Before we crossed the Nile to see all the things on the Westbank, we made a tour to the Luxor Museum. This is a modern museum with a modern display of few but very beautiful and interesting items. Here and here are some photos from it, as we adhered strictly to the rule of 'no photographing inside museums'. As can be seen, this rule is not always enforced. What I should have remembered to do, is to buy postcards of the most interesting artifacts but for some reason this did not happen at this museum - therefore these links. In my opinion, I was most taken with the lovely Het-Hert statue, a giant head of Sekhmet, the mummy of Ramesses I which had recently been placed there, and the golden Het-Hert head.

We made two visits to the Westbank with a few days in-between. Early one morning we were up before sunrise to cross the river in small motorboats. From the other shore some of the group went for a donkey ride and some of us simply took a taxi to the Valley of the Kings. By the time we arrived to the entrance of the valley, the sun had already risen and the heat was beginning to make itself quite noticeable.

Entrance to the Valleyof the Kings.
Already before 8 am, buses are lined up waiting for people to return from their visit here.

The Valley of the Kings
Once you arrive to the entrance of the valley, you have to leave your bus or taxi - or donkey. The latter will find their way to their resting place all by themselves and will be waiting for you while you visit the tombs, as will the buses and the taxis. Then you have to pass through - guess what - a market. After that you will find out what tombs are open for visitors at this time and so you buy tickets for them at this point. Next you embark on one of those small 'taf-taf trains' which will get you into the valley proper.

Meretseger, the local goddess in the form of the mighty mountain peak, still impressively looms over the valley and is the first magnificent thing you see on your arrival. Her ancient name was 'She of the Silence' which you can understand, for the silence here is probably enormous when all the people is not here.

Nowadays guiding inside the tombs have been forbidden, so the guide will tell you about them outside of each one. The most visited tombs are those which are located at the immediate mouth of the valley and a little bit furter on, but there are other ones open which are located a bit further into the valley. Needless to say that these will make a better experience as you can study reliefs, paintings and other features of the tomb in question without unneccessary squeezing together with a long, long row of other visitors, some of them who apparently has not much interest for what they see but chatter along about quite other things all the time.

On our first visit we saw three tombs; KV2 -Ramesses IV, KV9 Ramesses V/VI and KV 16 - Ramesses I. We added another three on our second visit; KV14 - Twosret & Setnakht, KV15 - Seti II and KV47 - Siptah. It you are at all interested in the Valley of the Kings, do check out the Theban Mapping Project, it´s a fantastic resource. What can I say about them... it all makes you a bit moody. So grand, so many hopes for glory in the Afterworld and yet this is all that remains. Long sloping corridors, here and there with fantastic reliefs and paintings, sometimes sadly hacked at by the tooth of time. The burial chamber holds perhaps an empty or broken coffin, all the mummies are elsewhere and all the finds too. You wander through them and are amazed about the wonderful reliefs and the colors, yet you cannot really understand or appreciate the amount or quality in the craftsmanship which have gone into the making of them. I think you would have to spend much more than a few hours there to be able to absorb it and give it its due attention. Your thoughts go to the kings who desired to 'live forever and ever' and to the builders who spent their whole lifes here making these tombs. In a sense they are all living forever as still today you can come here and admire it and speak their names. In ancient Egypt, someone lived as long as their names were remembered. But for how long? How long will visitors be allowed in there? The breath of all the people works slowly to corrode the paintings and despite the ban against photographing and the use of flashes (since May 15, 2004), some people don´t care. Only in one of the tombs did I see some plexiglass shielding in front of the reliefs. How can it all be preserved in the future? Or will it be like the tomb of Nefertari which is now closed for the general public and opens only for exclusive groups which have to pay dearly, dearly to get in there for a few minutes.

The heat increases and people are seeking the sunshades. Little old men in their galabayas with buckets filled to the brim with ice cubes into which bottles of mineral water or coke have been stuck, walk around and offer you to buy from them. There is no café or bar function here. Some sellers are sneaking up to you and shake out a string of postcards almost in your face, wanting you to buy. We hear that peddlers are restricted to the market area but this is Egypt - you try to sell your wares whenever and however you see a chance.

Time is up. Those who came by doneky will now leave by donkey - via a climb up the mountain side the little animals will take them on a narrow trail to Deir el Medina, the remains of the village where the ancient workers who made these tombs lived with their families. We however, gratefully return to our waiting taxi.

The village of the tombworkers.
In the background the enclosure wall of the Hethert temple.

Deir el Medina
By the time we come to Deir el Medina, the air is mysteriously hazy and we cannot see the sun any longer. Some say that is´s quite unusual, others that this often happens this time of year when spring turns into summer. We don´t know what to believe but we wander through the ruins of the old tombworkers' village and try to figure out how the narrow lanes between the ancient houses would have meandered. Not an easy task, as houses were enlarged and built onto and into one another, as the need of each family presented itself.

Just outside the village there is a small temple to Het-Hert from the Ptolemaic period. It is pretty well preserved, a gaffer gave us a good chance to look around inside and we found the reliefs there are lovely and some are quite unusual. (Of course he got a bit of baksheesh afterwards). It´s a small building with most of its surrounding wall intact. The temple itself has a forecourt/hypostyle hall from which a few steps leads up to a narrow vestibule and to the left a stair case leads up to the roof. There are three shrine rooms; the middle one is for Het-Hert, the one on the left is for Amun-Ra-Wesir, and the one on the right is for Amun-Sokar-Wesir.

By the time we return through the village, the donkey riders have arrived and we prepare to visit two more tombs on this excursion. These are the tombs of Inherkau and Pashedu, both of them foremen among the tombworkers. The tombs are situated on the western slope just outside of the village and were built when their time was not taken up by a royal tomb. Down narrow stairs with steep steps, you have to crouch to get through the passages to the burial chambers. Both tombs are much smaller than I have thought and it´s amazing to see these paintings which I have become familiar with during years of reading about them. It´s a strange experience, standing so close to them! They are well protected behind glass walls.

But here too time is limited, we are ushered on by the ever-present Arabian gaffer and I feel as if I can only cast a short glance, then I have to leave it all behind. The gaffers btw, are always ready to point out things and tell you about the paintings but their knowledge is limited for if you start to ask about any particulars, you will get a friendly smile and a shrug or a story which is probably made up for the moment. All is done with good will and grace however and most of them love to talk with you.

Deir el Bahri
Some day later we have said goodbye to the tour group and are on our own again. We hire a minibus and a driver for half a day which doesn´t cost us more than ca 120 Egyptian pounds altogether. First we make a return visit to the Valley of the Kings and after that we go to Deir el Bahri, the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut.

A line of houses by a canal on the Westbank.

We drive through the town of Luxor and cross the big brigde over the river. Following along a canal we get a good look at the rural life of modern Egypt. Here a donkey tied to a traffic sign, there a camel sedately grazing together with water buffalo. And long rows of houses built together side by side facing the waterfront. Some are painted in nice pastel colors, others seem like dilapidated sheds but all of them seem slightly crumbling and keep a closed facade. You wonder what is hidden behind the blue- or greenpainted doors.

A sight probably much the same today as four thousand years ago.

The surrounding areas are all fields, people here are obviously farmers and there is not an industry in sight. It´s the month of April and we have seen harvesting going on, some of it with an old-fashioned sickle and doneky carts seem to be the preferred way of transporting goods to the market, whether on narrow paths in the fields or on city streets, even into big cities like Cairo. Once again the clash of centuries.

Snugly set against the surrounding rocks and absolutely magnificent.

The significant silhouette of the Hatshepsut temple is clearly visible at a long distance. We are let off at a large parkingplace and have to pass through the unavoidable marketplace to get to the station to let the 'taf-taf'-trains take you for a ride to get within reasonable walking distance from the temple. And you gladly climb onto these little wagons though they spout out a fair amount of diesel, for the temperature is fast climbing up above the 40´s Celsius (104 F). The surrounding mountains collect the heat and keep it there in the valley. Getting up to the newly opened third terrace of the temple will cost you some energy but it´s worth it!

But stinking taf-taf train or not, the approach is magnificent. You see how the terraces grow and details appear. You get off the train and join the parade of visitors; the rest of the way you do by foot. As you get there, you lose to some degree the persepctive and the world becomes one of sand, rocks and granite columns. You walk up the broad ramp to the second terrace and the first thing you find yourself doing is to seek the shadow. This happens to be at the north wing, where the entrance to the lower one of the two shrines of Yinepu is. However, the shrine itself is closed to visitors so you have to content yourself with the colorful reliefs of offerings in the hypostyle hall, and content you will be for these colors have a freshness we have not seen anywhere else.

By a second ramp you come up on the upper terrace. Once there were Osiride statues of Hatshepsut in front of each of the pillars in the portico, now there are only five or so remaining. They are huge and the ancient Queen looks serene as she is gazing out over the valley in front of her. Through a granite portal you get into a small courtyard with an Amun shrine directly ahead. This one too is closed to visitors as are most of the several chapels adjoining this court. The sun is drenching this enclosed space and I try to imagine the ancient days when only those priests tending the cult of the Queen and the deities here, were the only ones to step across this silent platform to let the words of their rituals fill the warm air.

Far too soon it is time to go. I know I am leaving unseen wonders behind me, there is only one thing to do - go back one day. Outside on the third terrace we stand for a moment, contemplating the same view as the silent statues of Hatshepsut. Tomorrow we go back to Cairo and after yet a few days we will leave Kemet for this time.

You can see clearly where the desert ends and the fertile areas begin.
In the hazy distance lies the Nile and on the other side of it Luxor.