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Published: March 11th 2009
The Theban necropolis, to be found on the West Bank of what is now called Luxor, contains several of Egypt's most famous sights. It was here that the deceased of the New Kingdom, that period between the 16th and 11th centuries BC when the Ancient Egyptian civilisation was at its peak, were buried - from pharaohs down to craftsmen. Though you could probably see a good chunk of the area within a day by car, I opted to spread my sightseeing over bits of three days, by foot, bicycle, and taxi.
My first afternoon there had the modest aim of walking from the ferry to the Colossi of Memnon then on to the ticket office and thence Medinet Habu for sunset. One noticeable different between the East and West Banks is that there is significantly less hassle on the West Bank, due to the fact that 99% of the tourist accommodation and facilities are on the East. There was no path as such so I simply walked beside the main road. I received hellos and waves from many of the people I passed, and also a kid on a donkey cart stopped and asked for baksheesh.
Over the fields
The decay of that colossal wreck
Ramesseum (Mortuary Temple of Rameses II)to the northwest, it was soon possible to see the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut. Its simple but large-scale design is instantly recognisable and it gave me a thrill to have a sighting of such a famous monument, albeit at distance. Further encouragement came from passing the Colossi of Memnon, a pair of statues from the reign of Amenhotep III. The name Memnon actually comes from a King of Ethiopia who participated in the Trojan War - for whatever reason, the Greeks gave this name to the Colossi and it has stuck since. Their associated mortuary temple a little to the west is only now being excavated - in its day it was larger than Karnak Temple but now is in poor condition so the Colossi sit just off the road, seemingly in relation to nothing nearby, sentinels watching for anyone approaching the necropolis.
The central ticket office is an unassuming building selling tickets for all the West Bank sites except for the Valley of the Kings, Valley of the Queens, and the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut. As such, you need to know when you reach it which sites you intend visiting - make of that what you will. My
Carvings
Mortuary Temple of Rameses III, Medinet Habu goal for the day was simply to see Medinet Habu, lying a few hundred metres to the south.
Medinet Habu is the second largest temple in Luxor after Karnak and is the mortuary temple of Rameses III. The general policy of the pharaohs was to have their tomb in a hidden dry place (i.e. the Valley of the Kings), and a mortuary temple closer to the river so as to be more accessible for pilgramages. Though much smaller than Karnak, Medinet Habu is more manageable to walk around and there are more original colours in the paintings. I can imagine that, in its day, it would have looked as bright and lively as the temples at Madurai in India. There are reliefs showing Rameses III defeating the so-called Peoples of the Sea. I was hoping to spend sunset there but the site closed at 5PM. The walk back to the ferry told me that my future visits would have to be via some other mode of locomotion, as it was too time-consuming and energy-sapping to be doing this on foot.
The Valley of the Kings is the most famous site at Luxor courtesy of its most famous resident,
Statue
Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, Deir El-Bahari the minor pharaoh Tutankhamun, whose tomb was the first unpillaged one to be found in modern times - by Howard Carter in 1922. Given the sumptuous contents of Tut's tomb, one can only imagine what riches would have been placed in the tombs of really great pharaohs such as Rameses II. The Valley receives 7,000 visitors daily and this tourist income has been put to good use, e.g. with maps of the Valley dotted around the complex. It's also well signposted and there is an information board outside each tomb describing its interesting features.
For your entry fee, you can choose 3 tombs to visit out of the more than 60 available (only about 20 of which belong to actual pharaohs), though a couple (such as Tut's) require extra fees, and many are closed for maintenance at any given time - I had a shortlist of 9 that I was particularly interested in but only 4 of these were actually open, despite having consulted a website purporting to show the availability status of the tombs. It was a definite thrill to be pottering around in one of the world's premier archaeological sites, the barren hilly landscape giving no clue
as to what lay beneath. Of course, the experience was shared with lots of tour groups.
I first visited the tomb of Thutmose III, Egypt's warrior pharaoh supreme from the 18th Dynasty - the Egyptian empire was expanded to its greatest extent during his reign, stretching from Syria to modern-day northern Ethiopia. His tomb lies at the end of one of the Valley's branches and consists of two chambers, both with blue ceilings covered in white five-pointed stars. This simple arrangement is common in early tombs in the Valley and a stark contrast with some of the later constructions (e.g. the tomb for the sons of Rameses II has more than 120 rooms). The walls are covered with the story of the Amduat, one of several Egyptian funerary texts intended to help the deceased in the afterlife, in this case by describing the geography of the underworld as well as the many spirits, good and bad, that the deceased may encounter within - the Amduat is special in that it was reserved for pharaohs and favoured nobility only. The style is basic though not crude. In this tomb, as in all, there are strictly no photos allowed, but baksheesh
relaxes all rules and some people were even taking flash shots with no interference from the guard. The guide who had arranged this for his group leaned nonchalantly on Thutmose's sarcophagus while his clients snapped away. It was humid, still and warm inside, and reemerging afterwards into the Valley of the Kings - hardly chilly itself - was a relief.
Next up was the tomb of Rameses IX of the 20th Dynasty, featuring some interesting yellow snake motifs in the entrance and extracts from various funerary texts. The painting is to a higher standard than in the tomb of Thutmose III but in worse condition (e.g. an entire crocodile had been lifted from one of the friezes). Rameses IX's reign was dull, distinguished only by a tomb-robbing scandal that excited the Theban chattering classes near the end of his time on the throne.
My final tomb was that of Tausert, one of Egypt's few female pharaohs and the last member of the 19th Dynasty. She was married to Seti II but only ascended to the throne once both Seti and his son had died. Her tomb was later coopted by Rameses III for his father Setnakht and is
much larger than the previous two I had seen. It has lost much of its original colour in places but there is a suitably massive coffin to go with the general scale of the place. It also featured a screaming child - I was hoping that the sound was a death wail associated with succumbing to the pharaoh's curse but sadly it was just a tantrum.
It would appear that Middle and New Kingdom Egyptians had a distaste for facial hair while alive, with beards being associated with poverty or foreigners. However they were considered a divine attribute in the afterlife, hence the false beards worn by many pharaohs (even women such as Hatshepsut) to emphasise their deified status.
The Valley seems to have acquired a secondary function as an FX market - with the various guards and policemen apparently often "tipped" in foreign coinage, which they can't change at a moneychanger, they are constantly looking out for nationals from the US, UK, and Euro countries to give them Egyptian pounds for these coins.
I cycled round the remaining sites that I was interested in, which was slightly tedious on a bike with just one gear but
generally the terrain was flat. My first stop was at Deir El-Medinah, aka the Village of the Workers. This was where the craftsmen who worked on the tombs in the Theban necropolis lived and died. These were probably the best-preserved tombs I saw on the West Bank. You had to leave your camera outside, and were prompted for baksheesh by both the guard watching the cameras and the guard sticking closely to you in the small tombs, adding a commentary. This was tremendously offputting and I don't remember that much about the tombs' details. Note that there is a third tomb here but you need to have a separate ticket to see it - it's not even next to the Deir El-Medinah price on the price board at the ticket office.
Next was the Ramesseum, the mortuary temple of Rameses II, the most prolific builder of self-referencing monuments in Egyptian history. The Ramesseum contains the fallen statue that inspired Shelley to write "Ozymandias" - the only poem longer than a limerick that I actually know off by heart. The remnants of the statue certainly did not include "vast and trunkless legs of stone", just a featureless face attached to
Hieroglyphics
Mortuary Temple of Rameses III, Medinet Habu some trunk and two feet, so either Perce was using poetic licence or the intervening years have not been kind to the statue. When upright, the statue would have been 18m high and weighed over 1000 tons. Though the poem had created a totally different setting in my mind's eye to that which confronted me in the Ramesseum, those fourteen lines still capture vividly the essence of a once-mighty ruler humbled by time.
Near the Ramesseum is Sheikh Abd el-Gurna, one of the main subdivisions of an area called the Tombs of the Nobles. Like the Valley of the Kings, the name is slightly misleading as some pharaohs and not just noblemen were buried there. Over 800 tombs have been discovered already, and the expectation is that this number will eventually run into thousands.
As I wobbled up on my bike, a policeman made a great show of gesturing that he would look after it. The tombs are spread throughout a village therefore are not easy to see. There are no signs near the car park, and the ones further away are so rusty as to be almost illegible. I was followed for several hundred metres from the
Frieze
Mortuary Temple of Rameses III, Medinet Habu car park by an extremely persistent guy saying he wanted to help me. I told him I wouldn't require his help as I had no interest in paying any baksheesh for something I could find perfectly well myself. He denied that he was seeking payment, then told me seconds later he'd show me the location of the tombs for LE5. When I didn't bite at this, he made veiled threats about my bike, which amused me as I couldn't see the policeman jeopardising his own baksheesh so that the guy could get back at me. I only saw two tombs here (those of Rekhmire, responsible for taxation, justice, and foreign policy under Thutmose III and Amenhotep II, and Sennefer, mayor of Thebes under Amenhotep II) but they were in better condition than those in the Valley of the Kings, containing images of everyday life rather than extracts from the various funerary texts.
The stretch of road heading north from the Tombs of the Nobles was lined with numerous alabaster shops decorated in faux tomb style, but there was hardly a snack shop to be found. I missed the turn-off to the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut because there was no
Colours
Mortuary Temple of Rameses III, Medinet Habu sign on the road - even when I realised my mistake and was coming back the other way, I only found a minuscule affair that could easily be missed in a car. The temple is at Deir Al-Bahari, an area in the Tombs of the Nobles. It looks great from far away but is certainly not the most interesting from close up. When first built, apparently there were gardens on its terraces. Hatshepsut was one of Egypt's few female rulers and her reign was one of peace and prosperity. She was succeeded by Thutmoses III, son of her husband but from another wife. The temple's natural setting is impressive, with towering cliffs behind, and it was certainly a high note to finish on.
My East Bank sightseeing and general thoughts about Luxor are in a separate blog.
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I travel, therefore i am.
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Truly impressive
Hi John, Greeting from China! Come arcoss your posting on travel blog and i read through with great interest. I have save it as my favorites. It seems that travel has already became your lifestyle, i quite enjoy reading it and your unique angel of observation of the world is impressive. Always nice shooting. It would be great if you could share some logistic information like lodging and food. Enjoy your journey and look forward your next posting.