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Published: March 5th 2020
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I'm sorry the photos aren't labeled. As you can imagine, we are quite busy going to sites, and there is limited, slow internet that I pay for if I want it in my room in Luxor.
This morning after a delightful breakfast on the roof of the hotel, overlooking the Luxor Temple and Hot Air Balloons, we went to Hatshepsut Temple.
The
Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, also known as the
Djeser-Djeseru (
Ancient Egyptian:
ḏsr ḏsrw "Holy of Holies"), is a
mortuary temple of
Ancient Egypt located in
Upper Egypt. Built for the
Eighteenth Dynasty pharaoh
Hatshepsut, it is located beneath the cliffs at
Deir el-Bahari on the west bank of the
Nile near the
Valley of the Kings. This mortuary temple is dedicated to
Amun and Hatshepsut and is situated next to the
mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II, which served both as an inspiration and later, a
quarry. It is considered one of the "incomparable monuments of ancient Egypt."
The
Polish Academy of Sciences in
Warsaw is responsible for the study and restoration of the three levels of the temple. As of early 1995, the first two levels were almost complete, and the top level was still under reconstruction.
Hatshepsut's chancellor, the royal architect
Senenmut, oversaw the construction
of the temple.
Although the adjacent, earlier mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II was used as a model, the two structures are nevertheless significantly different in many ways. Hatshepsut's temple employs a lengthy, colonnaded terrace that deviates from the centralised structure of Mentuhotep’s model – an anomaly that may be caused by the decentralized location of her burial chamber.
There are three layered terraces reaching 29.5 metres (97 ft) tall. Each story is articulated by a double colonnade of square piers, with the exception of the northwest corner of the central terrace, which employs proto-Doric columns to house the chapel. These terraces are connected by long ramps which were once surrounded by gardens with foreign plants including frankincense and myrrh trees.
The temple incorporates
pylons,
courts,
hypostyle, sun court,
chapel and
sanctuary.
Relief and sculpture
The relief sculpture within Hatshepsut’s temple recites the tale of the divine birth of a female pharaoh – the first of its kind. The text and pictorial cycle also tell of an expedition to the
Land of Punt, an exotic country on the Red Sea coast. While the statues and ornamentation have since been stolen or destroyed, the temple once
was home to two statues of
Osiris, a sphinx avenue as well as many sculptures of the Queen in different attitudes – standing, sitting, or kneeling. Many of these portraits were destroyed at the order of her stepson
Thutmose III after her death.
Astronomical alignment
Panoramic view of the mortuary temple (looking west)
The main and axis of the temple is set to an
azimuth of about 116½° and is aligned to the winter solstice sunrise,
which in our modern era occurs around the 21st or 22 December each year. The sunlight penetrates through to the rear wall of the chapel, before moving to the right to highlight one of the Osiris statues that stand on either side of the doorway to the 2nd chamber.
A further subtlety to this main alignment is created by a light-box, which shows a block of sunlight that slowly moves from the central axis of the temple to first illuminate the god Amun-Ra to then shining on the kneeling figure of
Thutmose III before finally illuminating the Nile god
Hapi.
Additionally, because of the heightened angle of the sun, around 41 days on either side of the solstice,
sunlight is able to penetrate via a secondary light-box through to the innermost chamber.
This inner-most chapel was renewed and expanded in the Ptolemaic era and has cult references to
Imhotep, the builder of the
Pyramid of Djoser, and
Amenhotep, son of Hapu, the overseer of the works of
Amenhotep III.
I’m learning that everytime someone offers to help you or take your picture, they expect payment. I’ve been avoiding them, and they really haggle you when you walk through the souvenir store (sometime you have to walk past the souvenir store to get to the entrance gate).
Khaled told us that using the phone camera without a camera fee is a recent thing. He wrote 100 letters to ask that tourist be allowed to use their phone cameras, and just 3 months ago they agreed that this could happen. However, there is still a charge for a regular camera.
Khaled also complained about the state of the Aswan train station. It was in disrepair for months and he kept asking when it would be fixed. No answer ever. So he took a video and posted it on Facebook. It caught the attention of the President and
the train station got fixed.
Next stop was Valley of the Kings.
The
Valley of the Kings (
Arabic: وادي الملوك
Wādī al Mulūk;
Coptic: ϫⲏⲙⲉ, romanized: džēme),
also known as the
Valley of the Gates of the Kings (
Arabic: وادي ابواب الملوك
Wādī Abwāb al Mulūk),
is a
valley in
Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, rock cut
tombs were excavated for the
pharaohs and powerful nobles of the
New Kingdom (the
Eighteenth to the
Twentieth Dynasties of
Ancient Egypt).
The valley stands on the west bank of the
Nile, opposite
Thebes (modern
Luxor), within the heart of the
Theban Necropolis.
The
wadi consists of two valleys, East Valley (where the majority of the royal tombs are situated) and West Valley.
With the 2005 discovery of a new chamber and the 2008 discovery of two further tomb entrances,
the valley is known to contain 63 tombs and chambers (ranging in size from
KV54, a simple pit, to
KV5, a complex tomb with over 120 chambers).
It was
the principal burial place of the major royal figures of the Egyptian New Kingdom, as well as a number of privileged nobles. The royal tombs are decorated with scenes from Egyptian mythology and give clues as to the beliefs and funerary rituals of the period. Almost all of the tombs seem to have been opened and robbed in antiquity, but they still give an idea of the opulence and power of the pharaohs.
This area has been a focus of
archaeological and
Egyptological exploration since the end of the eighteenth century, and its tombs and burials continue to stimulate research and interest. In modern times the valley has become famous for the discovery of the
tomb of
Tutankhamun (with its rumours of the
curse of the pharaohs),
and is one of the most famous archaeological sites in the world. In 1979, it became a
World Heritage Site, along with the rest of the Theban Necropolis.
Exploration, excavation and conservation continues in the valley, and a new tourist centre has recently been opened.
Geology
Stratigraphy of the valley
The Valley of the Kings is situated over 1,000 feet of
limestone and other sedimentary rock,
which form the
cliffs in the valley and the nearby
Deir el-Bahri, interspersed with soft layers of
marl. The sedimentary rock was originally deposited between 35–56 million years ago during a time when the
Mediterranean Sea sometimes extended as far south as
Aswan.
During the
Pleistocene the valley was carved out of the plateau by steady rains.
There is currently little year-round rain in this part of Egypt, but there are occasional
flash floods that hit the valley, dumping tons of debris into the open tombs.
The quality of the rock in the Valley is inconsistent, ranging from finely grained to coarse stone, the latter with the potential to be structurally unsound. The occasional layer of
shale also caused construction (and in modern times, conservation) difficulties, as this rock expands in the presence of water, forcing apart the stone surrounding it. It is thought that some tombs were altered in shape and size depending on the types of rock the builders encountered.
Corridor descending to the tomb of
Twosret and
Setnakhte Builders took advantage of available geological features when constructing the tombs. Some tombs were quarried out of existing limestone clefts, others behind
slopes of
scree, and some were at the edge of rock spurs created by ancient flood channels.
The problems of tomb construction can be seen with the tombs of
Ramesses III and his father
Setnakhte. Setnakhte started to excavate
KV11 but broke into the tomb of
Amenmesse, so construction was abandoned and he instead usurped the tomb of
Twosret,
KV14. When looking for a tomb, Ramesses III extended the partly excavated tomb started by his father.
The tomb of Ramesses II returned to an early style, with a bent axis, probably due to the quality of the rock being excavated (following the Esna shale).
Between 1998 and 2002, the
Amarna Royal Tombs Project investigated the valley floor using
ground-penetrating radar and found that, below the modern surface, the Valley's cliffs descend beneath the scree in a series of abrupt, natural "shelves", arranged one below the other, descending several metres down to the bedrock in the valley floor.
Panorama of the valley, looking north
Hydrology
The area of the Theban hills is subject to infrequent violent thunderstorms, causing flash floods in the valley. Recent studies have shown that there are
at least seven active flood stream beds leading down into the central area of the valley.
This central area appears to have been flooded at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, with several tombs buried under metres of debris. The tombs KV63, KV62, and KV55 are dug into the actual wadi bedrock rather than the debris, showing that the level of the valley was five meters below its present level.
After this event, later dynasties leveled the floor of the valley, making the floods deposit their load further down the valley, and the buried tombs were forgotten and only discovered in the early 20th century.
This was the area that was the subject of the Amarna Royal Tombs Project ground-scanning radar investigation, which showed several anomalies, one of which was proved to be KV63.
History
Al-Qurn dominates the valley.
The Theban Hills are dominated by the peak of
al-Qurn, known to the Ancient Egyptians as ta dehent, or "The Peak".
It has a pyramid-shaped appearance, and it is probable that this echoed the pyramids of the
Old Kingdom, more than a thousand years prior to the
first royal burials carved here.
Its isolated position also resulted in reduced access, and special tomb police (the
Medjay) were able to guard the necropolis.
While the iconic pyramid complexes of the
Giza plateau have come to symbolize ancient Egypt, the majority of tombs were cut into rock. Most pyramids and
mastabas contain sections which are cut into ground level, and there are full rock-cut tombs in Egypt that date back to the Old Kingdom.
After the defeat of the
Hyksos and the reunification of Egypt under
Ahmose I, the
Theban rulers began to construct elaborate tombs that reflected their newfound power.
The tombs of Ahmose and his son
Amenhotep I (their exact location remains unknown) were probably in the
Seventeenth Dynasty necropolis of
Dra' Abu el-Naga'.
The first royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings were those of
Amenhotep I (although this identification is also disputed),
and
Thutmose I, whose advisor,
Ineni, notes in his tomb that he advised the king to place his tomb in the desolate valley (the identity of this actual tomb is unclear, but it is probably
KV20 or
KV38).
I saw to the excavation of the rock-tomb of his majesty, alone, no one seeing, no one hearing.
The Valley was used
for primary burials from approximately 1539 BC to 1075 BC. It contains at least
63 tombs, beginning with
Thutmose I (or possibly earlier, during the reign of
Amenhotep I) and ending with
Ramesses X or
XI, although non-royal burials continued in usurped tombs.
Despite its name, the Valley of the Kings also contains the tombs of favorite nobles as well as the wives and children of both nobles and pharaohs. Therefore, only about 20 of the tombs actually contain the remains of kings. The remains of nobles and of the royal family, together with unmarked pits and embalming caches, make up the rest.
Around the time of
Ramesses I (ca. 1301 BC) construction commenced in the separate
Valley of the Queens.
Royal Necropolis
The official name for the site in ancient times was
The Great and Majestic Necropolis of the Millions of Years of the Pharaoh, Life, Strength, Health in The West of Thebes (see below for the hieroglyphic spelling), or
Ta-sekhet-ma'at (the Great Field).
At the start of the
Eighteenth Dynasty, only kings were buried within the
valley in large tombs. When a non-royal person was buried, it was in a small rock cut chamber, close to the tomb of their master.
Amenhotep III's tomb was constructed in the Western Valley, and while his son
Akhenaten moved his tomb's construction to
Amarna, it is thought that the unfinished WV25 may have originally been intended for him.
With the return to religious orthodoxy at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty,
Tutankhamun,
Ay, and
Horemheb returned to the royal necropolis.
The
Nineteenth and
Twentieth Dynasties saw an increase in the number of burials (both here and in the Valley of the Queens), with
Ramesses II and later
Ramesses III each constructing a massive tomb used for the burial of their sons (
KV5 and
KV3 respectively).
There are some kings that are not buried within the valley or whose tomb has not been located:
Thutmose II may have been buried in
Dra' Abu el-Naga' (although his mummy was in the
Deir el-Bahri tomb cache),
Smenkhkare's burial has never been located, and
Ramesses VIII seems to have been buried elsewhere.
In the
Pyramid Age, the pyramid tomb of a king was associated with a mortuary temple located close
to the pyramid. Since the tombs of the kings in the Valley of the Kings were hidden, the kings' mortuary temples were located away from their burial sites, closer to the cultivation facing
Thebes.
These mortuary temples became places visited during the various festivals held in the Theban necropolis. Most notable is the
Beautiful festival of the valley, where the sacred barques of
Amun-Re, his consort,
Mut, and son,
Khonsu, left the temple at
Karnak in order to visit the funerary temples of deceased kings on the West Bank and their shrines in the
Theban Necropolis.
The tombs were constructed and decorated by the workers of the village of
Deir el-Medina, located in a small wadi between this valley and the
Valley of the Queens, facing
Thebes. The workers journeyed to the tombs through various routes over the Theban hills. The daily lives of these workers are quite well known due to their being recorded in tombs and official documents.
Amongst the events documented is perhaps the first recorded workers' strike, detailed in the
Turin strike papyrus.
Location
The earliest tombs were located in cliffs at the top of
scree slopes, under storm-fed waterfalls (
KV34 and
KV43).<sup id="cite_ref-kv5histdevelopment_20-3"
class="reference">
As these locations were filled, burials descended to the valley floor, gradually moving back up the slopes as the valley bottom filled with debris. This explains the location of the tombs
KV62 and
KV63 buried in the valley floor.
Then to the alabaster shop where they showed us how they make the alabaster items. Then we were free to shop. Khaled said to use the same bargaining method as in the market, but it didn’t work here.
KV1KV2KV3KV4KV5KV6KV7KV8KV9KV10KV11KV12KV13KV14KV15KV16KV17KV18KV19KV20KV21WV22WV23WV24WV25KV26KV28KV29KV30KV31KV32KV34KV35KV36KV37KV38KV39KV40KV41KV42KV43KV44KV45KV46KV47KV48KV54KV55KV56KV57KV58KV59KV61KV62KV63 A map of the Valley of the Kings with locations of tombs marked
Next stop the Colossi of Memnon.
The
Colossi of Memnon (
Arabic: el-Colossat or
es-Salamat) are two massive stone
statues of the
Pharaoh Amenhotep III, who reigned in
Egypt during the
Dynasty XVIII. Since 1350 BCE, they have stood in the
Theban Necropolis, located west of the
River Nile from the modern city of
Luxor.
The twin statues depict
Amenhotep III (
fl. 14th century BC) in a seated position, his hands resting on his knees and his gaze facing eastwards (actually ESE in modern bearings) towards the river. Two shorter figures are carved into the front
throne alongside his legs:
these are his wife
Tiye and mother
Mutemwiya. The side panels depict the Nile
god Hapi.
Antonio Beato,
Colosses de Memnon, 19th century.
Brooklyn Museum The statues are made from blocks of
quartzite sandstone which was quarried at
el-Gabal el-Ahmar (near modern-day
Cairo) and transported 675 km (420 mi) overland to
Thebes (Luxor). The stones are believed to be too heavy to have been transported upstream on the Nile. The blocks used by later Roman engineers to reconstruct the northern colossus may have come from
Edfu (north of
Aswan). Including the stone platforms on which they stand – themselves about 4 m (13 ft) – the colossi reach a towering 18 m (60 ft) in height and weigh an estimated 720 tons each.
The two figures are about 15 m (50 ft) apart.
Both statues are quite damaged, with the features above the waist virtually unrecognizable. The southern statue comprises a single piece of stone, but the northern figure has a large extensive crack in the lower half and above the waist consists of 5 tiers of stone. These upper levels consist of a different type of
sandstone, and are the result of a later reconstruction attempt,
which
William de Wiveleslie Abney attributed to
Septimus Severus.
It is believed that originally the two statues were identical to each other, although inscriptions and minor art may have varied.
The original function of the Colossi was to stand guard at the entrance to
Amenhotep's memorial temple (or
mortuary temple): a massive construct built during the pharaoh's lifetime, where he was worshipped as a god-on-earth both before and after his departure from this world. In its day, this temple complex was the largest and most opulent in
Egypt. Covering a total of 35 hectares (86 acres), even later rivals such as
Ramesses II's
Ramesseum or
Ramesses III's
Medinet Habu were unable to match it in area; even the
Temple of Karnak, as it stood in Amenhotep's time, was smaller.
Side panel detail showing two flanked relief images of the deity
Hapi and, to the right, a sculpture of the royal wife
Tiye With the exception of the Colossi, however, very little remains today of
Amenhotep's temple. It stood on the edge of the Nile
floodplain, and successive annual inundations gnawed away at its foundations – a famous 1840s lithograph by
David Roberts shows the Colossi surrounded by water – and it was not unknown for later rulers to dismantle, purloin,
and reuse portions of their predecessors' monuments.
Soon after its construction the temple was destroyed by an earthquake, recently dated by the Armenian Institute of Seismology to around 1200 BC, which left only the 2 huge colossi at the entrance still standing. These were further destroyed by an earthquake in 27 BC, after which they were partly reconstructed by the Roman authorities.
The 1200 BC earthquake also opened numerous chasms in the ground which meant that many statues were buried, some in pristine condition. These have been the subject of extensive restoration and excavation conducted by the Armenian/German archaeologist Hourig Sourouzian, who has revealed that the complex consisted of three pylons, each fronted by colossal statues, while at the far end a rectangular Temple complex consisted of a peristyle court surrounded by columns. So far four of the statues have been re-erected, with 8 waiting to be re-erected, while some 200 statues or pieces of statues are in the Luxor Museum, some on display, others in store awaiting conservation.
The modern Arabic name is Kom el-Hatan, but it is generally known by the Roman name as the Temple of Memnon.
Memnon was a
Temple next to Hatshepsut Temple
She used this temple as a model for hers. hero of the
Trojan War, a
King of Ethiopia who led his armies from
Africa into
Asia Minor to help defend the beleaguered city but was ultimately slain by
Achilles. Memnon (whose name means
the Steadfast or
Resolute) was said to be the son of
Eos, the goddess of dawn.
He was associated with colossi built several centuries earlier, because of the reported cry at dawn of the northern statue (
see below), which became known as the
Colossus of Memnon. Eventually, the entire
Theban Necropolis became generally referred to as the Memnonium
making him "Ruler of the west" as in the case of the god
Osiris who was called chief of the
west.
Then we had lunch with an Egyptian family – salad, potato, chicken, rice, beef. Khaled said it was cooked Tagine style – in clay cookware. Excellent food, great hosts, fun children (I played the clapping game with the girls).
We took a boat taxi across the Nile to get back to the other side & back to our hotel.
Tonight we will have our farewell dinner. I’m so sad to leave Khaled. He has been the most wonderful tour guide. This trip has been
a great experience for me in a time period when people are afraid to travel. I always felt safe and (knock on wood) I have not gotten sick.
Tomorrow most of us (except Marcella, Ben, and Caroline) will continue on to Jordan.
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