#the colossi of memnon

[389]

Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach, The Colossi of Memnon in a Sandstorm (1896)

[sergioguymanproust]

The Celestial connections between the Egyptians and their extraterrestrial ancestors is an old one indeed. This earth has been a must stop for many civilizations on the way to other solar systems like ours.They have left their mark all over the globe. We seem to be still in awe of the Egyptians and their legacy but what still isn’t clear who came here before them. You see when the Egyptians rose as a civilization the pyramids were already old.But we are stuck in the belief that they built them.We want so bad to fit the pieces of this puzzle that Egyptologists would lie and cheat if anyone advances new cosmological theories,and we like obedient sheep keep digesting this so called truth.I can’t help reminding people how the French rule,well monopolized for over 80 years over the meaning of the Paleolithic paintings in Ted inthe caves of Lascaux.Calling the paintings in the caves of Altamira fake ones. It turned out that most of the books the French wrote about as to why the Cro Magnon painted the caves was utterly wrong ,and had to be thrown away. The ego battles between academics is legendary and we the common folk pay the price for believing their stories as true. The textbooks we are made to study have been proven trash time and time again ,Egyptologists with their inflated egos keep repeating these mistakes over and over again.My point is we need to revise the story told about Egypt.Because they are not telling us the truth. Words by Sergio GuymanProust.

[ophierian-vp]

[egypt-museum]

The Colossi of Memnon in the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III, Kom el-Hettân, West Thebes

[postcard-from-the-past]

Colossi of Memnon in front of the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III, Theban Necropolis, Egypt

British vintage postcard, mailed from Cairo to London

[kyndaris]

Jewel of the Nile

One of the greatest ancient cities on the Upper Nile was Thebes. But look at any modern map and you’ll never find it. Why? Because the city took on a different name following the Muslim conquest of Egypt: Luxor. So named, possibly because of the palatial residences and the riches the Arabs found when they arrived. After all, the name Luxor derives from the romanicsed Arabic qasr meaning ‘castle’ or ‘palace.’ 

From Hurghada, Luxor was approximately four hours drive along the highways. The gong was slow and there wasn’t much to see outside the window except desert, the occasional wild tussock of grass and other passing vehicles. 

Was it any wonder I’d fall asleep on the way there? By the time I groggily blinked awake, we were passing by fields of green on the left and an actual cityscape on the right. True, it was no Western-style city but the local population had suddenly exploded. I watched from my window as people went about their daily lives, heading to market or riding around on carts as they carried sugar cane.

Unfortunately, to reach our cruise ship to paddle up the Nile, we had to go down a very narrow rural road that was sprinkled liberally with checkpoints. There might not have been traffic lights in this part of Egypt but there was certainly a large number of armed police wielding the classic assault rifle from every video game ever: the AK-47, as a show of intimidation. That or they sported submachine guns on their persons. They even had small watch-towers, accessed only by rickety wooden ladders!

Once we had checked into our floating hotel, and after a quick lunch at the buffet, we piled back on the coach to witness the sights and sounds of Karnak Temple. Suffice it to say, the towering pillars and obelisks were breathtaking to behold. Everywhere I turned, hieroglyphs lined the walls, still retaining the colour they had from several millenniums ago.

Primarily dedicated to Amun-Re, in the information centre before we properly entered the historical site, there was even a copy of the ship that Ra would ride on every night as he descended into the Underworld to fight his way back up to the surface.

It boggles my mind that such treasures had been hidden beneath the desert sand until a century or two ago. So much history and culture lost and rediscovered.

With Popo in tow, however, there was a lot she wasn’t able to see and enjoy. It should be known that Popo was almost 85 (at the time of posting, she is already that ripe old age) and had an old injury from her childhood that meant she has limped for most of her life. Contracting COVID-19 last year in September only made her mobility issues worse, giving her chronic pain in her legs.

Tethered to Popo made exploring the ruins of Karnark that much harder, although not quite impossible. As she wasn’t able to walk much, I usually found a shaded seated area for her to rest at before taking off to snap all the photographs that I needed of ancient kings and their tributes to the gods, along with indecipherable hieroglyphs that held little meaning to me.

By the time we finished at Karnak, the hour was quite late. Still intent on getting the full experience of the East Bank of the Nile, we stopped at the Temple of Luxor to admire the many statues of King Ramesses II. There was even a carved depictions that showed off his many sons and what they had bequeathed their father when he had held court.

Deep inside Luxor Temple we also saw carvings from the Greek era of pharaohs. The most important distinction, as pointed out by our tour guide, were the slight curves of the thighs and ankles, as well as the rounded stomach. The Greeks, it seems, desperately wanted to emulate the Egyptians during their occupation of their area and had not been intent on destroying their culture in a bid to co-exist. A valiant effort considering how modern civilisations have steam-rolled over indigenous populations since the 15th century.

After we had rushed around Luxor Temple, our first day at Luxor ended.

The second day at Luxor had us rising early to hurriedly scoff down breakfast as we raced to the West Bank of the Nile before our ship would start cruising upstream. This, of course, was where the Valley of the Kings lay. After getting a quick rundown of some of the famous individuals that were discovered within, and shown copies of photographs taken during Howard Carter’s expedition when Tutankhamen was unearthed, I dove down deep into KV 8: Merenptah’s tomb before shambling over to KV6: Rameses IX. 

Finally, I joined the the huge line to take a peek at KV2 to see what Ramesses IV had in store. Surprisingly enough, written on the entrance to the tomb were words in Greek followed by a symbol of early Christianity: the fish. But what truly impressed me was the fact that down in the depths of Rameses IV tomb was that many of the hieroglyphs still retained a lot of their original colour, be that red, blue and gold. 

But the main reason for why the line was so long was due to the large number of people all eager to snap selfies or group photos with particular arresting reliefs, thereby holding up the line as I tried to squeeze past. Rest assured, it was quite annoying as I only wanted to quickly duck in and duck right back out with as little fuss as possible.

And while there were other tombs that were open to the public at the Valley of the Kings, a few also required additional payment to visit. Of particular note was that of Tutankhamen’s tomb. One I didn’t venture down into as most of his treasures had been removed and were on display in numerous museums around the world.

Before we returned to our cruise ship, the Jaz Celebrity, we also stopped at Deir al-Bahari where colossal statues of Queen Hatsheput, in the form of Osiris, stood guard.

As one of the only places that still retained her name, historians were able to identify objects and carvings from her time period before her son, Thutmoses III has been able to scrape them off. So, despite his best efforts to erase the woman pharaoh, the name Hatsheput has remained until this modern age. 

Ah, sweet irony.

In any case, we arrived at Deir al-Bahari when the sun was at its zenith. And though I was there in early March, the temperature was still unbearably hot. After climbing to the very top, I was sweating like a pig and desperate to return to the air-conditioned bliss of the tour bus. That or enjoy some nice delicious ice-cream.

Alas, since Popo had returned to the coach before I was able to ask for a few dollars to pay for an ice-cream, I didn’t have the necessary funds to buy myself a cold snack. Instead, I returned to the bus with plenty of time to spare to board the boat and begin our cruise up to Edfu and Aswan beyond.

Oh, and before I forget, we also visited the open air statues of Memnon right before heading to the Valley of the Kings and were pestered to buy merchandise from the hawkers that lined the street. Popo bought two bags and a pouch while I sat there impatiently hoping to learn additional history and/ or mythology of a bygone age. After all, I didn’t come to Egypt just to shop around.

The only real additional kernals of fact I managed to glean as we drove to the Valley of the Kings was that the Ancient Egyptians were one of the first civilisations to realise that the year was 365 days. They split the year into 12 months. Each month was three weeks and each week was ten days. The missing 5 days on the calendar were explained as Amun and Amunet meeting each other in secret.

And because they were such stargazers, astrology too, can be attributed to the Ancient Egyptians.

And another thing to note, I did spot a set of traffic lights in and around Luxor Temple. It was probably set up there due  to the sheer number of people crossing the road needing safe passage from the rampant number of cars and tour buses that frequented the area.

So, maybe Egypt isn’t as chaotic as I first thought it was!

[burningvelvet]

This photo is taken during the seasonal flooding of the Nile which has important symbolic meaning re: rebirth — but what I really want to share is that I was reading about these statues the other day and learned that in ancient times the legs accrued lots of graffiti from travelers, mostly poetry inscriptions. 11 of the 107 inscriptions are by female writers, which is 6% of all surviving works from the ancient world verifiably written by females (source: Keegan Peter, Graffiti in Antiquity, ed. Routledge 2016). One poet, Julia Balbilla, was a member of Hadrian’s court and friend of his wife Vibia Sabina; she wrote three heavily Sappho-inspired poems to commemorate their travels and visits to the statues. Hadrian was famously gay & his lover Antinous drowned in the Nile a month earlier on that trip; I wonder if Balbilla could have been a lover of Sabina, and if the royal couple had a lavendar marriage? some others have hypothesized this, but we’ll never know.

“Yesterday Memnon received [Hadrian's] wife in silence, / so that the beautiful Sabina might come back here again. / For the lovely form of our queen pleases you.”

Colossi of Memnon, two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III; 14th century BC

[placesiam]

to see so many sunsets

(olympus xa2, Colossus of Memnon, Egypt)

[savvytravelers]

Gala Dinner Experience

Indulge in a Gala Dinner Experience with Savvy Travelers, savoring exquisite cuisine and entertainment!

[streamingthruamerica]

Valley of the Kings by Air

Our wake-up call was 4 AM, and the last thing on my mind was a boxed breakfast to go. I also decided to pass on coffee, thinking I couldn't risk the chance of floating over the Valley of Kings in a wicker basket (invented by the Egyptians 5000 years ago)

Our wake-up call was 4 AM, and the last thing on my mind was a boxed breakfast to go. I also decided to pass on coffee, thinking I couldn’t risk the chance of floating over the Valley of Kings in a wicker basket (invented by the Egyptians 5000 years ago) and needing to puke or pee. Meanwhile, Leah had prepared for flight with Dramamine as her go-to prophylactic. This was not our first…

[suetravelblog]

Cairo and Luxor Egypt

Colossi of Memnon – Egypt Tours Portal I temporarily lost my sense of humor in Cairo. It was a challenging cultural change. Although I’ve acclimated and grown accustomed to other Muslim countries, like Turkey, Cairo was tough. The Adhan (Muslim call to prayer) is especially prominent in Cairo. It wakes you up in the morning, and is broadcast throughout the day, even inside restaurants and…

[memories-of-ancients]

The Colossi of Memnon at Thebes, Egypt, ca. 1857. Photo by Francis Frith.

(Getty Museum)

[lux-vitae]

Die Memnonkolosse II (The Colossi of Memnon II) by Albert Zimmermann (1808-1880)

[ophierian-vp]

[egypt-museum]

Colossi of Memnon, Thebes

Photo: Brian Brake

[postcard-from-the-past]

Colossi of Memnon by the ruined Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III, Theban Necropolis, Egypt

French vintage postcard, mailed in 1902 to Pithiviers