The Third Phase: UPPER EGYPT

ASWAN AND ABU SIMBEL

The Old Kingdom was primarily located in Lower Egypt whose main artifacts are the Pyramids in Giza that we visited, and even older ones in Saqqara, Dasher, and Maydum, which gives us reasons to return. The New Kingdom (see timeline in the Overview) is primarily located along the Nile in Upper Egypt between Luxor and the Sudan border, though there are temples from other periods along the entire stretch of the Nile.

Aswan is at Philae temple at the bottom. Other sites shown as well.

As I mentioned in the Egypt Overview, there is too much to describe about Egypt's history, religion, art, architecture, culture and more. I also think readers are mostly interested in a travelogue with images rather than a course on Egyptology which, despite our recent eduction, I am not qualified to give anyway. Therefore, I will limit my comments to only our sites and perhaps an interesting relevant description rather than detailed explanations.

We arrived in Aswan on the east bank of the Nile late morning. Aswan is located between two dams on the Nile: an old dam built downstream and raised several times between the 1880s and 1930 for flood control and irrigation. It was the largest gravity masonry dam at the time. Before the dam, Aswan was located at the the "first cataract" of the Nile where the river tumbled and cascaded over rocks and falls (think Columbia river before dams). It was a tourist destination starting in the late 1800s with the construction of the Old Cataract Hotel hosting many dignitaries including Kings, Queens, and Winston Churchill.

Old Cataract Hotel and Felucca

When the old dam was raised the final time it flooded an island called Philae where the temple to the goddess Isis was located. Prior to the flooding, the temple blocks were disassembled, moved to a new island in the river, and reassembled like Lincoln Logs. This temple was our first stop. It was built by the Ptolemys, the Greek rulers of Egypt, to respect/mollify the local population into accepting their rule.

Ferry to the Island of Philae

Approaching the Philae Temple

Common relief carvings on temple face of gods and Pharaohs in the center.

The entire interior surface is carved with gods, Pharaohs, wives, slaves, enemies and Hieroglyphics.

Group of young muslim women wanting their photo taken.

After our return from Philae the Nile was covered with Feluccas for afternoon tourist cruise

The cruise ship Sudan, where they filmed the original Death on the Nile.

The next day was long and a highlight. We left before dawn for a four hour drive through the empty desert almost to the Sudanese border to see Abu Simbel. This dual temple is dedicated to a trinity of gods (different trinity), but mostly glorifies the builder Ramses II and his wife. Not only are the temples monumental and breathtaking, carved into the mountain face in a remote desert (step aside Mt. Rushmore), its salvation is a story unto its own.

Exterior of Abu Simbel with four towering statues of Ramses II.
Note: the mountain it was carved into was cut into blocks and relocated uphill

The relocation team decided that the previously collapsed heads buried in the sand
would be reinstalled as they found them.

All these statues remind me, with much more meaning now, of a poem by Shelly "Ozymandias".

I I met a traveler from an antique land,

Who said - "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert.... Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Well that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these works appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mights, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away."

A common carving of Ramses II with leg forward and arm raised striking down his enemies.
Note: Ramses II crown is a combination of two. The cone shape of Lower Egypt in the center,
and the wrap-around with high back of Upper Egypt. This is because he ruled both Upper and Lower.
To the right is the god Harakhte, with Falcon head and Solar disk offering a feather.

View of both Ramses II temple in distance, and his wife Nefratari (not Nefratiti) in foreground.

Nefratari's temple.
While there are statues of wives, often shown with great affection,
seldom are they shown with equality to the king. She is in the center of each triplet.

Nefratari flanked by Ramses II

The temple was only discovered in the early 1800s when the top of the frieze was seen sticking out of the sand. The rest was buried. During the 1960s the High Aswan dam built below the temples was filling up without a plan to save the them. The public outcry encouraged UNESCO to step in and provide funding to save the monument. Its location along the Nile, but several hundred feet below the final level of Lake Nasser behind the dam, required new innovations in construction.

Original location of Abu Simbel carved into sandstone mountain and
was covered by sand up to heads and top frieze.

They considered coffer dams to surround it for visitors to descend surrounded by water, but considered too risky. They decided to cut it apart and relocate it several hundreds of feet up the cliff. Not just the monument, but the mountain face as well. In addition, due to the lack of planning in advance they had to race against time as the lake was filling up. It is magnificent! And in the middle of nowhere - still.

Location of temple before and after relocation.
Section showing the concrete shell over the interior and the relocated face of the mountain.

Mirage in the desert on our return drive.

After our return we had our home stay dinner with a Nubian family. As previously mentioned, the Magreb along the Mediterranean coast is primarily lighter skinned and not black African, even before the Arab conquest. They were descendants of Phoenicians, Berbers, Greeks, and Romans; traders along the sea. But south of the Atlas mountains in the west and into the desert away from the coast they are decidedly dark skinned African. The Nubians are the African peoples south of Egypt.