Massive temples, dead pharaohs, live mice, brown water, and mysteries revealed.

After we saw the pyramids of Giza, we hopped on a short flight to Luxor in Southern Egypt. We left the hotel extremely early the next morning to get to the Valley of the Kings. Apparently the pharaohs caught on to the fact that the pyramids were a dead giveaway to where their treasures were buried so they went for more discreet locations. Unfortunately they forgot the fact that the thousands of workers they employed to dig their tombs were savvy to the location of the treasure, so they ended up getting looted anyway. The only reason that King Tut's tomb was the only to escape the same fate was that his tomb was buried thousands of years ago under a small hill of dirt excavated from the tomb next to him. We went down into King Tuts tomb and it was pretty much empty, except for King Tut himself who was lying in a climate controlled glass case. He was a midget. Apparently the largest pharaoh found was only 5'11"! I can only imagine the bitching that the men had to hear from their women wanting to wear high heels... We went into a few more tombs and they were all ornately decorated and the paint was fairly preserved. It was amazing to see all the brightly painted relief carvings on the walls of the tomb. The tombs were all so hot and smelt a little bit like rancid sour cream from the thousands of sweating bodies that had been in them over the years. It was gross.



After visiting the tombs, we went to a decent sized temple. I'll spare you the details, because my next paragraph goes into greater detail. Let's rewind to the day I arrived in Cairo. After a really long bus ride, I just wanted to sit in the AC of our room and relax. I flipped on the TV to CNN and sat down on the ground in front of my TV. After watching TV for a few minutes, I saw something move past my foot out of the corner of my eye. I looked over to see what it was and saw a huge mouse trotting along the baseboard. My heart jumped up my chest into my throat and I bounced up off the ground fast as lightning. I trapped him behind the cupboard and then called the front office to get some help catching it. After a few minutes a man came in carrying a pipe wrench. I was thinking, this is going to be sweet!! He's going to smash the mouse with the wrench. Unfortunately, they didn't understand what I said and thought their was something wrong with the bathroom. After a few more phone calls they moved me to a different room.



When I got to Luxor, we pulled up to a "five" star hotel (which I think is a relative term). It looked pretty nice and I thought that my mice problems were past me. I went into the room and turned on the shower to wash the smell of a 8 hour bus ride off of me. After letting the water run for a few seconds I turned around, and to my great surprise, the water coming out of the spigot was literally brown. Not a slight tint of brown, but solid brown. Fortunately, only the hot water was brown. So I took a cold shower that night and then used the pool to cleanse myself from thereon out. I didn't take a picture but I will post one here when I get it from my friend.



The following morning we went to the temples at Karnak and Luxor. They were massive. The Ancient Egyptians were master engineers and architects and their buildings dwarf any others from the antiquities. Not only are all the buildings themselves amazing, every wall, column, obelisk (think Washington Monument), and ceiling is covered top to bottom with brightly painted relief sculptures. Not only is the building itself ornately decorated, but there are hundreds of sculptures and statues remain almost fully intact. Unlike the Romans and Greeks, the Egyptians thought about the eternal nature of their creations and carved their statues to last. The arms, beards and legs of the statues are all connected to the main part of the body so that they would be less susceptible to being damaged. So they remain largely intact compared to the headless and armless Roman statues. I can't even explain how impressive the temples were so I will just put up a couple pictures. The last picture shows how they would build the massive walls. They would build big sand hills to put the wall into place and then the artists would carve their reliefs as they took away the sand hills.



So the temple at Karnak dates back to the 16th century BC; however, their rituals date back to much earlier than that. Abraham was in Egypt around 2000 BC as a reference point. The temple at Karnak and Luxor both have the same basic design. They have an outer court, followed by several inner courts and rooms that finally end at the Holy of Holies in the center. Each room is higher than the last and the Holy of Holies is the highest spot in the temple. The Holy of Holies could only be visited by the Kings and Priests and had a large idol of their god sitting on an altar. Entering in the Holy of Holies meant that you entered in to the presence of god. The walls of the Holy of Holies explained the rituals of the Ancient Egyptians. First, the candidate must have a pure heart to participate in the rituals. After proving worthiness, he is washed and pronounced clean and then anointed to be a king or queen, priest or priestess. Then he receives a new garment. Then the person is given a second, kingly name. After that he receives instruction on the creation and is given signs and keywords that he will need to pass the sentinels that stand guard in the afterlife. After that, he is presented at a veil, where he is embraced by one through the veil and is tested on what he has learned. After completing the test, he is allowed to enter into the presence of the gods. The pharaohs were always buried with notes, called the book of the dead, that told them everything they needed to know to make it through the guards and gain eternal life. A large part of the decoration on the walls of the tombs were used for the same purpose. I took a bunch of pictures of the reliefs showing this process and will post a couple of them. I found the process to be very interesting and also found it interesting how obsessed with death the Ancient Egyptians were. The rich would spend their entire lives preparing their tombs for death.