Month: February 2025

Our first night on board the ship, S.S. Sphinx we sailed along the Nile to Dendera – about 45 miles from Luxor.  Along the way we spent some time on the sun deck looking around and seeing what happens along the river.  Most of the area between Luxor and Dendera is basically empty – yes, there were pockets of small communities and some very large banana plantations but mostly open countryside.  The desert is never far from the river for sure.  

The following morning, bright and early (which became the norm for this adventure) we boarded our bus and went to the Temple of Hathor.  The Dendera Temple complex is one of the best-preserved temple complexes of ancient Egypt. The entirety of the complex is surrounded by a sizable mudbrick wall which was originally installed to protect the complex from the flood waters of the Nile.

An oasis on the banks of the Nile, Dendera was inhabited by thousands at its peak. Due to its massive size, the structures throughout the complex were constructed over many eras, such as the Middle Kingdom, the Ptolemaic Era, and the period characterized by Roman provincial rule. There is evidence that there was an even earlier building on this site, circa 2250 B.C.E., which could have begun during the reign of Pepi I and completed during the reign of his son, Merenre Nemtyemsaf I. 

If there is one structure that commands the attention of those who visit, it is the Temple of Hathor. The original temple structure underwent continuous modifications throughout the Middle Kingdom and up until the beginning of the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan. The existing temple’s structure began construction in 54 B.C.E, the late Ptolemaic period, under the reign of Ptolemy Auletes. The hypostyle hall was built in the Roman period under Tiberius.

The God Hathor, who is honored by this temple, was among the most important and popular deities in ancient Egypt. She was associated with music, joy, dance and motherhood; she was also known as the lady of the sky. The complex in Dendera was the main cult center to honor this God.   

Even after a couple thousand years, the Temple is one of the most colorful in Egypt, with an intricately detailed ceiling and one of the most awe-inspiring hypostyle halls that we saw in Egypt.    

This is the inner most room of the Temple and would have been the most holy. Decorations on all the walls and ceilings were amazing.

The building is fully roofed and has been for centuries. This gargoyle was on the exterior of the building. Beautiful carved.

The scene portrays Cleopatra VII, the last Greek ruler of Egypt, and her son Caesarion making offerings to the goddess. The only know depiction of Cleopatra

After getting back to the Ship, it set sail to return to Luxor to stage for tomorrow’s adventures.  However, once we were underway, I was able to get a tour of some of the spaces not normally open.  We started in the Bridge to meet the Capitan and from there went to the Engine Room, Laundry and finally the Kitchen.

After my tour it was time to just relax and enjoy cursing along – heading back to Luxor for tomorrows adventures

Bright and early the following morning we packed up all our belongings and headed to the airport for a short flight to Luxor. 

 Located on the east bank of the Nile River, in southern Egypt, is the site of ancient Thebes, the pharaohs’ capital at the height of their power, during the 16th–11th centuries BCE. Today, the city surrounds 2 huge, surviving ancient monuments: graceful Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple, a mile north, both of which we will see on this adventure.  Luxor is also the stopping off point to visit the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens on the river’s west bank.

Upon arrival, even before heading to the ship, we visited the Temple of Karnak.

The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak, comprises a vast mix of temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings.  The original name of the temple was Ipet-isut, meaning “The Most Select of Places”.  The complex’s modern name “Karnak” comes from the nearby village of el-Karnak, which means “fortified village”.

The number and size of the columns was amazing. Originally the entire space would have been covered with a stone roof, only a small portion of the roof remains. Virtually all of the columns were carved and had an abundance of hieroglyphic writing.

The complex is a vast open site and includes a number of structures and monuments. It is believed to be the second most visited historical site in Egypt; only the Giza pyramid complex near Cairo receives more visits. Consisting of four main parts, only the largest is currently open to the public. 

The key difference between Karnak and most of the other temples and sites in Egypt is the length of time over which it was developed and used. Construction of temples started in the Middle Kingdom and continued into Ptolemaic times. Approximately thirty pharaohs contributed to the buildings, enabling it to reach a size, complexity, and diversity not seen elsewhere. Few of the individual features of Karnak are unique, but the size and number of features are vast. The deities represented range from some of the earliest worshiped to those worshiped much later in the history of the Ancient Egyptian culture. 

Obelisk’s are made from solid granite while most of the other structures are made from sandstone or limestone

The Great Hypostyle Hall, where we spent a good deal of time, is about an area of 50,000 sq ft with 134 massive columns arranged in 16 rows. One hundred and twenty-two of these columns are 33 ft tall, and the other 12 are 69 ft tall with a diameter of over 9.8 ft. The architraves, on top of these columns, are estimated to weigh 70 tons.  There is an unfinished pillar that indicates how it would have been finished with finishing and carvings being completed from the top down.  It was suggested blocks were stacked to make columns and then sand put around them so the workers could get to the top to finish smoothing the columns and make the carvings.  As they worked down, the sand was removed.

Many depictions of Gods and Kings on the walls. Here one is making an offering.

It is amazing to see all of these structures with the carvings and some color visible after all the centuries they have been in place.  

After completing our visit to Karnak we headed to our boat, the S.S. Sphinx.  Our home for the next week entered into the UniWorld fleet in 2021 and can accommodate as many as 84 guests.  However, our current group was 55 or so, lots of room to move around.  

While there is a pool on the sundeck, we never took a dip while we were on board. However, we enjoyed multiple sunny afternoons sailing on the Nile from this area. A grilled lunch was prepared for eating on the sundeck during one sailing.

Before venture any further with our actual travel blog, I feel it is important to give some overall context of what we are seeing and what it might all means.  Over the next several days we are going to visit a number of Egyptian Temples and their overall layout is quite similar as are the designs on the walls.  Additionally, the time period of each is important.  The history of ancient Egypt is divided into three main periods: the Old Kingdom (about 2,700-2,200 B.C.E.), the Middle Kingdom (2,050-1,800 B.C.E.), and the New Kingdom (about 1,550-1,100 B.C.E.). The New Kingdom was followed by a period called the Late New Kingdom, which lasted to about 343 B.C.E.

The major difference is the King (pharaohs) who had the work completed and how he is represented.  Additionally, it is noteworthy that Eqypt was historically divided into two areas – Lower and Upper.  The Crowns for each region were depicted by what looks like a large champagne bottle for the upper region and the lower region looked like a bucket!  The combined crown looks a lot like a bottle of champagne inside a wine bucket (as described by Assem our guide).  These show up on the temple walls frequently.  

The image on the left represents the Upper Region, the one on the right is the Lower Region and of course the one in the middle is the Combined Kingdom.

We will visit two principal kinds of temples – cult temples and funerary (or mortuary) temples. The cult temple accommodated the images of deities, the recipients of the daily cult; the latter were the shrines for the funerary cults of dead kings.  

It is generally thought that the Egyptian cult temple of the Old Kingdom owed most to the cult of the sun god Ra and was portrayed as a man with the head of peregrine falcon, adorned with a sun disk with a Cobra around it, and shared characteristics with the sky-god Horus.  

The layout was essentially a reception pavilion at the desert edge connected by a covered corridor on a causeway to the open court of the temple high on the desert, within which stood the benben of limestone (a sacred stone usually in the shape of a pyramid) and a huge alabaster altar. Fine reliefs embellished the covered walls and ceilings of the corridor – many of which still retain the original colors they were painted.

Mortuary temples (or funerary temples) were typically erected adjacent to, or in the vicinity of, royal tombs. The temples were designed to commemorate the reign of the Pharaoh under whom they were constructed, as well as for use by the king’s cult after death.

Most temples followed the same general design.  The layout consists of an imposing open court with colonnades of graceful lotus columns, a smaller offering hall, a shrine for the ceremonial boat of the god, an inner sanctuary for the cult image, and a room in which the divine birth of the king was celebrated. The approach to the temple was made by a colonnade of huge columns with open papyrus-flower capitals.  The first, open courtyard, was available all but as you moved further into the complex restrictions applied.  First the general population (courtyard), then the royalty (Hypostyle Hall), then the priests the king (Sanctuary).  The entire complex was controlled by the priests and no one was allowed into the Temple after dark.

The cult temple achieved its most highly developed form in the great sanctuaries erected over many centuries at Thebes. Architecturally the most satisfying is the Luxor Temple, started by Amenhotep III of the 18th dynasty (from 1550 to 1292 BCE.).  More on the Luxor Temple later in this adventure.

A listing of the Gods of Ancient Egypt

The Kings of Ancient Eqypt

One final note, before we continue our adventure, the King (male and female) always was depicted with a wooden or metal false beard, or postiche, which was a sign of sovereignty and always worn by royalty.

When I asked Janeen what were the first thoughts she had when I said Egypt.  She replied with Desert, Nile River, Pharaohs and Pyramids.  On a recent UniWorld Adventure (Splendors of Egypt & the Nile) we learned about all of those things and a lot more.

It’s clear we didn’t know much about Egypt.  According to Wikipedia, Egypt is officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, and the country spans the northeast corner of Africa and the Sinai Peninsula in the southwest corner of Asia. Cairo, the capital and largest city of Egypt, was our first destination on this trip and is home to more than 10 million people.  The Greater Cairo metropolitan area is the 12th-largest in the world by population with over 22.1 million people.  This includes the Giza pyramid complex and the ancient cities of Memphis and Heliopolis which are near-by.  With one of the longest histories of any country, tracing its heritage along the Nile Delta back to the 6th–4th millennia BCE and considered to be the cradle of civilizations, Ancient Egypt saw some of the earliest developments of writing, agriculture, ubanization, organized religion and central government.

After getting picked up at the airport and checked into our hotel – The Four Seasons!  The following morning, we met with our Egyptologist, Assem and had a preview of some of the sites we might visit plus the beginning of lots of history we were to receive over the course of this trip.  After meeting together, there were about 24 in our group, we boarded the first of many bus trips to various sites.

The bus did a general tour of Cairo eventually finding its way to Old Citadel of Salah al-Din with the Alabaster Mosque of Muhammad Ali.  

Perched high upon a deep slope is the historical Salah-al Din Citadel, also known as the Cairo Citadel, is one of the most elegant fortresses of the Middle Ages, offering a bird’s eye view of the city. The citadel was intended to instill fear in and intimidate Crusaders who would dare to violate the city’s peace.  It was the seat of government in Egypt and the residence of its rulers for nearly 700 years from the 13th century until the 19th century. 

Situated within the overall Citadel complex is the Muhammad Ali Mosque.  Built by Muhammad Ali Pasha, who was the founder of modern Egypt and ruled Egypt between 1805 and 1848, built the Great Mosque inside the Citadel between 1832 and 1857. 

 It is one of the most visible mosques and landmarks in the City. Unlike the traditional Cairene architecture that preceded it, the mosque was built in an entirely Ottoman and European-influenced style, further setting it apart from other monuments. It is sometimes called the Alabaster Mosque due to the prominent use of alabaster as a covering for its walls.

After this visit, we headed to the Egyptian Museum, the oldest archaeological museum in the Middle East, which houses the largest collection of Pharaonic antiquities in the world.

The museum displays an extensive collection spanning from the Predynastic Period (5000 BCE) to the Greco-Roman Era (642 CE).  The museum was inaugurated in 1902 by Khedive Abbas Helmy II, and has become a historic landmark in downtown Cairo, and home to some of the world’s most magnificent ancient masterpieces.  This was our first exposure to the art, culture and history of Egypt.  

A whole row of Sarcophagus and other items – many of which celebrated the gods and were found in various tombs.

Funerary Masks – These two painted cartonnage masks were found in the tomb of Sennedjem. One of them belongs to his wife, lyneferti, and the other probably belongs to one of his daughters in law. These masks were placed over the mummified and wrapped face of the deceased in order to identify them and to protect the body.

The museum houses the splendid statues of the great kings Khufu, Khafre, and Menkaure, the builders of the pyramids at the Giza plateau and an extensive collection of papyri, sarcophagi and jewelry, and other objects.  

Of course, one of the highlights was the ability to see some of Tutankhamun’s treasures (many are being moved to the Grand Egyptian Museum which we will see later in this trip).

After visiting the Museum we headed back to the Hotel for a relaxing evening.