This morning we got up at a leisurely 6:00 AM (compared to the morning before). We were to meet our guide again and tour the west bank. Egyptians believed life was a lot like a day. In the morning the sun is born, it ages during the day, and then dies at night. With this idea in mind it followed that people would have a next life, because there was always a next day. When it comes to things representing “new” or “birth” they are always located in the east, because that is the direction of the sun’s birth. Likewise the west is where you locate things related to death because that where the sun goes to die. Guess what’s located on the west bank? Tombs, tombs, tombs (and temples).
Our first stop was the Valley of the Kings. This is where all the famous pharaoh tombs are located (sixty-three by my last wikipedia count). Home to the famous King Tut tomb. Our tour guide gave us some background information on tombs. How they got started - the short version goes: the problem with pyramids is everyone knows where they stashed your body and your treasure. People are going to break in and steal the stuff you need for the afterlife and that is way lame. We need a new, more exclusive, less flashy way to chill in the afterlife. Maybe some sort of rich-god king and nobles only valley would do the trick.
The standard practice was to commission your tomb pretty early in your career (assuming you’re a professional god or nobel). Obviously the longer you lived, the longer workers had to finish the project. The guide told us that 20-25 years was the average length of time it took to carve and decorate a plush afterlife pad. Of course if you died early that meant work had to stop and you had to make do with what you had. The worst case scenario is workers got 70 days (the time it took for the mummification process). The smallest tomb in the valley is pretty close to the worst case scenario.
He said they started a tomb by picking a likely spot, then chisling some holes in the ground and stuffing them full of echinacea root (at least I think that’s the root he said). Then you pour warm water into the hole over the next couple of weeks and the roots expand and begin to crack the rock. Then you bust out the chisels and go to town carving out a tomb. What kind of rock you burrow down into effects what kind of tomb you’ll get. It will be either limestone or sandstone. If it’s limestone they can carve all sort of intricate designs on the walls to decorate the tomb. If its sandstone that’s not going to make a good carving surface, so they’ll coat it in plaster and paint the designs on instead. We got to see both types during our visit and if you have the means, I recommend the limestone wall tomb.
When you buy a ticket for the Valley of the Kings you’re really only buying a ticket to visit three tombs. I don’t know how many are open, but each time you go in they punch your ticket to keep count. Our tour guide recommended that we visit Ramses IV, Ramses III, and Ramses I. King Tut’s tomb is also available but there is an extra surcharge for it, and our guide recommended against it because all the good stuff is in the museum in Cairo anyway.
By-the-by, King Tut was a pretty inconsequential pharaoh because he died early. The reason he’s so famous is more or less due to where his tomb is located. It got completely covered up with debris when they were carving out a nearby tomb for a later pharaoh. It was the only one of the known tombs that grave robbers didn’t find and loot all the valuables out of (that is, before grave robbers become more respectable archaeologist and found it and looted it).
After the valley of the Kings our tour guide took us to the “rock museum.” Which is a very euphemistic name for “store that we sell tourist Egyptian themed stone crafts at.” That sounds harsh, but I was actually glad for the stop. Luxor is known for quarrying alabaster and making stone crafts. Attempts to walk down the street and shop have been so harassing that we gave up and decided to forego the opportunity. This was a nice and quiet shop where the owners promised not to harass or bother us. Which was half-true. They still felt the need to frequently stop by and inform us what we were looking at, but they also assured us that this was not harassment. They were merely supplying information to allow us to make informed buying decisions. The arrival started with a presentation of what was and wasn’t alabaster and the difference between handmade and machine made alabaster pieces. Then they started in on basalt and how you could tell the cheap plastic imitations from the real thing. As far as I could tell the true test of a stone good was holding it over fire. They burned a lot of things for us. It was important we recognize how badly the plastic copies smell when burnt. I’m not sure what common usage scenario for stone tchotchke involves frequent fire application, but we’ll be well prepared in the future. We eventually bought a couple of items and probably paid too much for them. After the sale they started to offer us “presents” and then promptly asked for a tip for the present. That was pretty sketchy and I felt in poor form after we had actually bought something from them. I’m kind of angry with myself after-the-fact for going along with it.
Hatshepsut Temple was our next destination. I got the feeling that our tour guide liked the story behind this temple, but didn’t actually like the temple itself. The story behind it is Queen Hatshepsut was born into a royal family with problems. For some reason I don’t quite follow the solution to the problem was that Hatshepsut needed to marry her brother. Thus it was and for a few years she was queen of Egypt and her brother was the pharaoh. Hatshepsut was a properly clever queen and delved into the administrative tasks of running of the empire. She also got in tight with the priests and nobles. Her husband/brother on the other hand spent his time investigating the royal consort situation. Hatshepsut eventually decided she'd make a better king than her husband and poisoned him. Egypt is supposed to be ruled by a man, but there had been some wiggle room in the past for a properly motivated woman. Hatshepsut styled herself not so much as a woman, but the daughter of a god and therefore divine herself. (True story: to help mitigate the whole woman thing she carved up some big statues where she had a beard so as to look all pharaoh like.) She launched a media campaign to win over the empire. Hatshepsut Temple is pretty much a propaganda piece for her bid. It’s designed to explain how she’s divine and the gods accept her as one of their own. To speed things up she dismantled a nearby temple and used it stones as material for her temple.
Hatshepsut has a successful rule over egypt for some 22 years. The people liked her, she did a good job and things were going swimmingly, until one of her brother and consort’s sons showed up and made a claim for the throne. Hatshepsut met him in battle and things didn’t go her way. (It turns out the son, Thutmoses III, was a deft military strategist and won numerous campaigns as a pharaoh expanding Egypt’s empire to its largest footprint). Once Thutmoses III gained control he went around erasing the legacy of Hatshepsut by replacing her works in other temles and completely destroying the Hatshepsut Temple. According to our tour guide the temple we visited was basically rebuilt by a Belgian Egyptologist in the 1900’s. I got the feeling that while the place looks awesome our tour guide felt it was somehow less authentic.
Last up was Valley of the Queens, which is where queens, female nobles, and princes were buried (the logic being that children would prefer to be with their mother). It’s very similar to Valley of the Kings, but seemed like it was much less visited. We got to visit three tombs there as well. There was one notable tomb that we weren’t able to visit, Queen Nefertari’s which was the favorite wife and one true love of Ramses II. (Ramses II was an innovator in the field of political marriages, he had 42 wives - one from each state in Egypt). Queen Nefertari’s tomb is supposedly both magnificent and very well preserved, however to get access to it you have to buy a special license from the Egypt that costs $1000 (US), then after you have the license there is a 150 Egyptian Pound per ticket fee (about $30 US). Our tour guide said he had got to visit it twice when he was leading large groups that pooled money together to get the license.
We rounded out the day with a trip to an Egyptian restaurant that our tour guide kept recommending. It’s an open secret that tour guides get kickbacks from stores and restaurants they direct tourist to. Fortunately the food was very very good and the place didn’t feel very touristy. It actually felt kind of authentic (though I have very little to base that impression on). The stand out dishes were duck and fried eggplant (or aubergine as they were referred to).
We got to see two new tourist scams today at the tombs. Scam one I call the “unrequested tour guide.” A skeevy guy hangs out in a tomb and helpfully points to wall and names the obvious gods. Naturally they want to be tipped for this valuable service. Who would have guessed to look at the intricately decorated walls in a tomb that is pretty much all walls!?!? An innovative twist on this scam is to carry a flashlight and then light up whatever you’re looking at... even though the walls are already perfectly illuminated. This allows them to ruin your visit no matter where you look. What I found really objectionable is the same guys who punch tickets will follow you in and try to scam you. The second scam is a good old fashion photobomb. You’re lining up a shot of a statue or painting, they step into your photo at the last moment and pantomime what the statue or painting is doing and then you owe them a tip. Both of these scam artists can be so persistent that’ll you want to leave a tomb just to get away from them.
One final interesting tidbit I learned today. They are continuing to find new tombs (but not necessarily tombs that grave robbers haven’t previously found!) Considering how many Ramses pharaohs there were alone that are accounted for, the valley ought to contain a few more of them. There are two types of digs going on in Egypt at any one time. Digs sponsored by Egypt - which are taking the exhaustive approach. Dig somewhere, then dig next to there, and next to there, and so on until you’ve dug everywhere. There are also universities outside of Egypt that sponsor digs, but they are targeted digs. They suspect something is located in a certain area and are given permission to explore that area for it.
After a quick trip back to the hotel for a shower to freshen up we're headed back to the airport for a flight back to Cairo.
Our first stop was the Valley of the Kings. This is where all the famous pharaoh tombs are located (sixty-three by my last wikipedia count). Home to the famous King Tut tomb. Our tour guide gave us some background information on tombs. How they got started - the short version goes: the problem with pyramids is everyone knows where they stashed your body and your treasure. People are going to break in and steal the stuff you need for the afterlife and that is way lame. We need a new, more exclusive, less flashy way to chill in the afterlife. Maybe some sort of rich-god king and nobles only valley would do the trick.
The standard practice was to commission your tomb pretty early in your career (assuming you’re a professional god or nobel). Obviously the longer you lived, the longer workers had to finish the project. The guide told us that 20-25 years was the average length of time it took to carve and decorate a plush afterlife pad. Of course if you died early that meant work had to stop and you had to make do with what you had. The worst case scenario is workers got 70 days (the time it took for the mummification process). The smallest tomb in the valley is pretty close to the worst case scenario.
He said they started a tomb by picking a likely spot, then chisling some holes in the ground and stuffing them full of echinacea root (at least I think that’s the root he said). Then you pour warm water into the hole over the next couple of weeks and the roots expand and begin to crack the rock. Then you bust out the chisels and go to town carving out a tomb. What kind of rock you burrow down into effects what kind of tomb you’ll get. It will be either limestone or sandstone. If it’s limestone they can carve all sort of intricate designs on the walls to decorate the tomb. If its sandstone that’s not going to make a good carving surface, so they’ll coat it in plaster and paint the designs on instead. We got to see both types during our visit and if you have the means, I recommend the limestone wall tomb.
When you buy a ticket for the Valley of the Kings you’re really only buying a ticket to visit three tombs. I don’t know how many are open, but each time you go in they punch your ticket to keep count. Our tour guide recommended that we visit Ramses IV, Ramses III, and Ramses I. King Tut’s tomb is also available but there is an extra surcharge for it, and our guide recommended against it because all the good stuff is in the museum in Cairo anyway.
By-the-by, King Tut was a pretty inconsequential pharaoh because he died early. The reason he’s so famous is more or less due to where his tomb is located. It got completely covered up with debris when they were carving out a nearby tomb for a later pharaoh. It was the only one of the known tombs that grave robbers didn’t find and loot all the valuables out of (that is, before grave robbers become more respectable archaeologist and found it and looted it).
After the valley of the Kings our tour guide took us to the “rock museum.” Which is a very euphemistic name for “store that we sell tourist Egyptian themed stone crafts at.” That sounds harsh, but I was actually glad for the stop. Luxor is known for quarrying alabaster and making stone crafts. Attempts to walk down the street and shop have been so harassing that we gave up and decided to forego the opportunity. This was a nice and quiet shop where the owners promised not to harass or bother us. Which was half-true. They still felt the need to frequently stop by and inform us what we were looking at, but they also assured us that this was not harassment. They were merely supplying information to allow us to make informed buying decisions. The arrival started with a presentation of what was and wasn’t alabaster and the difference between handmade and machine made alabaster pieces. Then they started in on basalt and how you could tell the cheap plastic imitations from the real thing. As far as I could tell the true test of a stone good was holding it over fire. They burned a lot of things for us. It was important we recognize how badly the plastic copies smell when burnt. I’m not sure what common usage scenario for stone tchotchke involves frequent fire application, but we’ll be well prepared in the future. We eventually bought a couple of items and probably paid too much for them. After the sale they started to offer us “presents” and then promptly asked for a tip for the present. That was pretty sketchy and I felt in poor form after we had actually bought something from them. I’m kind of angry with myself after-the-fact for going along with it.
Hatshepsut Temple was our next destination. I got the feeling that our tour guide liked the story behind this temple, but didn’t actually like the temple itself. The story behind it is Queen Hatshepsut was born into a royal family with problems. For some reason I don’t quite follow the solution to the problem was that Hatshepsut needed to marry her brother. Thus it was and for a few years she was queen of Egypt and her brother was the pharaoh. Hatshepsut was a properly clever queen and delved into the administrative tasks of running of the empire. She also got in tight with the priests and nobles. Her husband/brother on the other hand spent his time investigating the royal consort situation. Hatshepsut eventually decided she'd make a better king than her husband and poisoned him. Egypt is supposed to be ruled by a man, but there had been some wiggle room in the past for a properly motivated woman. Hatshepsut styled herself not so much as a woman, but the daughter of a god and therefore divine herself. (True story: to help mitigate the whole woman thing she carved up some big statues where she had a beard so as to look all pharaoh like.) She launched a media campaign to win over the empire. Hatshepsut Temple is pretty much a propaganda piece for her bid. It’s designed to explain how she’s divine and the gods accept her as one of their own. To speed things up she dismantled a nearby temple and used it stones as material for her temple.
Hatshepsut has a successful rule over egypt for some 22 years. The people liked her, she did a good job and things were going swimmingly, until one of her brother and consort’s sons showed up and made a claim for the throne. Hatshepsut met him in battle and things didn’t go her way. (It turns out the son, Thutmoses III, was a deft military strategist and won numerous campaigns as a pharaoh expanding Egypt’s empire to its largest footprint). Once Thutmoses III gained control he went around erasing the legacy of Hatshepsut by replacing her works in other temles and completely destroying the Hatshepsut Temple. According to our tour guide the temple we visited was basically rebuilt by a Belgian Egyptologist in the 1900’s. I got the feeling that while the place looks awesome our tour guide felt it was somehow less authentic.
Last up was Valley of the Queens, which is where queens, female nobles, and princes were buried (the logic being that children would prefer to be with their mother). It’s very similar to Valley of the Kings, but seemed like it was much less visited. We got to visit three tombs there as well. There was one notable tomb that we weren’t able to visit, Queen Nefertari’s which was the favorite wife and one true love of Ramses II. (Ramses II was an innovator in the field of political marriages, he had 42 wives - one from each state in Egypt). Queen Nefertari’s tomb is supposedly both magnificent and very well preserved, however to get access to it you have to buy a special license from the Egypt that costs $1000 (US), then after you have the license there is a 150 Egyptian Pound per ticket fee (about $30 US). Our tour guide said he had got to visit it twice when he was leading large groups that pooled money together to get the license.
We rounded out the day with a trip to an Egyptian restaurant that our tour guide kept recommending. It’s an open secret that tour guides get kickbacks from stores and restaurants they direct tourist to. Fortunately the food was very very good and the place didn’t feel very touristy. It actually felt kind of authentic (though I have very little to base that impression on). The stand out dishes were duck and fried eggplant (or aubergine as they were referred to).
We got to see two new tourist scams today at the tombs. Scam one I call the “unrequested tour guide.” A skeevy guy hangs out in a tomb and helpfully points to wall and names the obvious gods. Naturally they want to be tipped for this valuable service. Who would have guessed to look at the intricately decorated walls in a tomb that is pretty much all walls!?!? An innovative twist on this scam is to carry a flashlight and then light up whatever you’re looking at... even though the walls are already perfectly illuminated. This allows them to ruin your visit no matter where you look. What I found really objectionable is the same guys who punch tickets will follow you in and try to scam you. The second scam is a good old fashion photobomb. You’re lining up a shot of a statue or painting, they step into your photo at the last moment and pantomime what the statue or painting is doing and then you owe them a tip. Both of these scam artists can be so persistent that’ll you want to leave a tomb just to get away from them.
One final interesting tidbit I learned today. They are continuing to find new tombs (but not necessarily tombs that grave robbers haven’t previously found!) Considering how many Ramses pharaohs there were alone that are accounted for, the valley ought to contain a few more of them. There are two types of digs going on in Egypt at any one time. Digs sponsored by Egypt - which are taking the exhaustive approach. Dig somewhere, then dig next to there, and next to there, and so on until you’ve dug everywhere. There are also universities outside of Egypt that sponsor digs, but they are targeted digs. They suspect something is located in a certain area and are given permission to explore that area for it.
After a quick trip back to the hotel for a shower to freshen up we're headed back to the airport for a flight back to Cairo.
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