The Wonders of Luxor's West Bank

Colossi of Memnon (or weather beaten statues of Amenhotep III)

Scene from a worker's tomb

Across the Nile from the modern city of Luxor lie probably the greatest collection archeological sites in the world. This meant one thing, an early morning start so that a maximum number of sites could be covered in a single day. At dawn, Eric and I set out towards the banks of the Nile walking past the Luxor temple. Crossing the mighty river was no problem as there was a ferry departing every 10 minutes with each ride costing a paltry one Egyptian pound.

Deir al-Medina

Osiris...the god of afterlife

Tomb of a worker with a small pyramid

Once across on the west bank we hired bicycles and rode through the town and then past agricultural fields until we came across the first landmark…two immense statues of the pharaoh Amenhotep III that are today called as the Colossi of Memnon. The current name comes from Greco-Roman times when these statues were the biggest tourist attraction of their times because one of the statues reportedly cried out every morning and the Greeks and Romans placed great significance to this phenomenon. There we were then…a couple tourists looking up at the statues that have seen countless others come and go over the past 2000 odd years. The statues were close to boundary where the lush agricultural plains along the Nile give way to desiccated terrain.

Above and Right: Scenes from the tomb of Sennedjem

First stop was the Deir al-Medina which was an ancient Egyptian village where the artisans who worked on the Valley of the Kings lived. There was a small temple dedicated to the goddess Hathor but far more interesting were the tombs of the artisans. Since afterlife was an integral part of the Egyptian religious belief, the workmen just as their kings, wanted a burial within their own private tomb each decorated with paintings and stashed with material offerings for their afterlife. The tombs were small and had a narrow passageway leading to the main burial chamber which was decorated with vivid well preserved paintings depicting the workmen, their families, gods, and in some cases mundane facets of their life.

The curved ceiling in the burial chamber of a worker's tomb

Anubis, the god of mummification and afterlife
embalming the tomb owner

We visited three tombs and all had a guard assigned who walked with us into the tombs. Interestingly, the guard allowed us to take pictures inside the tombs in return for a small baksheesh even though it is prohibited. Baksheesh is an Arabic word which could mean anything from a benign tip to a bribe but in Hindi it could also mean a gift. As can be seen from the pictures here, we did give the guards baksheesh for allowing us to take photos of some amazing painting inside the tombs.

Min, the Egyptian god of fertility at the temple of
Hathor in Deir el-Medina

Do I have a mild case of guilt about my actions? Well, perhaps not the ideal thing to have done but I look at it three ways,

a) Did I willfully participate in the destruction of the site…my answer would be in the negative since the pictures were taken without flash

b) Was there anything good that came about my actions…my argument would be that the guards have a meager salary so me giving a little baksheesh must certainly go some ways to helping the guard feed his family so no moral qualms there

c) Does my action cause any negative repercussion in general?…Perhaps the only negative that I can see is that my actions most definitely will encourage the guard to seek baksheesh from other tourist but then the tourists can make their own choice if they want to ignore or entertain the guards.

Reconstruction work on the
temple walls

Temple of Hatshepsut

If I am trying to justifying my actions here then it perhaps does mean that I do feel a little uncomfortable about the whole thing but I think an easy alternative would be to allow tourists to take pictures by increasing the price of the admission ticket and request that the photographs be taken without flash.

Cycling from the tombs towards the temple of Hatshepsut we engaged in a playful race with a horse drawn cart but that resulted in my bicycle chain coming loose. It had not been since the halcyon days of school than I had to deal with a loose chain and although I struggled with it a bit I eventually managed to get it back on with the help of a kid who seemed eager to help.

Temple of Hatshepsut at the foot of the Deir el-Bahari cliffs

Valley of the Kings

Opening to one of the tombs

The visually striking mortuary temple of Hatshepsut, a female pharaoh of ancient Egypt, stood beneath the sandstone cliffs of Deir el Bahari. The sight was stunning but it was slightly overrun but domestic and foreign tourists who arrived by their bus loads.

Ramses I flanked by Horus and Anubis

Scene from the tomb of Ramses I

I was so glad that we decided to cycle our way here rather than being in one of those tourist buses being driven like cattle from one site to another. We parked our bikes at the security gate and quickly walked around the temple and then started to ascend the mountain. Lonely Planet had highly recommended a hike from the Valley of the Kings across the mountains to the temple of Hatshepsut; the only difference was that we were doing it the other way. There were no signs from where to begin the hike and interestingly when we ask a shop owner he pointed to a trail beside a signpost saying “Do not climb mountain”.

Cliff overlooking the temple of Hatshepsut. Also visible is
the boundary between the agricultural plains and the desert

Scene from the tomb of Ramses I

About an hour of hiking through the desolate mountain landscape we started our descent into the Valley of the Kings which is generally considered as the pièce de résistance of Egyptian sites on the west bank. The valley houses 63 tombs as of today with the latest tomb unearthed as recently as 2005 and not all of them were open at the time of our visit. Normally, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities has only a few tombs open at any given time while the others undergo renovation thus preserving them from the damage caused due to the visits of thousands of tourists each year. Additionally, each ticket allows for visiting only 3 tombs thus reducing the damage although technically all the tombs open can be visited by purchasing multiple tickets.

Temple of Hatshepsut

Mohmed (white shirt to my left) and his friends

I ended up seeing three tombs all bearing the same name (Ramses III, Ramses I. and Ramses IV). Among them, the tomb of Ramses III was the biggest with walls extensively decorated. The tomb of Ramses I, although small for a pharaoh had the most colorful and best preserved paintings while the tomb of Ramses IV was large but had more hieroglyphic text than pictures much of which I could not understand.

Normally, I would associate a tomb with having a small claustrophobic passageway just enough for one person to squeeze through and a small burial chamber much like what I had seen with the tombs of the workers. The tombs of the kings on the other hand were wide enough for a car to easily get in and they were so long and elaborate that it felt more like a tunnel than a tomb.

Passageway to Sennofer's tomb

Make no mistake, these tombs were awesome but a sense of mystic and discovery was missing. Perhaps it was the size of these tombs or the droves of tourists in them that makes me think so but I actually preferred the tombs of the workers.

Eric desperately wanted the pictures inside one of these tombs (especially the colorful ones in the tomb of Ramses I) but it was not an easy task as the cameras had to be checked in at the security counter outside the entrance to the Valley. The security guards too were far more strict about taking pictures inside the Kings tombs as compared to the tombs of the workers.This meant that we had to be creative so we hatched a plan.

Scene from the tomb of Sennofer

Sennofer

Sennofer's wife

I visited the last tomb alone so I could scope out if the last one was better than Ramses I and then went back to the security counter and showed my ticket with three punch marks indicating I could not visit anymore tombs and retrieved both of our cameras as they were kept together under the same coupon. I was then allowed to enter the Valley of the Kings again since I had to hike my way back to the temple of Hatshepsut and the only way to do that was to go through the Valley of the Kings towards the back from where I could ascend the mountain. All this while Eric patiently waited in the valley. When I caught up with him he took his camera and went back to the tomb of Ramses I and got the pictures. The results are some really awesome pictures you see here!

Rekhmire with wife & daughter



Depiction of workers sculpting a pharaoh's statue

Extensive account of daily life as depicted in Rekhmire's tomb

On the way back to the temple of Hatshepsut at the top of the mountains lay a military checkpoint where we were invited for tea by an Egyptian army man called Mohmed. After being incessantly hassled by touts in Luxor we could easily have ignored his request to join them for tea suspecting their generous actions to somehow be devious. It turned our to be a completely honest request and thirty odd minutes we spent there interacting with them were probably more noteworthy than visiting 3-4 more tombs in the Valley of the Kings. It was interesting to hear about their loneliness atop the mountains, their lives before and after the revolutions and their take on the constitutional referendum that the country was soon going to undertake.



Cartwheeling at the Ramesseum


Refreshed, we got back to our bicycles and headed to the tombs of the nobles, the area around which is extensively being excavated as I write. We visited two tombs, first of which was the tomb of Sennofer with brilliantly preserved paintings and the second was Rekhmire who judging by the size of his tomb must have been a very high ranking noble. Although Rekhmire’s tomb did not have as colorful paintings as Sennofer’s tomb it was quite extensive and the emphasis was more on daily life rather than the overtly religious ceremonies depicted in the tombs of the kings.

Besides a fallen head of Ramses II

Depiction of the battles of Ramses II
on the walls of the Ramesseum


Just as the sun was setting we managed to get to Ramesseum, the mortuary temple of the greatest of all pharaohs…Ramses II and the sight was made even better as there were no other tourists. Most of the tourists who we had encountered at the temple of Hatshepsut and the Valley of the Kings were long gone presumably because their guides did not steer them that way. I wondered if that is all that they saw which would be a shame. Even with 12 hours, I was not able to cover all the sites of the west bank which meant that unfortunately I could not visit the Valley of the Queens and the temple of Ramses III at Medinet Habu.

As the sun set we caught the ferry back to the east bank and watched the moon shimmering away on the tranquil water of the Nile.