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Egypt moblog #3 – High Dam and the Temple of Philiae

Our cruise boat just set sail. Contrary to our expectations this boat Nile Admiral is fantastic. The cabin is almost like a modern hotel suite.

Before we set sail, we did an excursion to the High Dam and the Temple of Philiae. Our guide Mr. Bassum has encyclopaedic knowledge of Egypt. He answers all our questions effortlessly and with aplomb.

The High Dam was the 2nd one built in the 60s after the old one by the British in the late 19th century. It is a massive engineering project to dam the Nile – the 2nd longest river in the world. One reason why the High Dam and the resultant Lake Nasser project is important because it submerged a number of ancient Egyptian monuments like the
Abu Simbel we saw yesterday. The temple of Philiae is one such and it also has been transplanted at a new island site by UNESCO.

The temple was built during the Greco-Roman period and it took nearly 500 years to complete it. Alexander had invaded and conquered Egypt approx 330 BC which started the Greco-Roman period. Nectanebo, the Nubian king started it, with Alexander continuing it and Roman king Trajan added some more elements.

Most of the work was done during the reign of Bartholomew II (also known as Ptolemy II). As you enter the temple complex you see 2 massive walls with large reliefs on either side describing the story of the temple – Bartholomew worshipping the main gods of this temple Isis (goddess), Ossyris (husband) and Horus (son).

You enter the temple and you see another main hall with pillars (much like a hall in a Hindu temple) called Hypostyle Halls. The top of the pillars have motifs of lotus or Hathor represented with a human head with cow ears.

Then you pass through a series of small halls leading into the sanctum sanctorum. All the walls are covered with reliefs which depict many stories from the Egyptian mythology.

The stories are very symbological like Hinduism and you can see the origins of many myths in other religions.

I am now going to describe some of the stories we heard from our guide in the following sections:

1. River Nile is considered to originate in the tears of Isis. She sat on a rock and cried and this temple holds that rock. I have a picture of it. Why did she cry, see below.

2. Seth, another god, kills Ossyris and cuts him into 42 pieces and throws the pieces everywhere and Isis goes looking to collect all the parts. There’s a relief showing Isis trying to protect Ossyris’s mummy from enemies. Important thing to note is that Seth is a bad god and is also the brother of Ossyris (Cain and Abel story in the Bible has its origin here perhaps).

3. Isis gives birth to Horus (the falcon god). There are reliefs showing Isis suckling Horus. When the Christians took over, they damaged the face of Isis because it resembled Mary suckling infant Jesus. For a time this temple was used as the Church by the Coptic Christians ( a local sect of Christianity). They also added the Coptic cross and a few other Christian symbols to this temple.

4. Horus seeks revenge and goes after Seth his uncle to kill him and avenge his father’s death (Now where do we have nephew killing the uncle myth?). Since Seth is a god, and can’t be killed, legend has it that Horus puts a knife in Seth’s back and paralyses him. Apparently this event is commemorated in the temple at Edfu which we will see later on the tour.

5. The key of life is a widely used symbol and is there in all temples. It looks like a T with an arc going from the left to the
right arm of the cross and without the top part of the cross. This symbolizes the river Nile – the life force of egypt. The lower
straight part is the river and the left and right arms represent upper and lower Egypt and the arc – the Nile Delta.

6. The last ever inscription of the hieroglyphics was made in 393 AD and it is in this temple and some think it is the lost Nubian alphabet.

7. In the UNESCO project lots of temples were relocated and some were gifted to donor countries. One of the temples – the temple of Dendur was donated to the USA and it is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Myself and Priya Raju have seen this in New York. If you goto New York, you should check this out.

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Egypt Moblog #2 – Abu Simbel – Rameses II’s crown jewel

Yesterday we reached Aswan. It is a beautiful city. No hustle and bustle like Cairo. The hotel we stayed in, the Basma Aswan, was beautiful as well. We left Cairo at 2AM and reached Aswan by the early morning.

In Aswan, due to the security procedures all the cars to Abu Simbel go in a convoy accompanies by the military. It was a long 3 hour drive and we reached Abu Simbel at 2pm accompanies by our guide Sammy.

Abu Simbel holds one of the most important monuments – the temples of Rameses and Nefertari (his queen). As we enter the complex, we take in the majestic view of the four colossi (large 20m tall statues) ofRameses seated on the facade of the temple. These statues typically adorn any description of Egypt.

Right next to it is the Nefertari temple dedicated to the god Hathor (cow god) – goddess of love and pleasure.

We sat before the facade and our guide explained the significance of various things. Due to some strange reason guides are not allowed inside the temple so our guide explained everything before we entered the temple.

Rameses built this temple at the height of his reign and used this temple to position himself as a God. Due to the Aswan Dam/Lake Nasser project the original Abu Simbel lies buried below the lake. Through a mammoth UNESCO project, the whole monument was disassembled and reassembled at the present site. You can read up on this project on the Internet.

One of the beauties of this temple is that on 2 days Feb 22 and Oct 22, Sun’s rays reach right inside the inner sanctum sanctorum. This is one day later than when Abu Simbel was in its original site. I’m glad UNESCO preserved this aspect.

Once we enter the temple we see another 8 huge statues of a standing Rameses 4 on either side of the majestic hall. On all the walls of the hall are elaborate etched artwork with some of them retaining the original colors a bit. They had carved Abu Simbel on the face of a cliff and the whole temple is scooped out from the cliff. The paintings are carvings as well, but with a plastering of sandstone and then colors were used to paint the carvings.

All the paintings are of 2 types – Rameses making offerings to all the pantheon of Egyptian Gods or receiving blessings from the Gods. There is one or more paintings for each God and Rameses is in each one of them. There are also some paintings where Rameses’s conquests, war scenes, coronation etc shown.

Inside the sanctum, you see 4 statues in sitting posture – one on the right extreme as you face them is Horus the falcon God, next left is Rameses, the one on extreme left is the God of darkness Ptah, and next right is Amun Ra the Sun God, the most important god. Another unique feature is the fact that when sun’s rays shine inside the light doesn’t fall on Ptah!

The whole temple reminded me of Ajanta’s rock cut temples – the design of the temple is strongly similar to this one. But that came 1200 years later in the 2nd century BC (this temple dated to 1200 BC).

Then we visited the Nefertari temple which on its facade has 6 statues – 4 of Rameses + 2 Neferari – all standing. Once inside we see various artwork with Hathor and Nefertari. This one is not as magnificent as Rameses temple.

You can see how Rameses has deified himself in the main temple seated alongside the important gods. The 4 statues that are on the facade show 4 stages of his life – as a young man, just after coronation, during the time of this temple and the 4th one just before he died.

With the Lake Nasser in front of Abu Simbel, the grandeur of this temple is indescribable with words.

We are told that we will see more magnificent temples in Luxor.

We then took the long drive back this time with a AK 47 toting military person!

We spent about 2 hours next at the Nubian museum learning about Nubian
culture – Nubia was controlled by Egypt most of its history with some
unique features. Nefertari, Rameses’s fav queen was Nubian.

Today we board our Nile cruise and before it sails, we will be seeing
the High Dam and the temples of Philiae.

During the cruise, I may not have coverage so my trip report maybe delayed.

Stay tuned….

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Egypt Moblog #1 – Pyramids at Gizah and Saqqara + Memphis

Our tour of Egypt started today after a marathon 48 hour travel to Cairo from Chennai. I’ll write a whole rant about it later.

As we drove from the Cairo airport to our hotel last night, we saw the first tantalizing glimpses of the pyramids of Gizah against the backdrop of the night sky, building lots of expectations for today.

We started at 9am for the Pyramids at Gizah with our Egyptologist guide Ms. Marwah.

Our first stop was at the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) – this is the biggest pyramid in the world. This Pyramid is dated approx 2500 BC. That’s a whopping 4500 years ago. The sun was shining bright and looking at this massive pyramid (200m base and 147m height) gave me the goosebumps. The pyramid has been built out of limestone brought from the nearby mountain on the other side of the Nile. The amazing thing is the precision with which the pyramid has been built – uniformly carved limestone blocks. They were held together using a interlocking pattern with no mortar. The limestone plastering on this pyramid is completely gone. It took 23 years to build this one our guide told us that the only piece of evidence that points us to Khufu is a small inscription one of the workers carved unofficially! All else had been emptied by the tomb robbers.

Next we see the Pyramid of Khafre which is slightly smaller but built on a higher part of the plateau that makes it look bigger than the Khufu pyramid. Khafre is the son of Khufu. The limestone plastering still exists on this one at least in the top part.

We bought a special ticket and went inside this pyramid. We had to go through a narrow and short tunnel to go to the chamber inside. Actually there’s nothing inside. But it was a great feeling to be inside a 4450 year old structure.

Then we saw the smallest of the three Menkaure Pyramid – Menkaure is the son of Khafre. There are also a few more small pyramids for Khafre’s wives and relatives. We saw some tombs for the officials which had Roman Columns at the entrance – our guide told us these were originals (possibly served as inspiration for Roman Columns).

We then moved to the famed Sphinx in the same complex. Many people say that it is smaller than one could imagine from the pictures we see everywhere. Actually when we went close to the Sphinx, we found that to be quite huge – a huge lion with a human head – the head of the pharoah Khafre. Sphinx is actually a Greek term (they have a mythological creature with a human head and lion’s body called Sphinx). The whole complex with the Sphinx upfront and the three great pyramids in the back is awe inspiring.

We then went to a papyrus store and learnt how papyrus paper was made by the ancient egyptians. The whole process is very interesting and another testimony to the inventiveness of the ancient egyptians. We bought a few papyrus souvenirs as well. Ancient Egyptians wrote a lot of stuff on these papyrus papers.

Then we drove to Saqqara – the site of the oldest monument known to mankind – the step pyramid of Zoser – dated 2700 BC (4700 years old). The architect of this pyramid was Imhotep. The Zoser pyramid is part of a sprawling funerary complex with several smaller pyramids and several buildings. The Zoser pyramid is also pretty big around 100m tall and but it is a step pyramid unlike the ones at Gizah. They used some clay bricks mixed with limestone – possibly because they had not figured out how to build entirely with limestone. Zoser was the pioneer of the large monument building practice that almost every culture has since copied and he did this 4700 years ago. Not only does this site gave me the goosebumps – but a few shudders as well to think about how magnificent an endevor this would have been – the first great monument built ever by mankind. Saqqara is a special place just for experiencing this feeling. This is where it all started.

There is a building in the complex with a long hallway lined with long circular pillars with ridges – the shape reminded us of pillars we had seen in Greece – our guide told use that pillars are shaped like a bunch of papyrus reeds. On either side of the hallway there are 20 chambers signifying the 20 provinces of the upper and lower Egypt per our guide.

Then we saw the false tomb Zoser has built outside the pyramid at 27m below the ground, exacty the same depth as that of the real tomb below the pyramid. The Gizah pyramids had a chamber for the tomb inside the pyramid itself and not underground.

In the complex there is a small cellar which has a statue of Zoser which you see through 2 peepholes. The status in the cellar is now a replica with the real one now in the Egyptian museum. I managed to take a picture of the statue through the peephole. Will upload when I return.

Within viewing distance from the Zoser complex, we could see what is known as the Bent Pyramid – the pyramid is mis-shapen because they built it incorrectly. They then built a 2nd one right next to it to the correct specifications.

Then we drove through Memphis – nothing remains of the old city as it is now a full fledged town. We saw some spectacularly huge statues of Rameses II and the Alabaster Sphinx of Memphis at the Memphis museum.

That ended our tour today. It has been a life long dream for me and Priya Raju to see the pyramids and our dream was fulfilled today.

More to come…….

If you want to read more, here are some of the questions we asked our guide and her answers:

1. What is the significance of the Pyramidal shape?
The Sun God known as Ra, Amun Ra and other names is one of the most important God of Ancient Egypt (known as the Pharaonic Egypt). If you can imagine the Sun at the tip of the pyramid and look at the rays coming through, you can see a pyramidal shape being created. Also the papyrus reed is the shape of a pyramid.

2. What is the significance of the pyramid itself?
The ancient egyptians placed a lot of emphasis on after life and whether you would goto heaven or hell (possibly the originator of this concept which is now present in all religions). The tomb inside the pyramid had the mummy, replicas of furniture all covered with gold, the papyrus versions of the book of the dead (something like the bible for them) and various other paraphernalia. Of course, most of these had been robbed. The whole mummification process itself is fantastic and again shows how knowledgeable the ancient egyptians where.

3. How many people were involved in building these?
Contrary to popular opinion, no slaves were used to build these. There are some mentions of prisoners of war being used later by Rameses. There were 3 seasons then – the harvest, the irrigation and the flood season – the Nile flooded every year. During the flood season, when farmers had no work, they would work on the pyramids – one reason why it took 23 years to build one.

4. Did they have any annual rites once they built the pyramid?
It took approximately all of the span of the pharoah’s reign to build the pyramid. Usually the pharaoh died almost coinciding with the completion of the pyramid and he was entombed in it. So no annual rites were done.

5. Why is the Sun God so important and what were the other gods?
The Sun was thought to die every night and resurrect itself in the morning, which added another dimension to the fascination with after life. There were many animal gods – Anubis, the jackal which they worshipped to prevent any attacks by the jackals on the mummies, the Falcon for its vision, the Cow for fertility etc. The Scarab beetle – another one that goes underground during the night and emerges in the morning like the Sun signifying resurrection. We had already read about Cat goddess, Hippo god, Crocodile god. Maybe we will see these later in the tour.

6. How many pyramids are there?

There are around 111 pyramids mostly in the Gizah, Saqqara area. The pharoanic Egypt runs from 3200 BC to 323 BC (arrival of Alexander and the conquest of Egypt by Greece which ended the pharaonic civilization). It has been divided into the old, middle and new kingdoms. Of this only the old kingdom built pyramids, the others did not.

7. Why the Sphinx?
It is the protector of the tombs. Our guide said, we will later see the avenue of the Sphinxes in Luxor. Sphinx is used everywhere as the protector.

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Welcome to WordPress

Thanks to the Blogharbor team led by John Keegan for a smooth rollover to WordPress – my favorite blogging platform. Hope you all like the theme that i have chosen. I may be switching to a different theme as i experiment with themes some more.

You may notice a few problems:

1. Comments on old posts are closed.

2. All comments that were imported were imported as Anonymous comments. So your names have been lost in transit due to incompatibilities between blogware and wordpress. Sorry about that.

As you all know it is a tradition at this blog to change the look and feel every Fall and we have done it for the 3rd time but this time we have changed our blogging platform itself. How is that for a change?

This blog has now completed 3 years and 5 months and we have nearly 450 posts and 850 comments.

Thanks to you all for your support and encouragement without which i would not have survived this long and I would not have been able to learn all the things that i have learnt through blogging. In a quite unexpected manner, my knowledge of blogging has actually helped in my current job immensely.

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Long tail by Chris Anderson – win a copy of the book

Chris Anderson made a superb presentation about his concept of Long Tail at our customer conference 2 weeks ago. Before i talk about his presentation, i want to give you all a few pointers to pick up this concept. I strongly believe that all management professionals must understand the Long Tail because it has deep implications for everyone. If you already know about the concept you can skip the following section and go to the next section.

The Long Tail Concept
As a subscriber of the Wired magazine, i chanced upon the article that Chris Anderson wrote in Oct 2004 which talked about the Long tail concept for the first time. It didn’t hit me the first time i read it. Almost 6 months later, i came across Joe Kraus’s blog post about Long tail and his explanations and the charts he published made me really understand the concept. Make sure to read the powerpoint slides he has attached to his blog post as well. [In case you didn’t know Joe Kraus is the founder of Jotspot, now part of Google. Also note that some of stats he quotes about Amazon, Netflix etc were later revised making the long tail sales of Amazon/Netflix not as stark as these charts show.] To be sure, Long tail is just a new way of looking at what Pareto pointed out long ago about winner-take-all-power- law distributions. While Pareto focused on the head of the curve, Chris Anderson, has brilliantly pointed the whole world at the tail of the curve – hence the term, Long Tail.

Long Tail Presentation titled “The Economics of Abundance”

Chris Anderson gave a great presentation. Compared to Dan Tapscott’s earlier presentation, this was less entertaining. But Chris covered his ideas extremely well. I found a version of his presentation on Slideshare and i have embedded it below.

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