Day Five – Luxor
Valley of the Kings & The Valley of Queens
We visited the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of Queens today.
We were able to explore the tombs of Pharaoh Tutankhamun (King Tut), Pharaoh Sety I, Pharaoh Ramses III, Pharaoh Ramses IX, and the temple of Queen Hatshepsut. The tomb of King Tut was small and sparsely decorated compared to the tombs of other kings. Probably due to him passing away at an early age, they didn’t have time to finish his tomb, so they believe he was buried in an existing tomb. They also believe that his tomb was somewhat protected by another tomb above him. The robbers didn’t bother looking below for another tomb in the same location. The tomb of Sety I had a lot of hieroglyphs still intact.
We had to walk through the gauntlet of vendors on the way in and out of both locations – they were pretty persistent.
Deir el-Bahri – The Temple of Hatshepsut
The temple at Queen Hatshepsut had lots of restoration done, and there were a few specialists currently working to restore some of the hieroglyphs and statues .
Colossi of Memnon
Our day’s adventure concluded with an up-close view of the Colossi of Memnon — two gigantic statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III.
Day Six – Edfu
Temple of Horus
We sailed from Luxor to Esna and docked there overnight. We set sail early for Edfu to visit the temple of Horus. The city of Edfu is best known for one of Egypt’s most remarkably preserved temples, dedicated to Horus, the falcon-headed god. Built in 230 BC, it is the second-largest temple in Egypt and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with walls that display compelling details about the religion and language of the country’s Greco-Roman period.
The temple of Horus is in great condition besides quite a few of the depictions of the gods being defaced by the Romans when they tried to bring Christianity to Egypt.
It was a short tour and we are back on the ship by lunch and then we had a briefing by our Egyptologists about the history of Egypt and then a short cooking lesson hosted by the ship manager.
Once we were aboard from Edfu, we set sail for Aswan and will be docking there late tonight.
