Are they lost? Should we ask if they are in the right train? Maybe they have been robbed and they don’t have any money left. Do you think they need help?
It was hilarious to listen to Egyptian locals when we went in the 3rd class local train from Aswan to Luxor. Obviously not too many tourists take these trains which, by the way, wasn’t that bad at all. Maybe a bit uncomfortable with its hard seats on a longer trip than this 3 hours, though.
Luxor was a much waited destination for me, with its temples and, first and foremost, the royal tombs in The Valley of the Kings and The Valley of the Queens. I was prepared now to write a long post about how great all the things were – but suddenly, am out of words. Don’t get me wrong, they were amazing, incredible, magnificent and superb, but I don’t know how to describe the feeling of seeing something that old which sometimes seemed to be brand new.
In several tombs of pharaohs, the German boys of our group (we booked a tour, which ended up to be a great idea, we had really a good time with our brilliant guide) just couldn’t believe the paintings were original. It must have been repainted, they insisted, looking at the bright colours of Gods, hieroglyphs and the members of the royal families. Some of them surely looked like they would have been painted yesterday. Unfortunately, going inside of the tombs is a double-sided sword, since the carbon dioxide and moisture from exhaled air destroys the paint. Thus, only a few tombs are open at time, and they rotate the open tombs to give them rest in between – rest to the paintings, not the pharaohs.
Pharaohs, except Tutankhamun, are not in their tombs anymore. They are shown in museums around the world. Only the boy pharaoh Tut, who died age of 18-19, is still in his original tomb. His tomb was the most famous archaeological find of 20th century, if ever. Howard Carter found it in 1920s, and much of romance is attached on the treasure find, including the curse.
Tutankhamun is lying in his tomb, his face and feet bare to be shown to public. Not quite like the ancient priests thought the eternal life to be when they mummified him almost 3500 years ago. His facial features are still clear. Sasi was a bit freaked out of the mummies, he said they look like they would get up and start to walk. I think he has seen too many crappy movies. Nevertheless, I didn’t like to see the mummies either. I somehow was thinking that the dead should be allowed their rest.
Even more gruesome was in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, where I went alone after Sasi had flown to Beirut. I had a bit of fever – I was joking I got the curse of Tutankhamun – and was a bit dizzy in the beginning. I had to get out of the mummy room since I started to feel sick in there. There was a warning that it might be to scary for children but it was quite macabre for me, too. All the hair and fingernails (both still with their henna colours), grimacing faces, twisted toes. A bit too much of reality, thank you.
Mind you, the museum was the scariest museum I have ever been anyhow. I went there in the evening when it was dark already outside, and inside the lights were really badly installed. Half dark corridors, badly lidded old-fashioned vitrines with weird stuff inside (like the spoons and spatulas used to take the brains and intestines outside in the mummification process), statues of monster-like gods, broken and almost forgotten items, half-open coffins, mummified crocodiles… There were things that scared the living bejesus out of me. My hairs up, I wandered in there, half terrified, half enjoying, like a kid watching a horror movie between the fingers.
On the other hand, the treasure of Tutankhamun was brightly lid and well presented. For me, the most interesting things were not the golden treasures (even though the golden face mask is cool – even if its a bit of cliché). No, I enjoyed the most about the everyday life items, especially the furniture – small chests of drawers and baskets that I would have been happy to have to our own home immediately.
In Luxor museum, both me and Sasi agreed the same thing: the most incredible thing is that all those things looked like brand new. Especially the sandals of Tutankhamun. Could be put on and have a little walk outside any time.
I really recommend to have a guide if you go to Luxor. We didn’t have one in the temples of Luxor and Karnak, and it was a mistake. I think it would have been thousand times more interesting if we would have known properly what we were looking – my knowledge of Egyptian history turned out to be limited, unfortunately (the basic course of Egyptology is so not enough in Luxor).
Our guide Aladdin, a proud father of a week old baby girl Jasmin, gave us plenty of interesting facts and made the history to live in the West bank of Nile – in the city of the dead. The city of the living (the ancient capital Thebes), unfortunately was to be left a bit more shadowy but, then again, so it is the case with me anyhow quite often.
Sasi claimed the ancient Egyptians were obsessed with the death but I don’t agree. I mean, what else Christianity and Islam, for example, are concentrating than afterlife? And don’t many Christians wear a crucifix as a decoration – some might think its weird since it describes a dead corpse on a torture instrument? At least the Egyptian symbol Ankh (the looped sort of a cross) is a key of life – and wearing the cross in the neck comes from Egyptian tradition, by the way.
So much more could be said. But what I remember the best is the starry sky painted in the tombs, the stupid Tuf-Tuf-train for tourists in the temple of Hatshepsut (hot-chicken-soup – as our guide advised to pronounce it if not remembered), and the face of the boy king. The real one, not the golden mask.
Maiku, whose curse of Tutankhamun seemed to be only mild. As far as we know…
