South of Luxor is Aswan where the dam was built in the 60s by Nasser. It forever changed the Nile. Now, there is no “inundation” – no flooding. The marshes are gone. So too, I guess, the hippos and baboons.
I considered going down to Aswan to see the temple of Abu Simbel, but it’s a bit too far. However, there are sites along the way that one can see. I went one day and saw two (Esna and El Kab) and another day to see two more (Kom Ombo and Edfu). Probably, if you were to cruise the Nile you would stop off and see these sites.
We headed out of Luxor and the road to Aswan. The Temple of Esna is in the center of the city of Esna. There’s a dock on the Nile or a canal off of it, where tourists can unload, buy a ticket and walk thru a block or two of shops and hawkers. “You want a shirt? I give you good price.”, “Come have a look. Maybe later? On the way back. My name is Amed. Promise?”
Fat Columns
Then you arrive at an open block. You look down, like forty feet, and there it is – The Temple of Esna. It is remarkably well preserved. I guess because it was buried in dust for years? I mean, how does a temple get buried forty feet down from the city around it? Handing your ticket to the guard you descend a wooden staircase situated against one of the retaining walls. Entering the temple in the middle of one wall you are then in a hypostyle hall, which I recently learned means an interior space whose roof rests on columns. In the case of the Egyptians they are fat columns. Why? The better to cover with glyphs to tell everyone about your life and deeds.
The carving is exquisite. Repeating themes seen many times before.
On to El Kab. It’s a series of rock cut tombs. Four I think. The painting and carving is quite good.
at
El Kab
That evening I had dinner at my driver’s home. It’s an apartment. The interior stairs and hallway up are filthy and grimy and would freak out many Americans, but that’s the way it is. The apartment is four or five rooms. His wife, their child, his sister, her child, his mother all live in this space. There’s a central room with a TV. His wife was chopping mulukhiyah with a curved bladed two knobbed knife when we came in. Mulukhiyah looks like parsley. It is used in soups and broths and as a seasoning, much like you’d use parsley. It has a delicate flavor.
I was escorted into one of the side rooms where three beds were arranged against the walls. I was introduced to all the members of the extended family, who greeted me and then left for the large central room. Kids came in to say “hi,” chatter at me in Arabic and talk to their dad, uncle, cousin. A round metal tray with several different bowls of food, soup, and bread was brought in. There being no table it was placed on a large metal bowl, which raise it about ten inches off the floor. We sat on the floor and ate. The we being my guide/driver and me. I had soup and a rice dish, meat in a broth and two kinds of bread. It was very filling and good. When we were done the tray went out to the central room. As we left I saw the women and children eating from it.
The next day we went on the same road but a little further toward Aswan and saw Kom Ombo and the Temple of Horus at Edfu. Kom Ombo (sometimes Komombo) is a temple half of which is dedicated to the crocodile god Sobek. They’ve got a museum and they’ve got crocodiles – mummified. Edfu’s temple is dedicated to the falcon god Horus. By now I was used to seeing the big sloping wall, called The First Pylon and then an inner courtyard followed by another courtyard.
I think it was at Kom Ombo a guard took me around to show me the highlights. We walked through a group of twenty or thirty people with their eyes closed, in seated yoga poses, forefinger and thumb creating an “O”. They were “feeling the energy,” I guess.
As I’ve walked through these amazing structures I kept asking myself, “did they ever ask if it worked?” Hundreds and thousands of years of this stuff and not a shred of evidence that it worked.
Have we learned anything? I look at all our temples and institutions based on belief without evidence and sadly I conclude we really haven’t.
There seems to be an innate desire in people to think there is an answer, that someone planned all this.
I keep thinking of Pogo’s famous quote, “We have met the enemy and they is us.”
We have the evidence, and yet we refuse to accept it. Instead we believe.
“When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?”
– from “Where have all the flowers gone?”
I still have a problem believing these temples were buried ’40 down.
It’s not that I don’t believe it, its just hard to think how much sand had to blow over the site to bury them at that depth. Probably helped preserving them. I remember when I was supposed to do a turn in X-Ray department I had to take an elevator down to the -6 floor. The feeling was indescribable. I only stayed for the day. But I asked not to finish my term there. I actually was dizzy and had trouble walking. I think I am claustrophobic.