the mouth” which they beleived breathed senses back into the body for the journey in after life.

The museum also had several instruments for cutting the body, removing the brain etc.

On the whole a fascinating trip into the mummification process.

Today we visited the Temple of Karnak – the most important site in all of Egypt and the Luxor temple.

More to come ….

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Egypt Moblog #6 – Temple of Khnum and the Valley of the Kings at Luxor

Yesterday afternoon we visited the Temple of Khnum. Khnum is one of the creator gods who shaped his creations of mankind using a potter’s wheel. He’s also represented by a ram head (ram head is also one of the 3 symbols of Ra, the sun god). This is a temple from the Greco-Roman period as well and was begun by Ptolemy VI in 180 BC. As in other temples of this period, these were built over the ruins of older Egyptian temples.

The key feature of this temple as pointed out by our guide is the presence of Zodiac signs in the inner side of the roof of the
hypostyle hall which has 24 columns. I did take a picture of this but because of poor lighting, couldn’t get a good shot.

We then set sail to Luxor and reached here in the morning today. We left at 7am to go to the Valley of the Kings. Valley of the kings has 64 tombs many of them carved into the face of a mountain. All the tombs are from the new kingdom.

We visited the tombs of Tutmoses IV (the oldest one in this complex), Rameses III, Rameses IX and Tutankhamun. In Tutankhamun’s tomb, we could see the mummy with the face unmasked (this unmasking was done recently and it was covered by all the newspapers). Something to be said about seeing a human face from 1300 BC (3300 years old!) It was
utterly fascinating to see the face. Discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb is one of the major accomplishments of famed Egyptologist Howard Carter.

All the tombs have a basic structure with variations – there is a long narrow corridor wth small chambers on either side – the walls are covered with reliefs and at the end of the hall, there is a main room where the sarcophagus is kept. Inside the sarcophagus is the mummy kept inside a 3 layered coffin. The chambers contain the grave goods – replicas of furniture, treasures, gold etc.

In the next sections, I will cover the Egyptian philosphies about after life.

As we covered before, the after life is a very important part of the circle of life.

When you die and enter after life, you sail in a boat with your sarcophagus on board on another river Nile in after life. In Greek mythology there is a similar concept with river Styx and the boat being driven by Charon, the god of the underworld.

You encounter lots of problems and you need to over come them. One of the problems is the 3 headed snake. To overcome this, the dead takes the form of snake as well and based on your good deeds the 3 headed snake is overcome. This is similar to the 3 headed dog Kerberos that guards the underworld in Greek mythology.

As you reach the doors of paradise, you see 12 guards (one for each hour of the after life – stemming from 12 hours of darkness). At this point, the Goddess of justice Maat weighs the heart against a feather on a scale. If the heart is heavier then it is a sinner’s heart and it is sent to hell. If it is lighter, then it is sent to heaven. If it is equal, then 14 judges ask one question each, if you got more than 7 correct, you goto heaven or else you goto hell. As you all know, this concept of final judgement is there in almost all religions.

The reliefs in the tomb depict all these stories with the pharoah of the tomb in occupying center stage in them. Anubis the god of mummification is a prominent god as well as the major gods Horus, Isis, Ossyris, Hathor etc. Like elsewhere, the reliefs are colored with bright colors and most of the tombs we visited have the colors well preserved. Unfortunately no pictures allowed.

There are also reliefs that show what happens to bad people – they are either depicted upside down or without their heads.

There was a question about slaves. I used to think that as well and that information comes from the Bible (old testament) where Moses and the Jewish slaves were put to work by Rameses. Interestingly, Egyptologists are yet to find a single evidence of the Egyptians discussing about Moses and the slaves. For a culture, that has written up so much in all these tombs and temples, the fact that no evidence of Moses and the slaves was found points to the possbility that the Biblical account may not be accurate.

On the contrary, our guide told us that all these workers were paid salaries and there is also evidence to show that there was even a strike by these workers one time for increase in salaries! Possibly the world’s first worker strike.

Later we went to Queen Hathepshut’s temple, Colossi of Memnon and the Mummification museum all of which I will cover in my next post.

More to come…

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Egypt moblog #5 – Temple at Edfu + Story of sky goddess Nut

Today morning we reached Edfu and the tour started sharp at 9am.

The temple at Edfu is dedicated to Horus, the falcon god. It is one of best preserved temples in all of Egypt. Evidence from the middle kingdom are present but most of the works are from the Greco Roman period during the time of Bartholomew XII (Ptolemy XII). The date is approx 230 BC.

The entrance is marked with 2 big walls on either side of the massively high doorway like in the temple at Philiae. The king making offerings to Horus is depicted on the wall.

We enter the temple and we see a large open space with pillared corridors on either side. When we enter the next hall we see a hypostyle hall with 64 pillars – each pillar ends in a plant motif on top of the local plants – lotus, date palm etc (In India you see pillars ending with a plantain tree motif). The pillars are supposed to symbolize trees that’s why the top of the pillar has these tree motifs.

There were 64 priests at this temple and hence there are 64 pillars. This temple is supposed to commemorate the revenge of Horus on Seth who had killed his father Ossyris earlier.

We see the sanctum sanctorum where a boat (ark) is kept in which Horus travels. The original boat is in France. Behind the boat is a granite structure where statues of the gods were kept.

Take this – every day the priests took the statues on a procession in a circle inside the temple. Also on festival days, the statues are taken out into the city in a procession (aren’t you reminded of the Urchava Murthi, Pradosham concepts in Hinduism?).

We then saw 2 rooms one on either side of the hypostyle hall – one of them was the office of the head priest and the other was a library housing holy papyruses. Possibly one of the earliest libraries.

Then we went to a room called as the oldest perfumery in the world. Here they have written a recipe for making a perfume in Hieroglyphics.

Then we see a relief showing 64 priests carrying the ark (boat) of Horus. All the priests except the head priest are shown with a clean shaven head (where we have seen that before?). The head priest wears a leopard skin (Where we have seen that before?).

During one of the festival days, they celebrate the wedding of Horus and Hathor (does that sound familiar?). Then we see the hall dedciated to Nut, the sky goddess (sort of the Sannidhi of Nut if you like Hindu terminology). The roof of this hall has the picture of Nut with some of the original blue color still retained.

Nut is shown in traditional form – her body arcing over the earth with her legs on one side and her hands on the other both touching earth.

Now the Egyptians believed that the Sun spent 12 hours on earth and the other 12 hours with the after life resurrecting itself magically every morning. This is the circle of life for them.

When the sun sets, it enters Nut’s mouth and at Sunrise, it leaves Nut’s genitals.

It is this circle of life that they symbolize by the daily ritual of taking the statues in a circle within the temple. As always, the temple is awe inspiring with massively high doorways and massively high columns.

We are on our way to Esna where we will see the temple of Khnum – one of the creator gods.

More to come….

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Egypt Moblog #4 – Temple at Kom Ombo

After we set sail, we stopped at Kom Ombo to see the famous temple there. En route, we saw the lush farms on the banks of the river Nile. It was almost 5pm when we our boat stopped at Kom Ombo and it became
dark pretty quickly after that.

The temple of Kom Ombo is unique because it is a double temple – there are 2 sanctum sanctorums, 2 entrances, 2 hypostyle halls etc one is dedicated to Sobek, the crocodile god and the other dedicated to Horus the falcon god.

The temple has artefacts dated to 3000 BC but most of the work has been done during the Greco Roman period. lots of sections were added over time.

Egyptians were the first culture to practice surgery. Here we saw a relief with surgical instruments being offered to Imhotep (remember the architect of Zoser’s pyramid). Imhotep was also a doctor and high priest. Some of the surgical instruments shown here we still use. And this one blew my mind away – there is an inscription that shows how to sterilize your hands before doing surgery. There is also another relief that shows a woman giving birth in a sitting posture – considered today to be the best posture for delivering a baby.

Egyptians were advanced in calendars as well. They had a 360 day year with 30 day months and 3 week months. The year was divided into 3 seasons – flooding, planting and harvesting seasons. The year was marked with the reign of the king – regnal year. So it is N year of King X’s reign, Flood Season, Month N, Day X. We saw a relief that had a list of dates represented as above including some instructions on offerings to gods etc. For the missing 5 days they added them as festival days for the 5 important gods.

They also mummified crocodiles and a few of these mummies are on display here at this temple. Now why worship crocodiles? Our guide told us that people used to live on the west side and the farms were on the east side and when they crossed the river crocodiles would attack them. So they worshipped crocodiles to protect themselves.

Then we see a relief where Bartholomew V the greco-roman king had depicted himself as a god to gain the respect of the people.
Then we saw the Nilometer. Like everything here the brilliant Egyptians devised a novel program to collect taxes. Since their
agriculture was dependent on the Nile floodings, they figured out that the amount of silt you receive during the flooding is directly proportional to the amount of harvest. Now the amount of silt you receive is directly proportional to the amount of flooding you receive. They used this Nilometer placed in various locations – it is like a well with markings inside and the Nile water rises through these. Depending on which markers were reached, the head priest (also the prime minister) collected taxes from everyone on behalf of the king. Ingenious, isn’t it?

Another sacred (only somewhat) animal we saw was the frog. As a part of the blessings, a bunch of reeds with frogs at the bottom are given – frog stands for 10, 000 symbolizing eternity.

Many reliefs show the kings having 2 jars one in each palm offering them to the gods. The 2 offerings are gold and myrrh (the gift of the Magi for the infant Jesus were gold, myrrh and frankincense).

On one of the roofs of the temple we saw the original colors – spectacular looking still.

By the way, this temple has been at its original site – no UNESCO transplants here.

As in India, people lived near the temple – the temple was built using stones but the houses and palaces were built with mud bricks. You can see the ruins of the houses near this temple.

Overall, another great day today. It has been goosebumps galore so far. We are sailing to Edfu tonight.

More to come…