Winter Solstice

Journal: Friday 22 December 1995

I am always more aware of the day of winter solstice than I am of Christmas itself. The solstice for me is a time of change and rebirth, new beginnings. In England midwinter is a dark time when day is barely distinguishable from the long protracted night, but also a time of hope. In Egypt, the hours of day and night vary only slightly throughout the year and I found myself content with this natural balance and happy to follow its rhythms. On the morning of winter solstice 1995 I woke with the sun casting a misty rose tint on the Theban Mountains across a luminous river. This was my last day in Egypt! I sat on the balcony of my room for a long time basking in the growing warm glow and bidding the mountains a lingering farewell. Below me the gardeners were already out to tend their flowers of vibrant scarlet, cerise and yellow and one old man, Mahmoud, looked up and waved at me before continuing to hose down the footpaths, ready for the new day. How different this day would be in England.

As our last day, this one had to be even more special than all the others. My friend and I decided to go back to Karnak Temple and we hurried to be there before the crowds. How wrong we were – the coach parties were already arriving as we stepped out of our taxi at 8.00am. Once inside we each went off to try to find a quiet place. I headed straight for the sanctuary and sat there alone for a few peaceful moments studying the carvings, the picture of the sacred barque, used to transport the god’s image, and I imagined what this place would have been like in ancient times. Did those priests recognise the turning of the year? They certainly watched the starry heavens and recorded events. I wandered across to the sacred lake, shimmering in the morning light and I followed its edge all the way around. There were a few stone steps leading down into the lake and I went down and dipped my fingers into the green water – an echo of the daily purification of the priests. It was perhaps a symbolic gesture, a bonding with a bygone time and with these stones as they were now shaped. It was a thanksgiving to whatever gods there are for allowing me to be here at this time. I didn’t make a wish, rather a solemn promise that I would be back, whether to the gods or to myself, I couldn’t say. But someone must have been listening because I have returned to Egypt at least once each year since that time.

The flight home to England later that day both ended and began my love affair with this ancient land.

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Dendera Temple

Journal: Thursday 21 December 1995

Another early start this morning as my friend and I had arranged with Sharif the taxi driver to take us to the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, one of the most extensive temple complexes to survive from the Ptolemaic Period. Sharif had already collected his brother who was about to be conscripted into the army and had an appointment in Qena to sign the papers. We took the east bank route beside the Nile travelling northwards and crossed the long bridge over the river where it bends dramatically at Qena. The road to Qena is very long and straight for about 65km with several police checkpoints along the way. Today, if you are not Egyptian, it is impossible to travel freely around Egypt. Since the terrorist problems, any movement outside the major tourist areas is forbidden, unless you travel with a police convoy. But in 1995 the convoys were not yet in operation, though security was still an issue. We had also wanted to visit Abydos but it was closed down completely. In fact our hotel tour guide advised us not to go to Dendera either as two foreigners had been shot dead there the previous year. But we were determined to see as much as possible in our remaining time in Egypt.

Dendera Temple is a few kilometres west of Qena on the other side of the Nile, the road winding around vivid green irrigated fields where farmers were busy tending their crops and cattle. We drove past the occasional donkey loaded with green clover and perhaps one or two farmers taking produce to the market in Qena, but otherwise we were on our own. The temple was equally deserted and the three or four guards who rushed out to welcome us told us that tourists rarely visit here. In fact there were not even any tickets sold. We were guided around the temple by the gafir, or chief guard, who pointed out the important parts of the temple. The high ceilings of the hypostyle hall were dirty but I could just make out the beautiful paintings of astronomical deities against a dark starry sky. We were shown an underground crypt, out of which flew a cloud of bats and where we saw the famous ceremonial scene which some claim depicts a modern light-bulb. I was not convinced! The pitch dark winding staircase up to the roof impressed me with its high narrow apertures for light carved with representations of the streaming sun, while the king led a procession of priests carved onto the walls. One of my favourite parts was up on the roof, which commanded a wonderful view across the desert beyond the cultivated areas of farmland. Today this top part of the roof is no longer accessible. Mysterious chapels and sanctuaries were dotted about the lower roof level and we saw the blackened ceiling of the Dendera Zodiac, though I didn‘t learn until later that this was merely a copy, the real one being in the Louvre in Paris. The beautiful goddess Hathor, to whom this temple was dedicated, was depicted everywhere with her consort Horus, whose temple we had seen at Edfu, and their son Ihy. I especially loved the Hathor-headed columns on the facade. We had an hour or so to look around the complex and we saw the birth-rooms, the Isis Temple at the rear and the peaceful rectangular sacred lake, now dry, with palm trees growing from the sandy bottom.

All too soon it was time to leave. A party of excited Egyptian schoolchildren had just arrived and were shouting for pens, sweets and baksheesh, which went some way to dispel the feeling of desolation here. It was sad to see the shabby café and bazaar all shut up and the few local people desperate for contact with tourists, which meant money for them. It was so unlike the more popular sites south of Luxor.

Our driver Sharif seemed to be much happier when he was on the road back to Luxor. I sensed that he was uneasy driving through Qena where foreign tourists were never seen. On the way back we asked if we could visit a well-known pottery at Garagoz, near the town of Qift, and got permission from the police at a checkpoint and an armed escort to take us. Unfortunately nobody knew the way and we drove around the lanes and along dirt-tracks for many miles before we found it. Tourists often used to visit the pottery in the village of Garagoz, set up in the 1950s for the Christian community there, but had not come for many years because there had been some religious unrest in the area. The pottery factory was opened especially for us (it had been closed for the afternoon siesta) and we were warmly welcomed by the manager. We saw some of the pottery, the quaint little figurines seen in bazaars all over Egypt, in the process of production. We had a cup of tea and bought some of the little figures (we felt obliged to after all the trouble we had put people to). By the time we arrived back in Luxor it was 4.00pm. The whole trip had cost us only LE50 (Egyptian pounds), just under £10 English at that time. It had been a fascinating day and I was so glad to have seen a little of Egypt away from the tourist trail.

The Wedding

Journal: Wednesday 20 December 1995

In the evening my friend and I were invited to a wedding by Moses, a self-proclaimed ‘Egyptologist’ we had met and chatted with a few times. We both jumped at the opportunity of meeting more locals and seeing some real Egyptian life and customs. The event was not at all what we expected. It was held in one of the back streets of Luxor, draped for the occasion in red, green and white colourful awnings. The street, which was closed off for the wedding, had a decorated stage at the end, where a group of musicians were sitting. However, they were not playing when we arrived, and instead, ear-splitting pop music was blasting from some massive speakers at the back of the stage. The groom, we were told, was also sitting on the stage, but the bride was with the other women, mother, sisters and friends, sitting to one side in a separate group. We were invited to sit in the rows of chairs facing the stage where the men were sitting. I have later come to realise that quite often a female tourist sometimes must become an ‘honorary man‘, as we cannot easily be categorized, nor can we be included in the gaggle of women who huddle together in a secluded group. I must say, we were warmly welcomed and seated in a ‘place of honour’ in the front row (just in front of one of the powerfully loud speakers!) and each given a bottle of Pepsi to drink. For a while we enjoyed just people-watching and every few minutes one of the elder men would come and try to have a conversation in broken English. ‘Where you from?’ ‘My name is…?’ (meaning ‘What’s your name?’). There was a lot of nodding and grinning and they did seem to be very pleased that we were there. We learned that the groom’s name was Mohammed, but the bride’s name, though we asked several times, seemed too unimportant to be mentioned. She was dressed in a bright pink confection of a wedding dress with many frills and ruffles. Every few minutes some guest would go up to the stage and hand a wad of money to the groom and I later learned that this is a custom at Egyptian weddings.

We sat for about an hour, hoping that the loud music would stop and that the musicians would begin to play, but it didn’t seem that it would happen anytime soon. After a while we realised that our guide Moses had disappeared and nobody knew where he had gone, so we waited for a while and then decided to leave. This was not as easy as it sounds as we were somewhere in the warren of narrow back streets of Luxor in an area we had never been to before. There were no taxis or caleches and by this time it was 11.30pm. But in Luxor, the friendliness and kindness of the people means that you can never go far before help is at hand. Eventually a man saw us looking lost and guided us to a main street, flagging down an ambling caleche to take us back to our hotel and he even insisted on paying the driver from his own pocket. One thing that really struck me at the time was how I had never felt unsafe or threatened here. I would not be comfortable wandering alone through the streets of my home town at that time of night, but felt perfectly safe here and I have felt the same every time I’ve been in Egypt since then. I have been invited to much nicer weddings and have learned much more about the customs, but that first brief experience gave me a glimpse into the character and generosity of the Egyptian people – apart from Moses, I have to add, who had abandoned us and who we never saw again.

To the West Bank

Wednesday 20 December 1995

This morning there were a group of musicians playing outside our hotel. They wore colourful galabeyas and turbans and played a variety of instruments including several types of drum and tabla and a rababa. The rababa is a curious instrument consisting of half a coconut shell covered in goatskin (traditionally) with a long vertical pole with pegs at the top which keep its two strings taut. It is played like a violin with a bow and is also known as the ‘Fiddle of the Nile‘. To our western ears the discordant screeching noise it made was terrible! I loved the drums though and that wonderful Saidi rhythm. I chatted to the musicians for a while, whose ages ranged from around twelve to eighty, and learned about their instruments, even having a try at playing the rababa. Hmm, It wasn’t as easy as it looked. I could have listened to the insistant drumbeat, and the alternate drone and melody of the rababa all day. It was so different to any music I’d heard before and seemed to come up from the ground through my feet making me want to dance.

But I had other things to do. My friend and I were going to make our first solo foray over to the West Bank. Although there was a special ferry for tourists, we decided to cross the river on the local ferry, a listing, rusty metal hulk which seemed to contain half the population of Luxor. On the way we met a taxi driver called Sharif, who we had spoken to before. His taxi was in Luxor, but he said his father had one on the other side and if we went with him to his parents house he would ask his father to  take us to the tombs. This we did, but the whole procedure took much longer than we thought as we were invited by Mother to have a cup of tea in the shaded garden courtyard while Sharif went off to look for Father. Small brothers and sisters stood and silently gazed at us with huge liquid eyes while we tried to make conversation in sign language. Sharif’s father Ahmed was duly found and we eventually set off in his taxi. We were heading for the Nobles tombs out towards the mountains after buying our tickets at the ticket office, which at that time was near the river.

The village of Qurna was nestled in the foothills of the Theban mountains and hidden among (and under) the primitive houses are over 400 ancient tombs and tomb chapels belonging to the local elite. The first we saw, and which I will always think of as one of the most beautiful of the Theban tombs was that of Sennefer, ‘Mayor of the Southern City’ of Thebes and an important official during the reign of Amenhotep II. His tomb, high up on the hillside, is known as the ‘Tomb of the Vines’ because of the beautiful decoration on some of the ceilings which gave me the impression of standing under an tent hung with big bunches of grapes. Its two chambers were deep underground and the paintings of Sennefer, his wife and his sister were very colourful and well-preserved. For a little baksheesh, the guard allowed us to take photographs.

The owner of the next tomb was Rekhmire who was a ‘Governor of the Town’ and ‘Vizier’ during the reigns of Tuthmose III and Amenhotep II. In a long high passageway  there were many scenes of industries and craftsmen and in the outer chamber pictures of animals – panthers, giraffes, elephants and horses brought from Nubia. The following tomb. belonged to Khaemhet, who was a royal scribe and ‘Overseer of the Granaries’ during the reign of Amenhotep III. This was not so colourful but had beautifully carved reliefs of agricultural scenes as well as funerary scenes.

In our fourth tomb, that of Userehet, another royal scribe, we saw more agricultural scenes, this time painted rather than carved. The guards here were very good to us, though they spoke no English. They lit the walls of the tomb with a series of shiny metal sheets used as mirrors to reflect sunlight onto the walls (not very archaeologically sound as I later came to realise). Anyway, it worked very well and we were able to take photographs in even the darkest corners of the tomb. I loved the scenes of daily life found in these tombs much more than the formal afterlife scenes in the Valley of the Kings.

Our last call was to the tomb of Ramose, ‘Governor of Thebes’ during the reign of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten. This was his tomb-chapel and was much larger and grander than the previous four. The reliefs on the walls were (and still are) in my opinion the most beautiful in the whole of Egypt. After we had a good look around the guard took us down into the burial chamber, which involved an adventurous slide down a steep narrow tunnel on our bottoms. The chamber was roughly hewn from the rock and completely empty and undecorated, but worth the undignified descent just to see the glittering alabaster ceiling. By the time we emerged to see the curious faces of another party of visitors my friend and I were both filthy and dishevelled. Strangely we both felt much more comfortable in these nobles tombs than we had in the tombs of the pharaohs. There was a much more personal atmosphere here – I could imagine the lives of the owners and their families much more easily than the remote lives of the kings. Or perhaps it was because we hardly saw any other tourists and were able to spend as long as we wanted in the tombs admiring the ancient craftsmanship.

Finally we asked Ahmed to take us to the Ramesseum, the temple built for Rameses the Great, but unfortunately the monument was closed for restoration. Instead he took us to Medinet Habu, the mortuary temple of Rameses III. The paintings here were fabulous, with so much colour compared to all the other temples I had seen. I was very surprised it was not more of a major site, being second only to Karnak Temple in size. At that time hardly anyone went to visit it. I was so glad we had come here as it became in the following years my favourite place in Egypt.

Karnak Sound and Light

Tuesday 19 December 1995

On my 11th day in Egypt I woke at dawn and went out onto the hotel balcony to listen to the call to prayer and to watch the sun rise on the mountains of the West Bank. The jagged line of hills was bathed in a soft warm rosy glow – the sun-god Re building a new day. The mist rose over the river like a curtain covering a precious jewel, all the more magnificent when it was revealed.

My friends and I spent a lazy day by the river or lounging around the hotel swimming pool. Hard to believe this was almost Christmas the weather was so comfortably warm. Later in the afternoon some of us went to the bazaar again, where my new little friend Hani was waiting to guide us around. Some of the shopkeepers recognised me from last night – what amazing memories they have given the numbers of tourists who pass through here.

After dinner five of us went to see the Sound and Light show at Karnak Temple, ‘Thebes of the Hundred Gates‘. I was excited to be going back there. I have a friend who had excavated at Karnak back in the early ‘seventies and years ago he had played me a recording of the sound and light show that he’d heard each evening from his hotel roof, so I was already familiar with the story it tells of Luxor’s historical past. I have not seen the light show at the Giza pyramids but it is said that the one at Karnak easily rivals it.

The journey began at the avenue of sphinxes, the approach to Karnak’s first pylon and continued through the great court. The first voice spoke; “May the evening sooth and welcome you oh travellers from Upper Egypt“. Then another voice was heard saying; “You will travel no further because you are come. Here you are at the beginning of time“. I felt a delicious shiver of anticipation as we walked through the dark hypostyle hall, lit by hidden spotlights, with its giant forest of pillars casting shadows into the corners and giving a wonderfully mysterious atmosphere. Here the story began to be told of the “Great Week of the Creation of the World, the separation of the Earth from the Waters“. We heard the voices of Champollion, one of the first to decipher hieroglyphs, the voices of the god Amun, the pharaohs Seti I, Rameses III, Tutankhamun and Taharka continuing the journey to the heart of the night. Hearing about the lives of pharaohs who built and re-built monuments to their own memory, I truly was transported back in time and could almost smell the incense and hear the chanting of the priests, despite the crowds and the modern lighting.

We made our way slowly through the temple to the seating area on the banks of the sacred lake, hardly noticing the chill in late evening air, to hear the story’s completion. “A Hundred trumpets shrill thy name oh Thebes and echo thy beauty…..  where only the gods have endured“. We heard about the grand archaeological site, the divine city of Karnak where… “They all brought their stone and their prayers“. We were told of how Queen Hatshepsut brought Karnak’s massive granite obelisks down river on barges from Aswan. We heard how Karnak was relegated to the shadows at the time of the Aton, before the new child pharaoh Tutankhamun restored the ancient worship of Amun and rekindled the thousand lamps of the abandoned temples, then how his tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings in 1922. The voices in the night described the fabulous machinery of the universe and how the priest-astronomers observed its movements from the terraces of Karnak. I looked up at the clear velvet sky and there were billions of twinkling stars, reminding me that the gods of this place will reign forever. I was so captivated by this whole experience that by the time we made our way out of the temple for the caleche ride back to the hotel, I was speechless for the rest of the evening.

Back to Luxor

Journal: Monday 18 December 1995

We had spent only two full days in Cairo, but it felt like much longer. I still wasn’t sure if I liked the city but it certainly had been an important part of the ‘Egyptian Experience’, as our package was called. On the surface, to the casual tourist who is ferried about in coaches and groups it is a city trying hard to modernise itself. We were introduced to a Cairo wearing its best clothes. But already I had realised the huge contradiction and struggle here between the thriving economy of a western-style culture and the hidden poverty of the slums which for millions of Cairenes is their daily life.

We left our grand hotel early in the morning in a coach on route to the airport, picking up other tourists on the way. There was a lot of waiting. The smog and traffic fumes were bad this morning and even with the air-conditioning in the coach I felt I could hardly breath by the time we reached the airport at Heliopolis.  More waiting as the internal flight to Luxor was delayed by an hour, held up for some important passenger to arrive. The flight took 50 minutes and from my window seat I was able to look out over the desert as we followed the Nile south. It was a lovely flight and I watched the changing patterns of desert, hills and valleys until before long we were descending towards Luxor. I felt quite emotional as we touched town on the bumpy runway once again. My excitement of the first few days in Egypt returned as I left the aircraft and felt the hot breeze and fresh Luxor air on my face. It was a strong feeling of coming home.

Our hotel, The Isis, had recently been built and was at that time one of the best in Luxor. It was situated right by the Nile, that wonderful river which I already felt had claimed me. Walking in the afternoon sun, down through well-tended gardens draped with bougainvillea and hibiscus flowers right to the water’s edge, I could look across the calm stretch of river to the Theban hills beyond. This was the point that I really fell in love with those mountains which had for centuries protected and hidden the incredible tombs of kings and nobles buried in the Valleys of the West Bank.

Later that evening my friend and I daringly took a caleche into the centre of Luxor to walk through the bazaar. We were instantly adopted by two little boys, who, bare-footed and wearing grubby blue galabeyas, took our hands and led us through the suq. Mustapha and Hani both spoke excellent English and were only too pleased to show us the ‘best’ shops and advise us on prices. We chatted to shopkeepers who plied us with numerous cups of strong sweet Egyptian tea and we bought one or two presents for friends back in England – a place I had hardly remembered since arriving in this wonderful country. Tired but happy we eventually walked back to the hotel. I was so excited to be back in Luxor again.

Saqqara

Journal: Sunday 17 December 1995

The high point of the day for me was our next stop, the Step Pyramid at Saqqara.  Saqqara is the location of the principal necropolis of ancient Memphis, dating from the time of the foundation of the city. The site covers an area of 900 hectares, crowded with burials which span almost the whole period of Egyptian antiquity. The plateau contains a great number of massive tombs belonging to members of the first royal families and high officials from Dynasty I onwards. The name of the first ruler of unified Egypt, Narmer, whose tomb is at Abydos, further south, is also known at Saqqara. Many of the Early Dynastic rulers appeared to have funerary monuments at both Saqqara and Abydos and there is much debate between archaeologists about which site contained the actual burials of these rulers. 
 
The most famous monument at Saqqara is the step pyramid complex of the Third Dynasty King, Djoser, which was thought to be the first large funerary monument constructed in stone and much of its architecture is based on the natural materials which had previously been used in the construction of royal tombs and temples. This is the monument most people come to visit, although there are many other pyramids, including those of Kings Userkaf, Teti and Unas. Many important officials resided in Memphis during the New Kingdom and although the kings of the period are known to have been buried at Thebes (Luxor), many of the elite constructed elaborate tombs at Saqqara. To the north-west of the Step Pyramid are the animal cemeteries, including tomb galleries of mummified baboons, ibis and falcons as well as the ‘Serapeum’ – underground galleries in which the sacred Apis Bulls were buried. From the Late Period onwards there were vast numbers of animals, including dogs or jackals and cats being embalmed and buried in huge catacombs.

The Step Pyramid itself, constructed by Imhotep, a great architect and magician who was revered throughout ancient Egyptian history, was not open to visitors because of its dangerous condition, but we wandered around the periphery looking at the incredible structures with intricately carved pillars and cornices that echoed in stone, the natural materials that the designs were based on. Elaborate friezes of cobras were carved on top of the walls surrounding the pyramid complex. From the top of the ridge we had a spectacular view across the desert, north towards Abusir, and Giza and south towards Dashur. I sat for a while looking over the desert and talking with one of the camel drivers, who told me his camel’s name was Whiskey. His own name was Ahmed, a sprightly old man with twinkling eyes set in a brown wrinkled and weathered face who wore a long grey striped galabeya and shawl, with a scarf wound around his head to keep off the blistering sun. Ahmed told me in his broken English that he had been working here at Saqqara for four decades and had seen many changes.

Our journey back to Cairo involved the traditional visit to a carpet factory. Hassan had been a good taxi driver and had been very patient with us all day, so we went along with the visit as it seemed to please him more than our tour of the monuments and no doubt he hoped to earn commission from any purchases we made. The carpet factory, in the village of Haranaya was in fact also a tapestry school where children as young as five were taught to create the intricate designs that had been woven for centuries. Their tiny fingers worked at great speed with multi-coloured skeins of wool and when they were older, they graduated to fine silks which shone with the colour of jewels. Often they did not even have a pattern to follow, having learned the design through years of practice. We were told, as we watched the children and admired their work, that it takes three months to create one metre of silk carpet, which was reflected in the prices of those gorgeous examples for sale in the gallery above.

We had had a lovely day and were very tired as Hassan drove us back to Cairo through the rush-hour traffic, relying, as he told us, on good brakes, good horn and good luck.