21 October 2009 9:30
Cruising the Nile
Bianca-Jade Packham explores the ruins of ancient Egypt along the Nile from Aswan to Luxor
editor@australiantimes.co.uk
Egypt has intrigued me ever since my father showed me the small artifacts he’d purchased there almost 40 years ago. He tells me he was once offered the “missing” head of a very famous Egyptian statue. Whether it was the real McCoy, one cannot say, but even today Egypt struggles to protect its treasure trove of artifacts – scattered across the dusty landscape – from tomb robbers, the harsh elements and even the foreign elite.
I finally made my way to Egypt this year with my partner, in hopes of finding adventure, history but most of all, to watch the ancient world pass us by as we sailed down the Nile.
After two busy days in the city of Cairo visiting the Egyptian Museum and Giza Plateau, we boarded a flight to Aswan where our four-day Nile Cruise would depart. A little over an hour later we had arrived. At an incredible 40 degrees, Aswan was dry, hot and blindingly bright. We were swiftly transported to our cruise liner where we found our very own tour guide waiting for us on board.
Emile, a former English teacher, was a welcome face throughout our trip. When we booked our holiday, we had no idea that our budget-friendly cruise would come with a personal guide. The one-on-one interaction allowed us to come and go as we pleased and bypass the hordes of other tourists we encountered at each site.
Our first stop on our Nile adventure was the unfinished obelisk, a short drive from where our cruise liner was docked. Aswan was built on a quarry and it is here that many of the blocks of granite used for pyramids, statues and obelisks were cut directly from the ground.
The unfinished obelisk was an over-ambitious project ordered by Queen Hatshepsut to commemorate her 16th anniversary on the throne. The slab of the largest-known obelisk, at 40 metres high, cracked during removal and was abandoned. This incomplete project illustrates to the modern world how ancient Egyptians were able to cut solid granite with such precision.
After the quarry we visited the Aswan High Dam, completed in 1970 to stop the flooding of the Nile. The dam now protects and supports farmland and economically important cotton fields. The dam did not come without its consequences, though, as many artifacts and ancient structures were not rescued in time and now lie submerged under the Nile. The land flooded, an area between Aswan in Egypt and the 4th cataract in Sudan known as Nubia, also led to the displacement of 100 000 Nubians.
Leaving the dam we travelled by Nubian water-boat – run by the Nubians still living in the area – to the Philae temple. This temple, built on the Nubian side of the Dam, was once under threat by the construction of the Aswan High Dam, but was one of the few temples rescued by national and international efforts. The entire structure was moved from one island to a higher neighbouring island.
Stepping off the boat onto the island, we were transported back in time, to a place far removed from the dirty cityscape of Cairo. You stand in disbelief, thinking there is no way what you see before you is the REAL thing, the very same structures that were built so many thousands of years ago. But the further down the Nile you go, the more you start to see how old they are and how history has ravaged them.
Graffiti from Romans, Greeks and even Napoleon’s army can be seen on many pillars and walls and hieroglyphics depicting famous scenes are blackened from the touch of millions of visitors.
With the image of our first temple still fresh in mind, we returned to the boat, changed clothes and found a spot on the sundeck. Each cruise liner boasts a deck that spans its entire length of the ship, as well as a selection of loungers and a small pool. It is a welcome sight after a long, hard, hot day at the temples. We spent each evening watching the sun set over the dunes in the distance, listening to fellow tourists discuss the sights they’d seen and the mesmerising Muslim call to prayer for Ramadan as the boat sailed past mosques dotted along the banks of the Nile.
On days two and three we visited Kom Ombo temple, the temple of Edfu and Karnak - the largest known temple complex in Egypt. Karnak encompasses everything you come to expect from an Egyptian temple and it is Egypt’s crowning achievement. The obelisks, forest of pillars, and avenue of sphinxes are just a few of the things you’ll see near the temple entrance. It’s a massive complex and in order to see it all you’ll need to spend a few days in the area.
In an attempt to beat the midday heat, we drove straight from Karnak to the Valley of the Kings. At the Valley entrance we entered an information area which has a perspex model of the area. Underneath it you can see how each tomb descends into the mountain – one as much as 150-metres deep. Our tickets allowed us to enter three tombs. Emile chose three for us that were still beautifully painted and preserved despite the intense humidity within their depths. Before heading to our next sight, we purchased a pair of authentic alabaster statues from a local factory near the valley.
As the Egyptian sun reached its highest point we pressed on to the next temple honouring Hatshepsut, the only female pharaoh to be buried in the Valley of the Kings, and finally to Luxor temple, the temple closest to where we were docked.
Luxor has very clear remnants from the country’s two most prominent religions today. Within the temple walls, on top of many years of buried rubble, stands a fully operational mosque and towards the temple’s end, there are traces of a Last Supper fresco and altar used by the Coptic Christians. Emile, a deeply religious Coptic Christian, told us many of the temples were used by Christians as places of worship. Coptic crosses carved into the hieroglyphics can be seen near the entrances of ancient temples throughout Egypt.
Luxor Temple is still under repair and the government is looking to relocate the mosque (over 300 years old) and to reconnect it to Karnak, to which it was once joined by a three-kilometre row of sphinxes (many of which have been found and restored), by relocating the homes and buildings in its path.
On our last day in Egypt we packed our bags, bid farewell to Emile and headed to a nearby hotel to relax and prepare for our journey home. With an uninterrupted view of the Nile, we reminisced about the details of our Egyptian adventure, feeling the last of the desert heat, as the traditional Egyptian felucca boats sailed by.
Read more about travelling to Egypt
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