Egypt trip, Dec 2008 - Colossi of Memnon and the Valley of the Kings

After spending a lovely evening in Luxor, we have booked ourselves on an early morning hot air balloon ride. Unfortunately, the wind was too strong that morning and after waiting for about an hour, we turned back and headed back to the hotel :-(

The hot air balloon company employs a large number of people. I wonder whether these people made any money that morning. (We received a refund)

Another balloon company tried to set the balloon up. After testing the wind speed with little balloons, they also decided to cancel the ride.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped by the Colossi of Memnon, which are two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III (14th century BCE). The original function of the Colossi was to stand guard at the entrance to Amenhotep's memorial temple (which is almost completely destroyed)

The statues are made from blocks of quartzite sandstone and it was quarried near modern day Cairo. The stone blocks weight about 700 tons each and they were too heavy to be transport upstream on the Nile. So it was transported 420 miles over land.

We then moved on to visit the Valley of the Kings. The valley stands on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes (modern Luxor).

For a period of nearly 500 years (from 16th to 11th Century BCE or the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Dynasties of Ancient Egypt), the kings and powerful nobles of ancient Egypt built their tombs in the valley.

All of the tombs appears to have been opened and robbed over the many years, so there was nothing much left except the wall decorations and some mummies. In 1922, however, Howard Carter discovered an intact tomb and since then, our understanding of the ancient Egyptian funerary rituals have increased significantly.

The hills around the valley are dominated by the peak of al-Qurn. It looks like a pyramid when viewed from the entrance to the Valley of the Kings, and therefore some Egyptologists believe it may have been the reason for choosing the location as a Royal Necropolis.

The royal tombs are decorated with scenes from Egyptian mythology and give clues to the beliefs and funerary rituals of the period. Here is our guide explaining the story behind the scenes.

This is a very impressive model of the valley. It shows the entrances of each tombs....

...as well as how the tombs look underground.

Exploration, excavation and conservation continues in the valley today

It is very labour intensive though and it takes a lot of patience! I don't think I will make a good archaeologist :-p

We visited three tombs and the wall decorations are amazing. The colours have been preserved in certain tombs and these tombs show the amount of effort that the ancient Egyptians put into decorating their king's tombs.

Unfortunately, We were not supposed to take photos in the tombs so we don't have much to show.

Egypt trip, Dec 2008 - Karnak Temple

Our train from Cairo arrived in Luxor in the early morning. After a brief rest, we headed out to the Karnak temple.

Karnak is the home of the god Amun, who was an insignificant local god until the 12th dynasty when Thebes became the capital of Egypt.

What is special about Karnak is the length of time over which it was developed and used. Construction work began in the 16th Century BCE. Approximately 30 Pharaohs contributed to the buildings, enabling it to reach a size, complexity, and diversity not seen elsewhere (Construction of temples started in the Middle Kingdom and continued through to Ptolemaic times.)

Teefa has put us on horse carriage for the short journey.

The weather was nice and the ride was very pleasant. It started off nice and steady. But then, it got a bit competitive between one of our tour member and Teefa and our carriages went into a race. Teefa eventually won, but I am sure some bribery was involved.

We entered the temple and found the criosphinxes (ram-headed sphinxes) waiting for us on the Processional Way and leading us to the first pylon.

Inside one of the chambers in the Shrine of Seti II

The Libyan pharaohs (935-730 BC) built a vast court of the Bubastites. This column was once part of the kiosk of Taharka where the processional barks were kept.

The second pylon leads into the Hypostyle hall which was built by Seti I and his son Ramses II (between 1294 and 1213 BC)

It consists of 134 sandstone columns in 16 rows to support the roof. The 12 columns of the central "nave" are almost 21 metres high and 3 metres in diameter. The columns along the sides are about 10 metres high. The architraves on top of these columns weigh an estimated 70 tons. The sandstone for this temple, including all the columns, was transported from Gebel Silsila 100 miles south on the Nile river.

The Hypostyle hall is enormous. According to some travel books, the whole of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris could fit within the walls of the hall!

Stone lattice "windows"

Each of the columns are decorated in raised relief, which were pained in brilliant colours

Relief depicting the Pharaoh making offerings to the god

There are two upright obelisks left at Karnak: one of four erected by Tuthmosis III and one of two erected by Hatshepsut. The obelisk to the latter (right) is, out of ancient obelisks, second in height only to the Lateran obelisk in Rome. It weights 328 tonnes and stands 29 meters tall. It was made of Aswan pink granite with the apex once said to be covered with an alloy of silver and gold.

Statue of Rameses II

Touristy photo! :-P

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karnak)

At the pre-trip briefing, Teefa talked us through the dress code for the trip. He said that singlets and Russian skirts were encouraged. We didn't know what Russian skirts were, but when we saw this Russian/ Eastern European couple, it has all become clear. This photo has become the highlight of the day. When we showed the photo to Teefa for validation, he said, "SP, you are a very good photographer, but a very bad man!" hahaha

Egypt trip, Dec 2008 - Get your numbers right

When you are in Egypt and Jordan, you will find that most of the prices are written in Arabic numbers. If you don't know how to read there, you are likely to be overcharged.

So here is a list of the numbers in Arabic.

(Source: http://smile93.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/numbers.jpg)

Funnily enough, our "Arabic numerals" are called "Indian/ Hindi numerals" in Egypt and the Middle East. This is because the positional decimal system was originally defined by Indian mathematicians. How did the numbers came to be called "Arabic numbers" in the West? Well, the Indian decimal system was adopted and modified by North African Arab mathematicians, who then introduced to Europe in the 10th Century

Egypt trip, Dec 2008 - The Giza Pyramids

The Giza Pyramid complex is located some 8 km inland into the desert from the old town of Giza on the Nile, approximately 25 km southwest of Cairo city centre.

The complex consists of 3 key pyramids: (1: ON THE LEFT) the Pyramid of Khufu (known as the Great Pyramid and the Pyramid of Cheops), which is the sole survivor of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. ; (2: IN THE MIDDLE) The somewhat smaller Pyramid of Khafre (or Chephren) a few hundred meters to the south-west ; and (3: ON THE RIGHT) the relatively modest-size Pyramid of Menkaure a few hundred meters further south-west. There are also a number of smaller satellite edifices, known as "queens" pyramids, causeways and valley pyramids.

At first, the Pyramid of Khafre appears to be larger than that of Khufu's. However, as you approach the site, you will find that the Pyramid of Khafre seems taller because it stands on higher ground (10m higher) and its peak still retained part of the original limestone casing that once covered the entire structure.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu is the oldest pyramid in the Giza area and it is also the largest in Egypt. It stood 164.5m high when it was completed in around 2600 BCE.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu in the background. The Pyramid consists of more than 2.3 million limestone blocks. The Egyptians shipped the limestone blocks from quarries all along the Nile River. The stone was cut by hammering wedges into the stone. Then the wedges were soaked with water. The wedges expanded, causing the rock to crack. Once they were cut, they were carried by boat either up or down the Nile River to the pyramid. It is believed that this pyramid was constructed over a 20 year period.

The Great Pyramid of Khufu in the background. SP is sitting on the blocks of the Pyramid of Khafre. You can actually enter both pyramids. At the time of our visit, entry to the Great Pyramid costs LE 150 and entry to Khafre costs LE 30. SP and I went for the cheaper option! :-P

Camels in front of the pyramid

During the 18th dynasty, the "minister from the department of temple construction" robbed casing stone from Khafre to build a temple in Heliopolis on Rameses II’s orders. This photo shows what remains of it (at its apex).

Another famous sight at Giza is the Great Sphinx of Giza, which is a statue of a reclining lion with a human head. The Great Sphinx faces due east and houses a small temple between its paws. It is one of the largest monolith (carved from the bedrock) statue in the world, standing 73.5 m (241 ft) long, 6 m (20 ft) wide, and 20 m (65 ft) high. Most Egyptologists believe that the Great Sphinx was created by the Pharaoh Khafra and that the Sphinx therefore dates to his reign (2520-2494 BCE).

Recently, the Sphinx has undergone a major restoration effort. The top of the paw was purposely left unfinished, which demonstrates the difference between the original rock and the quality of the restoration.

The one-metre-wide nose on the face is missing and there are many stories about how it lost its nose, including one about how the nose was shot off by Napoleon's men. This story is unlikely to be true as 18th Century drawings already showed the nose as missing

If you got spare time on your hand, you might want to join other tourists in the sound-and-light show. These shows run at many ancient sites in Egypt and they seem to be quite popular. They ran in a variety of languages (though there is no Chinese version yet!) and they are about an hour long.

The best thing about these shows is that the lighting provides a good opportunity for night shots. Here are some examples:

Morocco trip, Dec 2007 - Almoravid Koubba

The Almoravid Koubba is the only remaining example of Almoravid architecture in Morocco.

According to sacred-destinations.com:

"The Almoravids (1062-1145) were reformers and monastic-type warriors from the nomadic Berber tribe (in what is now Mauritania). After conquering their homeland, they expanded to Morocco in 1062 and eventually extended their empire all the way to Algiers."

Under this dynasty, the empire was extended over present-day Morocco, Western Sahara, Mauritania, Gibraltar, Tlemcen (in Algeria) and a great part of what is now Senegal and Mali in the south, and Spain and Portugal to the north in Europe.

The original building was constructed in 1117, and it was restructured in the sixteenth and nineteenth century. The building was only excavated in 1950s.

The Almoravid Koubba is located near the Ben Youssef Mosque, which part of the Ben Youseef Medersa and off-limit to tourists. You can see the mosque in the background.

The building is very small but, it is significant not only because it's very old, but because its style is at the root of all Moroccan architecture.

There is a rectangular basin in the middle of the building.

And the dome is directly on top of the basin.

The interior is decorated with floral patterns of pine cones, palms and acanthus leaves as well as calligraphy. Materials used are marble and cedar-wood.

The epigraphic decoration, which covers the frames and borders, is noteworthy for the fact that the foundation inscription is the oldest inscription in cursive Maghrebi script in North Africa.

There is a pile of rocks next to the building. A group of people were looking at the rocks so we thought it must be an important monument. But there were actually looking at this group of cat trying to get the attention of a single female cat!