Tag: Ancient History

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Travel

Egypt: Karnak Temple

Our first thought on entering an Egyptian temple was: Damn that’s big! Particularly when you realize that everything is built of cut stone and with manual labor. Massive props to the engineers and workmen!

As an engineer myself, I tend to analyze the possible building techniques before I even notice the art and aesthetics. But beyond the amazing architecture, they are beautiful, well-built structures and I was duly impressed.

Gate Pylons at Karnak Egypt

Our first temple was Karnak, one of the most iconic Egyptian temples. This is the most visited temple after the Pyramids at Giza. Karnak has appeared in many movies and is usually the one pictured when they want a generic ‘Egyptian temple’ in the media. However, what they don’t show is that the temple is right next to the river Nile and surrounded by a modern city.

Both the Karnak and Luxor temples are located in the city of Luxor and most of the economy is driven by the tourist trade generated by the temples.

The Avenue of Rams at Karnak

Our first approach to Karnak was down the Avenue of the Rams, which appeared in one of my favorite movies: The Mummy Returns (2001). The first thing you notice is the different heights of the two pylons of the gate. These were a late addition to the temple and ultimately unfinished and undecorated. The remains of the mud-brick ramps used for construction are still in place. This detail got me pretty excited. …Engineering-nerd, what can I say.

The temple is dedicated to the worship of the god Amun, the sun god, and was added onto for over a thousand years.

During the Opet Festival when the Nile floods, a statue of Amun would be carried on a symbolic barge from the temple of Karnak down the Alley of Sphinxes 3km to the Luxor Temple where he would be ceremonially married to the pharaoh, thus promoting the fertility of Amun and the pharaoh and all of Egypt.

The Alley of Sphinxes is still extant and walkable. I was unable to talk my wife into the hike, so we were shuttled to the Luxor, just down the road.

The Temple of Karnak is iconic and absolutely beautiful, and yet a little of a letdown.  This is a working tourist site and has a worn-in and trampled feel that can take away from the experience. However, I found that I could ignore that and turn my mind inward to experience the atmosphere. I could almost feel time hanging in the air like cobwebs.

The Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak

The most famous and photographed part of Karnak is the Great Hypostyle Hall. It is 50,000 square feet of COLUMNS!! I love me some columns! Karnak is a column farm. 134 of them. Most are 33 feet tall with another twelve 70 feet tall! There are several examples that are not completed showing how they were constructed. The unshaped rock was stacked and mortared into place, then craftsmen shaped the column, followed by artisans that would carve the art and hieroglyphs into the stone. Finally, everything was painted in bright colors. Most of the paint is now faded and gone, but there are places where it can still be glimpsed.

At Karnak, I first encountered the ramps used in the construction of the temples. For some reason, these are never mentioned in any of the books I’ve read. The stones were cut, roughly shaped, and placed on barges at the quarries in southern Egypt. Then when the Nile flooded, the barges would be floated down the river and into preconstructed canals leading right up to the building site. They used the same technique for the pyramids. Amazing engineering!

The Ramps at Karnak
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Travel

Our Egyptian Adventure: The Nile

The Nile is such an iconic river it would be difficult to live up to its vaunted reputation. For me, it has been the subject of decades of history lessons, bible lessons, favorite movies, and books. So, of course, it didn’t live up to its image.

The Nile is much narrower and calmer than I ever expected. It is a wonderful small river; clean enough for swimming and fishing. Unlike American and European rivers, the Nile is not very industrialized. In our four days on the river, I never saw a barge or a factory. There was a small amount of trash along the shore, but it was minimal compared to what I’m used to.

I expected it to be much wider. It’s narrow and clean.

I live in St Louis, Missouri, USA, right on the Mississippi, which is an industrialized and sick river. I would never swim or fish from it. Which, made the Nile such a surprise. There has been a civilization along the Nile for thousands of years and you would expect that to show in the river itself, but it doesn’t. It’s as if the river washed all those years away, leaving the land clean and natural again.

The land along the river is extensively farmed but by small family plots. We didn’t see any industrial farming as we see in the US. There was no large farm equipment at all; people still used donkey carts and manual labor to work their fields, just as their ancestors did.

The country is extremely poor and much of the population barely gets by. Many of the homes we could see along the shore were simple and crude. However, everyone smiled and waved. They genuinely wanted us there because tourism is really the only economy in Egypt.

When we scheduled our Nile cruise, we imagined a lone boat making its way along an isolated desert shore. But the ships work the same itinerary, so they cruise as a pack, parking side by side at the dock and allowing passengers to pass through to the shore. It was surprising, but I can see the logic.

The Nile is smooth and navigable, making the trip perfect for anyone that gets seasick. There was almost no movement of the deck.

We were on shore touring the sites in the morning and early afternoon. The boats leave the dock in the afternoon and usually cruise through the night. The observation deck was ideal to watch the procession and the night shores glide by. The air smells different in Egypt, clean and fresh compared to home, with a little hint of sand.

    The Hollywood image of the Nile is far from its reality. It is a beautiful river flowing between lush green shores bordered by bare rocky hills behind. The valley of the Nile narrows in places to only a narrow shore before the desert pushes in. Most of the Nile valley is wide and green, extending for miles into the desert, proving that the Nile is still the lifeblood of Egypt and will lead you to adventure.