Karnak Temple Layout, showing the 10 pylons (High Walls)
This is my first blog post of this month, as I was travelling for almost 10 days to Egypt, a country which is an economic backwater now or poor country but was the seat of a glorious civilisation about 4000 to 5000 years ago. This world has few countries with recorded histories as magnificent and well documented as Egypt's. Together with Greece, they can be regarded as the cradles of human civilsation. Our first stop after flying almost 10 hours with a transit of 2 1/2 hours in Doha,Qatar, was to Luxor,in the central part of Egypt. Luxor, with a population of about 2 million was once the capital of Egypt (Tawy in ancient Egyptian or 2 lands) and it was originally called Thebes.
Upon arrival, we met with our local guide Eshyam, who was to be our tour guide to our group of 26 (25 plus 1 tour leader) for the next 8 days.Our group was a mixed bunch of 3 families of diffrent aged youths, several teachers male and female, and some active senior citizens. There was even an able bodied visually handicapped lady who was a frequent traveller with her sister on this tour. It was the 3rd tour they were taking to a foreign country this year !
View from afar to the first Entrance showing the first Pylon (High Wall)
Our first stop was Karnak Temple, which is located on the eastern bank of the river Nile. The Nile is longest river in Africa, and Egypt is a Transnational country which occupies one half of its land in Africa (neighbours to west are Libya and south are Sudan) and the other half in Middle East or part of Asia (neighbours are Israel, Palestine and Jordan). Egypt has a population of 80 million of which 20 + million live in a dusty and chaotic capital called Cairo. The rest of the population live along the banks of the Nile, forming towns and cities from the north (Alexandria) to the middle (Luxor, Edfu, Esna and Kon Ombo) to the south (Aswan).The makeup of the people are mainly Egyptian,Turkish and Nubian (black African) with Asian and European minorities. Religion is also dominant, with Islam being the main religion, and Coptic (Egyptian) Christians being a sizeable (13%) minority. The religions were a result of Egypt being ruled by Greek,Romans,Persians (Iraq today),Byzantine and Ottoman (Turkish) since 300 years BC. It is only in the 20th century in 1952 that Egypt became a republic and Gamal Abdel Nasser was the first President. The last king Farouk was exiled in France as a result of the revolution.
Golden Period
From 3100 BC when Mene (or Mena) first fought and controlled the 2 lands North and South till about 300 BC, the Egyptians were their own rulers with Pharoahs (kings) overseeing this land. Its is said that the Pharoahs were obsessed with death,as for many decades, even from the day he ascended to the throne onwards, many many Egyptian slaves and contract laboureres were building burial tombs like the pyramids of Giza and Saqqara with all kinds of carvings and precious artefacts stored inside. Hundreds of thousands maybe millions of Egyptians were put to hard labour to build these massive structures which to this day still amaze people from all over the world. Each pyramid was exactly 52 deg in slope and the tallest, or Great Pyramid was built by the king Cheops or Khufu during the 3rd Kingdom or 2300 BC time frame.
Avenue of Sphinxes at the entrance to Karnak Temple in Luxor
The most famous ruler was Ramses II and he lived an extraordinary 86 years ; during those days the ordinary Egyptian lived about 40 to maximum 50 years and he lived 2x that (!). In addition, he ruled for 67 years so had the greatest opportunity to build massive temples and structures of himself and of the gods they worshipped, namely Amun Ra or the Sun god. In Luxor, we had the good opportunity to see how massive these statues were. Karnak temple was our first stop and it was dominated by 10 pylons or high walls with plenty of reliefs (carvings) of the great pharoah fighting against Egypt's enemies. The carvings are easliy 20 feet above the ground and are normally about 20 feet high. So 4500 years ago, without any scaffolding or wooden ladders (not invented yet), how did they get so high up ? By pushing and building blocks of bricks together and creating a high structure near the wall to a) build the pylon and b) carve the reliefs. Quite an amazing feat considering that most of Europe (America was just a grassland then) were occupied by cavemen or nomadic hunter gatherers.
Karnak temple has 10 pylons and the first pylon faces due east, so that the morning sun is reborn and shines its light energy at the temple at exactly 90 deg perpendicular to the pylon. The temple was a result of many pharoahs building pylons and hypostyles (columns) reaching for the skies. There were obelisks (stone structures with pointed ends) to represent the sun's rays and hieroglyphics.
One of the many sphinxes lining the Avenue of Sphinxes, Ram's head with Lion's Body
On the leadup to the temple, there are easily 60 sphixes, mythical beings of ram's heads with lion's body lining the entrance to give a feeling of grandeur. One can imagine what majestic ambience it must have been during the pharoahs time as the king would lead the procession from the Nile (maybe for his bath !) back to the temple.
In those days, the pharoah elevated his status to that of a god, as people were superstitious and the pharoad needed to keep everything 'under control' or in order. So the Amun god (a lesser god) was elevated to Amun Ra and the Pharoah was then seen taking the mantle of the crown from Amun Ra. Additionally, as there was no TV, radio, Internet, wireless communication or cellphones, it made sense to make images of the pharoah (occupier of the great house - literal translation) in stone to impress the ordinary people.
Majestic Entrance showing the First Pylon (Entrance) and 2 huge Ramses statues
The pharoah Ramses II also was shown in carvings on the walls as figting wars against Egypt's enemies. One such was was agains the Hittites (Syrians today) and Ramses claimed a great victory against the Hittites, winning the battle and single handedly killing many enemies. How do we know this ? They had no paper but they had the wall carvings and paintings of recorded events showing Ramses II shooting the bow and arrow on a chariot at an enemy as well as another showing him standing over one enemy's neck and raising his spear against another enemy. They had spin doctors even in those days !!
The Inner Courtyard with Egyptians and Statues of Ramses II
Egypt had 31 dynasties divided into 3 Kingdoms Old, Middle and New and Ramses lived in the New Kingdom period or 19th dynasty. Many of his statues show him with a smiling face, standing ramrod straight, right arm carrying something which looks like a scroll, indicating he was a learned man.Also, many of the statues showed him walking with the left leg forward as if marching. He was indeed an extraordinary man of those times.
