Today was to be yet another day of adventure for us. We were going in our minibus with Rageeb to Abydos and Dendera, but without a guide. We had been advised that we wouldn't need a guide but we should tag along with another tour group and listen to their guide. All tours that travel out of town have to go in a convoy with an armed escort for the protection of the tourists.
In
Luxor, the convoy meets up at 08:00 and drives out of town together, no matter
where the tour is going. It is all extremely well organised and at strategic
points along the route the convoy splits off towards their destination with
their own escorts.
The drive was as exciting as the sites visited. We seemed to stay on the main roads, which are all lined by canals and every so often we would pass a village with a bridge over the canal and here the police escort would sound its siren and there would be an armed policeman stopping the local traffic to let us through.
The locals just watched and waved as we drove past and didn't seem to be put
out in the slightest.
The journey to our first stop, Abydos, took about 2 ½ hours and it was really interesting to see the local towns and villages and the way the local people live. At either side of the canals there were fields and every so often there was a farm house or a row of farms. These were mostly built of mud bricks and most of them had no roofs or were covered by palm branches. Behind the houses were rows of telegraph poles attached by sagging wires, so every house seemed to have an electricity supply and most of the houses had a satellite dish.
Some of the larger houses were brightly painted in multi-colours. The locals congregated at crossroads and seemed fascinated to watch our convoy pass by. When we reached a larger town, again all the local traffic was stopped to let us pass by.
Throughout
the Egyptian countryside the main form of transportation, especially for the
farmers and for farm produce is still the donkey or the" four by four"
as our driver called them. Every little farm we passed seemed to have a donkey
outside and there were many donkey carts, some so fully laden it was a wonder
the little donkeys could pull them. In some places it was as if time had stood
still since the time of the Pharaohs.
We reached another crossroad and again the convoy split up leaving just ourselves and another couple of minibuses as we travelled towards Abydos. We reached the temple of Abydos, which is on the outskirts of a small town, in the late morning. We parked up and went to get our entrance ticket.
It was very hot again, quite a contrast from the air conditioned bus. We had no guide with us and unfortunately there were not many tourists around so we couldn't even tag along with another group.
We walked in to a semi derelict courtyard and in front of us was a short flight of shallow steps leading to a pillared temple
The
pillars had been rebuilt but the lower parts were covered in hieroglyphs. Abydos
was the cult centre of Osiris, which the ancient Egyptians believed to be the
entrance to the underworld, and was the burial place for the first kings of
Egypt. There are many tombs and shrines but we did not see them because we were
more interested in the Mortuary Temple of Seti I itself.
The temple is in the shape of an L and as we walked into the first hypostyle hall we passed several snoozing guards and policemen. The walls of this first hall are covered in carvings of military scenes.
The
second hypostyle hall has 36 squat columns that are carefully aligned to give
access to the seven chapels at the rear. Each of these chapels is beautifully
painted and each one is dedicated to a different god and the walls show the
festivals associated with each of the gods. At the time we were not quite sure
what we were looking at even though I had some notes with me, but we have since
read up about it. Six of the chapels have false doors at the rear but the chamber
dedicated to Osiris had a real door leading to a suite of rooms dedicated to
him. There are several rooms leading from the main hall and we were particularly
looking for the time-line of Egyptian kings.
We expected this to be in a large hall but in fact the wall is in a corridor and quite insignificant compared to the rest of the decoration in the temple. The time line contains the cartouches of 76 Pharaohs beginning with Menes and ending with Seti I but omitting Akhenaten, Tutankhamun, Hatshepsut, Horemheb and Ay.
As
we turned right out of this corridor after filming and photographing it we saw
the famous relief of the young Rameses II with his father Seti I, roping a bull.
Further along the pictures show the bull being sacrificed.
We followed this corridor up some steps and towards the Osireion. Most of this structure is now under water and is in fact the temple's cenotaph. We were shown to this building by a guard but we did not really know what we were looking at and we could not understand him. He hung around behind us obviously waiting for his baksheesh, which as always was a bit unnerving. We hadn't been bothered at all whilst we were in the temple apart from when I accidentally let my camera flash go off and got shouted at. We escaped from the guard and made our way out of the temple. We were hot and hungry and needed the loo.
We went back through the courtyard and down some steps to this tatty derelict shed that said WC. We were met by the usual guy with the loo paper and his hand out for his baksheesh. As we came out we both tripped over the same step, it was probably our rush to get away from that unsavoury shack. We had been told that our convoy (of 2) was leaving at 1:00p.m so we had a good half hour left to eat our packed lunch. On the dot of 1 our soldiers arrived in their land rover and we set off again towards Dendera.
It took about 1 ½ hours to get to Dendera, we seemed to retrace our steps for most of the way then turned where the convoy had left us earlier. The countryside was similar to how it had been previously, but it still fascinated me so I filmed the world going by through the window, as well as a snoring Ray in the back seat. Unfortunately we were going too fast so it wasn't much good.
We reached Dendera in the soaring afternoon heat. After we had paid and been metal detected, it was quite a walk up to the temple. We had been told that the convoy left at 3:00p.m. so we only had about 40 minutes to see this temple.
Dendera temple is dedicated to the goddess Hathor and dates from early dynastic times. There are also many tombs on the site dating from early times. The temple area has several Roman period kiosks surrounding it and to the front is a roman period Birthing House. The temple itself is Egyptian style but with much Roman influence.
The
pillars in the hypostyle hall are topped with the heads of Hathor and there
is a strong astrological influence in the paintings on the ceilings, with zodiac
signs depicted everywhere along with images of the goddess Nut and Hathor. The
hypostyle hall is decorated with Roman emperors.
After a long walk down the approach path we entered the temple and we were accosted by an Egyptian, who said he was the chief guardian of the temple and would show us round. He spoke very good English but we told him we didn't have very much time. He wasn't to be put off so he set off to give us a whistle-stop tour of the temple.
We
raced around at 90 miles per hour but he showed us loads of interesting areas,
including the copy of the ceiling painting of the astrological chart, he made
me touch the phallic relief of the God of fertility Min (though why I needed
fertility at my age I don't know) and he even took us up on to the roof to photograph
the sacred lake.
To go up to the roof we had to wake up a policeman to let us past and then give him the customary baksheesh. It was then a race down a very steep stairway to get back down. We gave our guide a good tip then we had to walk speedily back down the long path to the exit to get back to the bus in time for our convoy.
Half way down we were pestered by 2 young Egyptians trying to sell us water. We had our own and refused but they were insistent and they told us we were going the wrong way and directed us towards a café. We went the way we were told but came to a dead end and had to walk all the way around the entrance building. By this time we were panicking because time was running out. We eventually found an open door and managed to get out. We ran back to the bus and thankfully we weren't too late. We were really angry about those 2 youths but there was nothing we could do about it. We suspected that they knew that the convoy left at 3 and were trying to delay us so that we would have to go and wait in the café. That incident was something to put down to experience.
On our return journey to Luxor we were a convoy of one. We had an army Landrover in front with 4 armed soldiers and a police guard behind. I don't know what the speed limit is on Egyptian roads but I'm sure we were breaking it. We arrived back in Luxor town and our escort left us. Rageeb then dropped us off at our hotel and we said our farewells for the last time.
After we had freshened up we went outside for a walk to stretch our legs after the long drive. We decided to explore the next door hotel the "Old Winter Palace" where Howard Carter announced his discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb. We went in up the back steps and into the reception area.
It was very quiet but there was a doorman at the front entrance. He welcomed us and even took our photograph in the foyer. He then said we could look around the ground floor, so we explored the bar and the sitting room and looked at the dinner menus, which were expensive even by Egyptian prices.
This evening we went back to our favourite restaurant by the river and had another delicious steak. Afterwards we went back to the hotel for our usual nightcap.
