Imagine teams of Egyptian laborers working in 10-day shifts, cutting into solid rock. After six years or, in one case, 20 years, they complete a long tunnel into the earth, the walls massively decorated with reliefs of gods and kings, messages to the gods and instructions from the Book of the Dead to the king to be interned there.
To create a little mischief, a trap was chiseled into the tunnel so that grave robbers would fall to their deaths as they tried to reach the inner sanctum where the king was buried with all the paraphernalia he would need in the afterlife.
This preoccupation with burial existed in a culture where the king spent most of his reign collecting the riches of his kingdom so that much of it could be buried with him. How great the riches could be is shown by the wealth found with a minor king who only ruled for six years. Tutankhamen’s objects, many of them gold, fill a large part of the second floor of the Cairo Museum.
The solution to this misuse of Egypt’s riches turned out to be simple. The workers knew where the treasure was hidden and where the traps were. They created new entrances out of which the gold and silver could be toted. They kept the economy going for thousands of years by making sure the wealth of the nation was recirculated.
There are 62 of these tombs stripped of their wealth in the Valley of the Kings outside Luxor. Eleven are open to the public. The colorful work of master artists is on the walls and ceilings in hieroglyphics and bas-relief. In the tomb of Ramses III, there were only drawings, often in black and white, but they were in excellent condition. All that remains of the great wealth once stored there are the stone sarcophagi.
These tombs still help keep the Egyptian economy going: About 20 percent of the country’s income comes from the tourist industry.
The boats plying the Nile were like four star hotels with all of the amenities.
FLOATING HOTELS
My wife, Carla, and I were on a Nile River cruise between Aswan and Luxor. The flight we took from Cairo to Aswan followed the Nile, and we could see it as a strip of green surrounded by desert. Few people live far from the river, which is truly the source of life for the country.
The 320 boats plying the river are actually four- and five-star floating hotels; ours even had a small swimming pool and hot tub on the upper deck. The babble of languages in the dining room included Italian, Spanish, Chinese, German and Irish. Many of the summer tourists are from Spain, and the largest number in the winter are from Germany and France. Guides speak a variety of languages, and most seemed to know at least two beyond Arabic.
Part of the reason there are so many visitors is because these floating hotels provide cheap luxury — great meals and air-conditioned rooms with large windows to watch the life of Egypt pass by. Out our window was an ever-changing scene of palm groves, small-village life, water buffalo, small boats with one man standing and an occasional factory.
Prices are right, salaries are low and there are lots of knickknacks to buy.
TEMPLES ALONG THE NILE
Egypt is rightly known for the magnificence of its temples, several of which took 1,000 years to complete. The temple at Karnak is a real jumble of styles but is breathtaking in its size. You could drop in a half-dozen of the major cathedrals in Europe and still have space left. It was constructed over a 1,300-year period, and because ideas evolved over time, it has a jerry-built feel to it. It was the most crowded place we visited on the trip.
Here and in other temples along the Nile we saw examples of pharaohs trying to get rid of the records of their predecessors. One, Tuthmosis, had all references to the first female king, Hatshepsut, excised from the walls. Hatshepsut was Tuthmosis’ stepmother, and she disappeared mysteriously from history after 22 years of peaceful rule. Tuthmosis promptly proceeded to go to war and double the size of his kingdom.
The Temple of Isis was to be flooded by the lower Aswan Dam,
and had to be moved to a higher nearby island.
Years later, when Christians took over the area, they were not too happy with some of the flesh shown on the bas-reliefs. They did a fair amount of chipping away on arms and legs. The Christians couldn’t conceive of these as historically significant markings but instead saw them as abominations or competition.
Temple of Hatshepsut, the Woman King
The movable objects were long gone, but the wall reliefs
and the stone mummy cases were still in place.
There are many temples along the Nile. This one is for the god Horus. Pharaohs visited these temples regularly to engage in rituals.
PEDDLERS AND OTHER ANNOYANCES
Our guide warned us not to even look at what the hawkers on the streets outside the tombs and temples had to offer; the peddlers would attach themselves to us like glue.
I found it difficult to be that rude — especially because they have ways to attract your attention, such as offering a handshake, asking a question or handing a passer-by something and refusing to take it back. If you have no interest in the object, the price drops rapidly. Their invasive behavior makes it difficult to shop even when you might be interested.
Even the shoeshine boy turned out to have a con. The price he quoted before he started multiplied by more than 12 times when he started on the second shoe because he decided to use a "special polish" without asking. It was obvious he had just the one can of black polish. He seemed surprised when I got angry.
Horse-drawn carts are a popular and scenic way of getting around and usually cost about $2.50. The problem is that if you pay ahead of time, the driver might stop on the way and demand more money or force you to get out. It has been explained to these people that this is not good for the tourist business. Salaries are so low, however, that they are willing to chance angry tourists in order make a few more bucks.
Since the murder of 58 tourists in 1997 at the Temple of Hatshepsut across from Luxor, Egyptian security has become tight. There are frequent roadblocks, manned by army personnel, and at the tourist sites there are vanloads of soldiers equipped with automatic rifles. The security must be working, because there haven’t been any terrorist incidents for some years.
Final notes: We found the guides well-trained and concerned about our welfare. In the summer, it is very hot and you need lots of water; however, the temperature seems significantly less as soon as you step into the shade of a temple wall.
There are light and sound shows at the temples, which we were told by other tourists were good. Guides will likely take you out early in the morning, let you rest during the hottest part of the day and go again later in the day when the sun has lost some of its power.
Along the Nile we passed many unfinished houses. The practice in Cairo of avoiding taxes by not finishing a house appears to be common everywhere.
