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graves in the rocks
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After a replenishing night und a real early breakfast, a little boat brings us to the Nile’s west waterside at 6:00 AM. The trip only takes a few minutes, but still a completely different world awaits us. While the east waterside with the rising sun is reserved to the living, the West-Thebes was the realm of the dead in the times of the Pharaoh’s.
trip across the nile to the west Memnon-colossus

However, nowadays the west is more the land of the rising hot-air balloons. As soon as it is bright enough, the balloons start with about 50 people in every cabin to offer its inmates a crowded look on the two Memnon-colossuses for example. I wonder if you are seeing a lot more from above in the air, apart from the skullcap of the two figures, than by standing directly in front of the two 18 metres high and 800 tons heavy statues. But I don’t really think so.
a typical picture

Then the trip goes on and – a big compliment to our tour guide – also at the famous funerary temple of Hatschepsut we are arriving before the big run begins.
The way from the bus to the temple is very comfortable. Because only few metres away of the car park a lot of little trains are waiting, which clearly shorten the morning walk.
funerary temple of Hatschepsut

Already at the first stop the early break-up paid itself off. We took hardly few pictures up, when the next busses stop at the once gorgeous temple. Some moments later the two colossuses are beleaguered.
Rest of an early Christian monastery
steps to the second terrace

We learn about the temple itself, that Hatschepsut let it construct. But there were no cartouches with her Hieroglyphics shortly after her death on this building. The reason of this is, that she refused the regency to her stepson and the actually legitimate Pharaoh for her whole lifetime.
Since years a Egyptian has lurked at a room, which is open at the ceiling, on the left side of the temple. He has not much to say, except that he wants to show everybody the Picture of Hathor, the divine cow. Other people know the symbol “Ankh”, the symbol of life, which is for example integrated in the name of the young died Pharaoh’s “Tutankhamun” (Tutenchamun).
upper part of the funerary temple
a several thousend-year-old relief

However we find the tiny relief (in the same room) even more interesting. Its blue colour out of lapis lazuli is astonishing well preserved until today . Furthermore one look into the corridors right of the stairs is profitable. There you can find illustrations of the Horus-falcon, the Anubis, the sun goddess Nut (above on the ceiling), but also scenes from the Egyptian everyday life and even the cartridges of Thutmosis III., the stepson of Hatschepsut.

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Reports at this Homepage
Africa: Egypt (Nile & Cairo) - Egypt (Makadi Bay) - Namibia -- Asia: Bangkok - China - Cambodia - Sri Lanka - Thailand - Turkey (Blue trip, Cappadokia, West-Turkey) -- Germany: Berchtesgaden - Bad Tölz - Neuschwanstein - Black Forest -- Europe: Barcelona - Budapest - Lisbon - Madrid - Chalkidiki/Thessaloniki - Paris - Sardegna - Stockholm - Warsaw - Vienna --
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© 2006-08 Lars Freudenthal