Dude looks like a lady...

Our final stop

on our tour of Egyptian ruins is the funereal temple of Hatshepsut. Also on the west bank of the Nile over the Theban Hills opposite the Valley of the Kings. The west bank of the Nile is where the ancient Egyptians watched the sun disappear each night where the goddess of day Nut’s (pronounced Newt) head rests and swallows the giant yellow disc to pass through 12 stations in her body emerging again at her feet in the east with the dawn.

To say the population of the pharaonic eras were obsessed with the afterlife is a monumental understatement everything these cats did pointed to preparations for the hereafter. Pharaohs commissioned statues to be sculpted of themselves in the calm arms X’ed across the chest repose of the eternal sleep of their worldly bodies while they were still alive. Tombs were intricate affairs with antechambers and storage rooms branching off from the main passageway assigned provisions by utility, jewelry, armor, food, clothing, transportation etc. All of this was mapped out beforehand, intricate blueprints for these underground spirit world apartments have been found as have the roughed out sketches for the paintings and carvings on the walls of these repositories. First sketches were done in red then tightened up in black and finally the artisans would carve the artwork into the walls – death was big industry.

So you had your basic dichotomy, light and darkness, death and life, east and west. All the temples built on the East side of the Nile where the sun rose at Nut’s feet were the cult temples built to worship and make offerings to specific gods in order to garner their favor. The West is where one’s corporal body was laid to rest, mummified in anticipation of the soul’s return after a boat ride down the river Styx and the successful completion of a dozen tasks outlined in the book of the dead.

So, it makes nothing but sense that the Pharaoh Hatshepsut built a funereal temple in the west. The rest of this king’s story is a bit more convoluted – even by ancient Egyptian standards. Hatshepsut was a woman who ruled as a king. Not satisfied being a regent to her nephew/stepson the heir apparent, Tuhatmet III, she took on the trappings and authority of full pharaohood. Now it wasn’t unheard of for women to have positions of power in ancient Egypt, but declaring oneself king, donning the ceremonial squared off fake beard AND claiming to be the most beautiful woman in the empire at the same time was pushing things a bit.

Thus, as with any maverick hoping to ascend to the highest office in the land an inspiring narrative need be employed, whether all the facts line up as straight as the sphinxes outside of Karnac temple doesn’t really matter as long as the tale plays on the heartstrings of the populace. The story is a good one. One of the most famous examples of the legends about Hatshepsut is a myth about her birth.

(Pieced together from her Wikipedia page) In this myth, Amun (the god in charge of the Breath of Life) goes to Ahmose (Hatshepsut’s earthly mother) in the form of Thutmose I (her earthly father) and awakens her with pleasant odors. At this point Amun places the ankh, a symbol of life, to Ahmose's nose, and Hatshepsut is conceived by Ahmose. Khnum, the god who forms the bodies of human children, is then instructed to create a body and ka, or corporal presence/life force, for Hatshepsut. Heket, the goddess of life and fertility, and Khnum then lead Ahmose along to a lioness bed where she gives birth to Hatshepsut. Pretty cut and dry.

But, you need to disseminate this legend and here is where the funereal temple of Hatshepsut comes into play, the walls of the immense structure are covered with hieroglyphic and artist renderings of this story and her claim to the throne. The whole place is one giant propaganda billboard constructed from stone quarried a hundred miles away in Aswan – home of the unfinished obelisk where we began our trip. Ta Daa, everything comes full circle. There is a lot more to her story what with her nephew trying to erase her from the history books and all, destroying all her statues and citations in official history but you can go and look that up if you’re interested.

Now I would be totally remiss to not give a tip of my hat to our most excellent guide, fount of all things Egyptian ancient and otherwise on this tour, Magdi. I had the opportunity to chat with him a couple times as we trekked back to whatever mode of transportation we were using and I asked him if he liked his job. His eyes lit up, “I love it” he replied. “I even go and visit archeological sites when I am not working.” He did say he missed his wife and son when he was working – his schedule is two weeks on with the cruise ships and then two weeks at home - an antiquities fireman kind of schedule. I told him that we were sort of in the same business, travelling and teaching and we agreed it was a pretty good way to make a living.

Thanks Magdi.

Kom Ombo Temple or "Just one more thing..."

Our boat

leaves moorage in Aswan and we motor with the current up the Nile toward the city and temple of Kom Ombo. This temple, relatively speaking is newer in that it is only 2,300 years old sans a few home improvement type additions added by a couple Roman emperors.

We travel with the current passing scenery reminiscent of the illustrations in catechism texts of my stint at St. Gabriel’s parochial school. Cattle herders, mostly boys wearing the traditional Egyptian galabia, a long flowing ankle length shirt – tend to their cows. Fisherman row small color faded boats back and forth near the shore, one manning the oars another beating the water with long poles, chasing their catch of Nile perch and catfish into nets.

At the banks of the river date palms and other greenery hold the desert at bay with varying success, sometimes only a couple yards sometimes nearly as far as one can see, but always eventually the sand and heat wins. Here and there floating pump stations the size of two car garages aid and abet the greenery while some farmers employ smaller and louder diesel engines coughing black smoke into the air, everybody along its banks wants a piece of the Nile.

Our MS (motor ship) Sherry Boat docks in the town of Kom Ombo and our group walks the ten minutes to the temple. Kom Ombo temple is considered Greco-Roman as it was built during the time of the Greek occupation of Egypt by Alexander the Great. The temple took 400 years to complete and was finished in 80BC. The unique detail about this particular temple is that it was built to worship two of the over one thousand Egyptian deities. Generally temples were built in honor of a single god. In this case though, the duo is Horus – the falcon headed god of divine protection and Sobek the crocodile god of evil (pronounced eeeeeeevil by our tour guide Magdi.)

It was hoped that by erecting a temple in the honor of the crocodile god that the actual crocodiles which used to bask in this area of the Nile would refrain from snacking on the locals. Of course a town could be considered suspect if they had a temple to the god of evil so it was decided to split the thing with a much more reputable god Horus.

The country was under the occupation of the Greeks at the time of the temple’s groundbreaking Alexander the Great and after him the Ptolemys understood that in order to get the populace to submit to foreign rule they had to show respect for the local culture and customs. Rather than erecting temples to the Greek gods, these guys depicted themselves in the style of the established Egyptian divinities, employing a “you catch more lies with honey” style of governance. This technique seems to have been lost to some more recent heads of state.

Finish what you start...

We fly into Aswan

to join our cruise ship the MS Sherry Boat. The boats that ply the Nile are large four deck affairs – not as big as the ships that cruise Alaska or the Caribbean – neither of which I have experienced – so this is the largest boat I have ever been on. Lounges, dining halls the whole shebang.

The rooming situation is a bit different form the spacious apartment given us in Cairo by the American College. We are now, three of us, inside a room the size of one of the three bedrooms that were in the apartment. Fortunately all we are using the room for is sleeping – so it is kind of like camping – except we do have our own bathroom.

We are on a package tour with a guide – the ship sails for about four or five hours at a time and then we disembark and tour historical sites with an English speaking guide named Magdi. We are in a group of a dozen or so strong of other English speakers from the US and Canada. Our first stop in Aswan is a visit to see an unfinished obelisk. An obelisk is a giant pointed stone structure – think of something the shape of the Washington Monument. These sculptures were roughed out in the quarry from where they were extracted, transferred to the Nile and then floated to their final destination where they were polished and inscribed.


The reason this particular obelisk was left unfinished is that it cracked during its extraction. This defect occurred even though there were painstaking processes in place to verify the stability of the rock before the quarrying took place. Three further attempts were made to remove smaller portions from the original attempt and they too failed. Again I was surprised by the sheer scale of the operation. This piece was at least three times bigger than I was expecting. Perhaps it was over ambition on the part of the original designer (if the effort had been successful – it would have been the largest of its kind ever produced in ancient Egypt) of this particular obelisk that doomed it from the start.

This led me to speculate the conversations between the laborers when the cracks appeared.

“I knew it would crack, I told them so – but did they listen to me? – Noooo, Mr. I Designed the Biggest Obelisk Ever just went ahead and tried anyway. But what do I know I’ve only been cutting these things out of this pit for thirty years, my father cut obelisks, my grandfather cut obelisks – but do they want MY opinion? Fancy Cairo education – book learning, that’s all they know. They ain’t got a lick more of common sense than one of those baby crocodiles in the market. How ‘bout you come on down in the pit and insert the cedar wedges? Not a chance, they might get some granite dust on their starched white skirts – I told them so.”

His long suffering buddy just sighs, “I know you did.”

And the foreman shouts down into the pit “We’re not paying you in beer to flap your lips!”

Finished Obelisk @ Karnac Temple

notice man in bottom right corner