During my second trip to Egypt, I had a chance to visit Luxor and the Valley of the Kings. To my surprise, but understandably, in many places you are not allowed to photograph in order to preserve the original hieroglyphics and paint.
And believe me, they are out of this world! Some of the tombs I saw (and I saw all currently open tombs in the Valley of the King and in the Valley of the Queens) were the most impressive human-made structure I've seen so far.
Uploaded on: 2018-02-04.
Map showing Luxor, Egypt location (opens in OpenStreetMap)
Beneath the cliffs at Deir el Baharti, the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut stands. It's being renovated by the Polish Academy of Sciences, and I wasn't sure if I liked it. It looked like something out of socialist Warsaw, especially from afar. It does look much better from up close.ISO 200, 23mm, f/4.0, 1/750s.
I was told that tourism in this area has never really recovered after the Luxor Massacre. In 1997, 62 people, most of whom were tourists, were gunned down here, when an Islamist organisation Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya attempted to undermine the Nonviolence Initiative. They hoped repression would follow that would in turn strengthen support for anti-government forces. The killing took 45 minutes, and a note praising Islam was found inside a disembowelled body. A 5-year-old child was killed as well as 4 couples of honeymoon. What happened afterwards was not what the terrorists wanted - Egyptian people got seriously fed up with them, to the point that no one really wants to own up for the massacre now. [1] Today, there are soldiers all over the place, with APCs and machine guns, and tourists from Sharm el-Sheikh arrive in armed transports.ISO 200, 23mm, f/6.4, 1/1600s.
It really is a sorry sight. It's mostly soldiers, touts, and you. In the photo, Oli looking at the Colossi of Memnon, ancient Egyptian statues restored in Roman times. They originally guarded a temple, but not much is left of it these days. [2] There's a legend that these statues make occasional sounds at dawn (as evidenced by graffitis made by tourists centuries ago).ISO 200, 23mm, f/6.4, 1/480s.
At the Luxor Temple, that's a honey bee; together with the sedge on the left this means King of the South and King of the North, as this temple was built by Ramses II; under his reign, the territory of Egypt spread as far as Armenia!ISO 640, 23mm, f/2.0, 1/60s.
I was told this architectural detail between the wall and the ceiling (or the ceiling itself) was added by Alexander the Great.ISO 2500, 23mm, f/2.0, 1/60s.
Luxor and Karnak temples were originally connected by the Avenue of Sphinxes (painted in bright colours). There might have been as many as 1350 of them. [3]ISO 2500, 23mm, f/2.0, 1/60s.
Hadrian! The man was everywhere. We met him in Scotland and in Jerusalem and now here. He had a chapel dedicated to himself added here, outside of the main temple, somewhat more respectfully than those who tweaked the temple design itself.ISO 640, 23mm, f/2.0, 1/60s.
We got 3 hours of sleep so we could do this hot air balloon tour. Out of five or six balloons, only ours took off. Here, before sunrise, Theban Necropolis from above. Soon, the temperature would increase by about 30 C. On the right, the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, to the left, the Valley of the Queens.ISO 200, 23mm, f/2.0, 1/140s.
The pilot seemed to be skilled to me. You have little control over the direction of your balloon, but you control the altitude. He got us some nice close ups.ISO 800, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/60s.
Typically Middle Eastern chaos beneath our feet. I believe you pay no property taxes here until the building is finished. So they are never finished.ISO 500, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/60s.
We crossed the Nile. I think the wind was blowing in the opposite to preferred direction, and we flew further away from the Necropolis. Did you know most of the Nile flows in Sudan?ISO 200, 23mm, f/5.6, 1/60s.
While Oli and I visited the Karnak temple, a tout with a speech impediment would not leave us alone. All temples in ancient Egypt had an element of the primeval waters of the goddess Nun, in the form of the sacred lake (where symbolically all life came from). [5]ISO 200, 23mm, f/8.0, 1/340s.
The Karnak Temple hypostyle hall is so big it could accommodate both St. Paul's and St. Peter's basilicas! It's precisely aligned - if you followed its main alley across the Nile, you'd end up on the stairs of the Hatshepsut mortuary temple (she's portrayed with a beard there as those were not easy times for women). Keep going and you'll end up straight in KV20 - her royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings.ISO 200, 23mm, f/8.0, 1/280s.
I simply love these Egyptian starred ceilings. They were originally painted blue and gold. The same ceilings will be found in some of the tombs in the Theban Necropolis.ISO 640, 23mm, f/8.0, 1/60s.
The last funeral, as it were, of Egyptian Pharaohs took place here in Luxor in 1881, when 40 royal mummies were shipped in barges to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The Nile is where it all began for the Judeo-Christian religions, as that's where Moses was adopted from. [4]ISO 200, 23mm, f/8.0, 1/500s.
The waterscape here changes at a rate of 250 m per 1000 years. [5] It could be that Karnak has once been built on an island.ISO 200, 23mm, f/8.0, 1/180s.
That's it for now from Egypt. Thanks for checking out the photos. There are two more galleries coming out soon that take us back to Cairo.ISO 100, 4mm, f/2.8, 1/1400s.Sources
