[“Travel Journal: Israel &
Egypt, 1982 – Part 12,” posted below, is the final installment of my account of
my journey around Israel and Egypt almost 39 years ago. Those ROTters who’ve read along with
the postings since Part 1 I hope will agree it was an extraordinary experience;
I hope, too, that I’ve conveyed that on the blog.
[Remember that this trip was only possible in 1982 because of the 1979 Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty signed just 3½ years before. My parents had gone to Egypt several years earlier, but they couldn’t have gone from Egypt to Israel or vice versa at that time—and, in fact, never got to Israel in their lifetimes.
[This final section of the chronicle, which also ends the recovery of my uncompleted contemporaneous journal (see my note on Part 3, posted on 17 July), covers the last day of my cruise down the River Nile and my departure from Egypt and return to the U.S.
[If you’ve not been among the visitors to Rick On Theater who’ve been following along with the whole account, I invite you now to go back to 11 July and start with Part 1. The sections are posted continuously, with a break after Part 5 (23 July) for a topical report on theater news; the journal entries recommence with Part 6 on 2 August and continue till this last entry.]
Day 4 of Sheraton Nile River Cruise/Luxor – Wednesday, 29 December
The visit to Luxor—another ancient capital of Egypt under the Greek name of Thebes (during the period of the New Kingdom, ca. 1570-ca. 1077 BCE)—started first thing. We went ashore at 8 a.m. to tour Luxor’s West Bank (we’re talking the Nile here, not the Jordan, of course).
Luxor, often called Egypt’s “open-air museum” because of all the historical sights in the immediate area ought to take a couple of days to see comfortably, but the river cruises only allow a day at most (I imagine some stick around for less). The West Bank contains one of the largest collections of archaeological treasures in the world. Hence, the early start.
The Nile cuts Luxor in two. On the East Bank is the city, where both ancient Thebans and modern Luxorians live and work, and where the two famous temple ruins are found and where visitors will find most hotels, restaurants, and shops.
The West Bank of Luxor is where the ancient Egyptians buried the dead. Every night, the sun sets on the West Bank, so this became the Theban Necropolis, containing mortuary temples, monuments, and tombs, and including the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens.
(Mortuary or funerary temples are temples erected next to or near royal Egyptian tombs to commemorate the reign of the deified pharaoh for whom they were constructed. The New Kingdom temples were dubbed “Mansions of Millions of Years” or “Temples of a Million Years” as an expression of the pharaoh’s intention to live for eternity in the afterlife.)
As we arrived on the West Bank of Luxor, right near the parking lot, we were greeted by the Colossi of Memnon. These monumental twin statues of Amenhotep III (reigned: 1390-1352 BCE) look eastward towards the Nile. The two seated statues, erected in 1350 BCE, tower 60 feet in height.
The statues are badly damaged; the features of the pharaoh are nearly unrecognizable. They were intended to serve as guardians for Amenhotep’s mortuary temple, the largest and most lavish temple complex in Egypt, which stood behind the colossi. Little remains of the temple, however, due to erosion by the flooding Nile, cannibalization by later rulers, and earthquakes.
The Valley of the Kings is a royal burial ground for pharaohs from the New Kingdom, as well as powerful nobles and the wives and children of the pharaohs. Famous kings from this period include Thutmose III, Tutankhamun, Seti I (reigned: 1290-1279 BCE; he may have been the pharaoh at the start of the enslavement of the Hebrews, during the time of the abuses which led to the Exodus), and Rameses II.
Their tombs, over 60 in this small area, were constructed between 1539 and 1075 BCE. (And, yes, this is the legendary burial place of King Tut, discovered in 1922 by British archeologist Howard Carter [1874-1939], whose house is on the West Bank just outside the necropolis—kept much as he left it.)
Though the Valley of the Kings may have included the burial place of Hatshepsut, Egypt’s second known female pharaoh (reigned: ca. 1479-1458 BCE; the first was Twelfth Dynasty Sobekneferu, reigned: 1807-1802 BCE), the Valley of the Queens was the burial site of the pharaohs’ wives.
The tombs here are smaller and lack some of the grandeur of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings . . . with one big exception: the tomb of Queen Nefertari, wife of Rameses II and the dedicatee of the Small Temple at Abu Simbel (see Part 10). It’s one of the most spectacular tombs in Egypt, with remarkable architectural detail and more vibrant colors in the wall paintings than in many tombs, temples, and pyramids in the country.
Among the wonders of the Theban Necropolis is Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple, her most famous architectural achievement. Her actual tomb is in debate—there are several burial places in the necropolis, including some in the Valley of the Kings, that may have been her final resting place, and one mummy, buried with that of another female associated with the queen, that’s been identified as Hatshepsut. But her mortuary temple is undisputedly one of the monuments on the cliffs of Deir el-Bahri, part of the necropolis.
The colonnaded structure has a much different appearance than many other temples in Egypt, but that’s part of what makes it so noteworthy. Nonetheless, most of the ornamental statuary is missing—her successors Thutmose III (her nephew and stepson) and his son Amenhotep II had launched a campaign to erase Hatshepsut’s reign from the historical record—and a mistaken attempt at restoration in the early 20th century has altered the temple’s original appearance.
Living up to its sobriquet as part the world’s greatest open-air museum, there are scores of sites on Luxor’s West Bank worthy of seeing (though, I have to confess that unless you’re a professional or amateur Egyptologist, the temples, tombs, pyramids, and burial sites all start to seem alike at some level).
Among the monuments of note are the Mortuary Temple of Rameses III; the Ramesseum, the mortuary temple dedicated to Rameses II; and the Mortuary Temple of Seti I. Of further interest is Deir el-Medina, the ancient village where the artisans who worked on the tombs in the Valley of the Kings lived. Tombs were built here for some of the most prominent workers.
Excavations of the artisans’ village, particularly those around the same time that the world was fascinated with the revelations from the tomb of King Tut, provided the most information ever gathered on the community life among the working people of ancient Egypt. Details about every aspect of the lives of the ordinary Egyptians in the village, occupied from the middle of the 16th century BCE through the end of the 11th, were revealed.
Finally, in another gathering of burial sites are the Tombs of the Nobles, carved into the rocky hillside. These were the tombs of high-ranking Egyptians, servants of the pharaohs, officials of Thebes, or other dignitaries. Like the workers’ village, the nobles’ tombs offer a change from the grandiose repetitiveness of the royal monuments.
We returned to the boat at noon-ish for lunch, then at 2:30, we went into the East Bank to see the Temples of Karnak and Luxor. (Karnak was another site that figured in the Roger Moore Bond flick The Spy Who Loved Me which was filmed on location here in October 1976. Readers who are Bond fans will remember the scene at Karnak as Moore’s big fight with Jaws [the late Richard Kiel]. Scenes for the 1978 film version of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile were shot in some of the same locations in late 1977. See my remarks in Part 9.)
Formally known as the Temple of Amun, Karnak was a complex of temples built over 2,000 years and dedicated to Amun and two other deities. (Amun was the patron god of Thebes who ultimately was combined with Ra, the sun god, and thus became the king of the gods. The Greeks associated him with Zeus.)
Started in the Middle Kingdom, around 2000-1700 BCE, and continued into the Ptolemaic period, 305-30 BCE, the temple complex is a ruin today but still shows evidence of its former magnificence. It was the largest religious building ever built, covering nearly 300 acres.
When the Persians conquered Egypt in 343 BCE, followed by the Greeks (332 BCE) and then the Romans (30 BCE), Karnak diminished in importance and was slowly abandoned. By 323 CE, Roman emperor Constantine I (ca. 272-337 CE; reigned: 306-337) recognized Christianity, and in 356 CE, Emperor Constantius II (317-361 CE; reigned: 337 to 361 CE) closed all pagan temples throughout the Roman empire, including Egypt. A number of the abandoned temples at Karnak were converted to Christian churches.
Luxor Temple, also known as the Southern Sanctuary, was unique in that it was dedicated not to a god or a deified pharaoh, but to the rejuvenation of kingship. An annual religious festival involved a procession of the statues of the deities Amun, his wife, and their son from the Karnak temple complex. (Reminds me of the San Gennaro Festival in New York’s Little Italy which starts with parading the saint’s statues through the streets.) Later celebrations would see the statues travel down the Nile by sacred boat, and a ceremonial re-coronation of the pharaoh.
Built around 1392-1213 BCE, the Southern Sanctuary is a graceful temple complex, though far simpler than Karnak. In ancient times, the temple would have been surrounded by mud-brick houses, shops, and workshops, but after the decline of the city, Luxorians moved into the partly covered temple complex and built their city inside it.
We were back on board the Tut by 5 in the afternoon (for Afternoon Tea, natch), followed by dinner and the usual evening’s pastime. This was our last night on the Nile and our penultimate night in Egypt.
Day 5 of Sheraton Nile River Cruise/Luxor – Cairo – Thursday, 30 December
On Thursday morning, we had breakfast on the boat, said our good-byes, and checked out, putting ourselves back in the hands of Egyptian Express and Unitours. We had a couple of hours to kill in the morning, so I wandered a little around the East Bank and essentially window-shopped. With a population of around 260,000 in 1982, Luxor’s a bustling little city—even if it is surrounded by hordes of ancient monuments (“the world’s greatest open-air museum,” remember?)—and the sightseeing doesn’t allow much time just to look around at the modern surroundings. So I did.
But I had to keep my eye on both my watch and where I’d wandered off to, because I had to be back to catch our transport to Luxor International Airport at 2:30 for our 3:45 EgyptAir hop back to Cairo.
The upscale enclave of Heliopolis, established in 1905 by a Belgian industrialist as a suburb of Cairo, is now a district of the capital city just 15 minutes from Cairo International—handy if you have an early flight.
DEPARTURE & HOMECOMING
Cairo/New York (and points between) – Friday, 31 December
Everyone had different flight schedules, and I don’t remember my departure time or what airline I was flying. (It wasn’t Alitalia, which I flew to Israel, because I didn’t stop in Rome. The itinerary was written for Olympic Airways, the Greek carrier, but I didn’t fly that, either, since I didn’t stop in Athens.)
What I do remember is that my flight left Cairo and stopped in Istanbul (suggesting that I was flying Turkish Airlines, but I don’t recall that being the case) and went on to Brussels. I changed planes there and flew on to JFK in New York.
I remember this because when I first looked at my ticket, I thought, ‘Wow! I’ll be setting down on four continents!’ Cairo is in Africa, Brussels is in Europe, and New York, of course, is in North America.
But I’d been thinking that Istanbul was in Asia Minor, which is western Asia—but, of course, it’s not. It’s in the tiny part of Turkey that’s in Europe. (In my defense, poor as it is, I hadn’t been to Istanbul yet. I got there in 2010 [see my report posted on 24 June 2010]. I just . . . Don't know much about geography—with apologies to Sam Cooke [1931-64].)
In any case, I got home after something like 15 hours of flying-and-waiting. (I don’t recall another five-hour lay-over like I had in Rome on the flight over.) According to my passport, that got me back in New York City sometime in the late evening New Year’s Eve. It was probably the wee hours of Saturday, New Year’s Day, by the time I got through customs and got back to my apartment in Manhattan. I took an airport bus out when I left, so I probably did the same to get home.
I imagine I was exhausted and jet-lagged when I got to the apartment. But I was also satisfied. This trip in 1982 and the one to China in 1980 were both before traveling got unpleasant. I don’t mean going places—that’s almost always great. I mean the getting there. It’s turned nasty and brutish, to coin a phrase, sometime in the ’90s.
[This concludes my transcription and recovery of my travel journal of my trip to Israel and Egypt in December of 1982. The latter part, the reconstruction of the trip after I stopped writing the journal, was much harder than I anticipated.
[It took not only reliance on the Unitours, Egyptian Express, and Sheraton Nile Cruise itineraries, but some research (mostly for the specific sights we saw because without contemporaneous notes, I wouldn’t have remembered most of the details after 39 years) and some occasionally extensive Internet searches regarding locations like hotels and the Nile cruise ship to determine if they were still around under the same names.
[The personal reminiscences, as well as the consequences of aspects of the voyage in the ensuing years, are entirely from my memory of the experiences. As I wrote the post, I was a little surprised at what I recalled. The journal was supposed to be an aide-mémoire, but I wasn’t prepared for it to have worked so well.
[As I’ve said, I intend to transcribe the other two old travel journals sometime in the near future. I’ll be continuing with the 1980 journal of my visit to the People’s Republic of China, the second-oldest of the three chronicles, and then transcribe the account of my high school trip to Poland and the USSR from 1965. (As I observed in my introduction to this post on Part 1, ROTters will know about this last trip from “Going to a Swiss International School, Part 5.”)
[Both of
those journals were completed as I made the trips, though I’ll still provide
present-day commentary as I transcribe them.
I hope you’ll all come back when I post those accounts in the coming
months.]
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