Day 10: Luxor : Tour Karnak Temple, Open Air Museum, and Temple
of Ptah
Saturday we met our guide Hossam
Rashwan, transferred to our room, then sat down to discuss itinerary
- Today we agreed to tour Karnak Temple in Detail including Open
Air Museum, and Temple of Ptah.
The Best Days to Go to Sites
With Hossam's advice,we reordered the Itinerary to take advantage
of the 'slow' days at the major sites. Sunday and Wednesday early
morning are the best days for the Valley of the Kings and Hatshepsut's
Temple. So we reordered as follows: Sat-Karnak (same); Sun- Valley
of Kings (changed from Tuesday); Mon- Valley of Queens (changed
from Sun); Tues - Tombs of Nobles (changed from Monday); Hatshepsut's
Temple and Seti, Ramesseum and Merenptah (same); Thurs- Kohkha tombs
(same); Friday - Luxor Temple and catch train.
This type of thing is a great reason for having a local Arabic
speaking Guide. They know when and where to go so that you avoid
the crowds. Even in Karnak, Hossam kept us out of the crowds and
we weaved our way around the temple in virtural solitude even though
it was one of the busiest days.
 Karnak
Temple of Amun
The Karnak entrance has changed a bit. There is construction all
around it. Houses have been torn down and a "shopping centre"
complete with tarmack parking lot is going up. The land along the
original avenue of the sphinxes from Karnak to the Temple of Luxor
has also been reclaimed by the Antiquities Counsel.
Barque shrines of Seti II. The entrance
to Karnak itself is much the same as before. We entered and had
a tour of the Seti II triple shrine that was used to rest the barques
of the god Amun, his consort Mut and their son Khons when they progressed
to and from the temples on festival processions.
Temple of Rameses III. We then visited the temple of Ramesses
III that is built into the wall of the first court. This is very
similar to parts of the Temple at Medinet Habu. It is a barque shrine,
but with an elaborate festival court. Rameses III liked to do things
a bit more elaborately.
Hypostyle Hall. The hypostyle hall with its 134 columns
had us reading kings hieroglyphs and looking at wall scenes. We
then made our way out of the side entrance to the hypostyle hall
to walk through the area of digging and resonstruction to the Temple
of Ptah.
Temple of Ptah
Thutmose III built the temple which is dedicated the upper Egypt
God Ptah and his consort Sekmet. You can view the statue of Sekmet
within the sactuary. There is also a fine alter table in front of
the sanctuaries. The Ptolomies later added to the temple and in
some places you can see both the New Kingdom decorations and the
Ptolomaic decorations juxtaposed on the two surfaces of a doorway.
Obelisks of Hatshepsut. Next we treked back through the
broken excavation area to come into the side of the complex at the
Obelisks of the Hatshepsut and Thutmose III.
Many say that Thutmose had walls placed around the bottom of Hatshepsut's
obelisks to hide the inscriptions which left them better preserved
than those of Thutmose, himself.
At this point we turned and walked along the original axis of
the Karnak Temple toward the Festival Hall, passing the Amun shrine
and the standards of upper and lower Egypt that must have inspired
the Art Deco movement.
The Festival Hall, built by Tutmoses III, has lots of color and
was used by early Christians for worship. The Christians are supposed
to have broken a triad statue, so that the remaining pieces form
a cross. This is local legend, who knows if it is true, but everyone
from Egypt's Pharaohs, Greeks rulers to Ottomans have done their
bit to take bits and pieces of the temple. Otherwise, it would be
more intact like Edfu.
 After
walking back along the axis we turned left and walked out to the
Sacred Lake and stoped and the "Temple of Coke" which
is the location of a cafe that serves cold drinks and sells postcards
and books. After a rest we walked back through a side entrance to
the hypostyle hall to see the Tutankhamun scenes and made our way
through the first court to the Open Air Museum.
The Open Air Museum
The Open Air Museum is a place for leisurely contemplation of the
rows of carved blocks that have recently been excavated and set
aside to be sorted, and to visit the reconstructed barque shrines,
the White Chapel of Senwosret I , the Alabaster Shrine of Amenhotep
I, the Red Chapel of Hatshepsut and the reconstructed gateways of
Amenhotep I and Amenhotep II..
 The
rows of blocks are sorted and then pieced together with others in
reconstruction work. For that reason, the blocks are ever changing.
It is fascinating to see the bits of decoration and try to guess
what they relate to. Reading hieroglypics would be a real plus here.
The White Chapel
The White Chapel has some of the most exquisite reliefs from the
Old Kingdom. It is roped off from the general public because it
could not stand the constant rubbing and brushing of large numbers
of people. The reliefs are raised and would, over time, wear off.
But if you are alone and are very careful the guards might be persuaded
to let you take a closer look. But watch your backpack and anything
else hanging off your body, you do not want to be chipping away
at the past, as it were. After the sublime Open Air Museum we made
our way out the main entrance and went back to the hotel to unpack.
We are not your normal tourist, I suppose. We took 5 hours to cover
what was only part of Karnak. Most tourists get one hour, maximum
and then it is back on the bus. In fact, the tour guides, who all
know each other and greet and call each other on their mobile phones,
became very curious about us. One guide met Hossam as we first were
in the Hypostyle Hall. Later he called Hossam from the West Bank
where his group was now at Hatshepsut's Temple, asking where we
were. Hossam told him we were still in Karnak, to which the other
guide replied, "Still in Karnak! I could have built the Temple
by now!"
Egypt has so many things to see, and not enough time to see them
all, but when I put together this itinerary I intended to see as
much of it, in depth, as I could, so there are many items on my
itinerary. The Guide in Aswan, Ahmed Salama said "It is was
a big itinerary," and Hossam repeated the comment. Ahmed and
Hossam were fellow students in their four year course in Hospitality
and Tourism - Guide Division. Ahmed and Hossam both seemed to relish
the time we took at the sites, sometimes saying that they had not
been to that part or seen that thing in a while. Their work is often
done on very tight deadlines and I think they like to take up a
"big itinerary" challenge every once is a while. And there
are so many things in Egypt that weren't on our itinerary, and more
being found every day. If you plan to come to Egypt, try to stay
as many days as you can and see things in depth, instead of everything
in a hurry.
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