Days 6 & 7
Day 6
The boat had arrived at Edfu around midnight. The day started a bit later with breakfast at 6:30AM and heading out by 7:30AM. It was a day for a horse carriage ride through the streets located on the west bank of the Nile River. The city was very similar to a small town lined with shopkeepers on either side of the road and lots of horse carriages running back and forth filled with tourists. Looks like 7:30AM was a late start as a lot of the tourists were heading back to boats in their carriages. There were more carriages on the road compared to cars, buses or cycles combined.
The Edfu temple is the second largest temple constructed after Karnak by Ptolemy III in 237 BC and was completed by Ptolemy XII in 57 BC and was dedicated to the falcon headed God Horus (war and victory).
Although an Egyptian temple it was rebuilt by the Romans and Greeks when they occupied Egypt. You can see the influence of the Roman architecture on the columns and the half walls instead of floor to ceiling walls that the Egyptians used to build. You pass a smaller room like structure before you are greeted with an expansive open space, which is also symbolic of the Roman than the Egyptian designs. The Romans had initially burnt the temple as it was being used as a Church at some point during the Christian era, and marks of that fire are still visibly very clearly on the pillars and the ceilings. The temple was later buried under sand for centuries before it was discovered by a French archeologist Auguste Mariette in the 1860s.
The history behind the temple is that Hathor (God of love and fertility), the wife of Horus used to travel from her temple in Dendera once a year for a month to visit her husband, which was celebrated wit a lot of pomp and joy that the other Gods used to also visit. And just for that sake the inner sanctuary of the temple is surrounded by 10 separate rooms for the Gods to stay in.
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After you pass the open space, you are presented with two massive pylons towering 36 meters decorated with battle scenes and equally towering images across it. Once through the main entrance you enter a smaller hall surrounded by still standing pillars, beyond which lies the
Hypostyle Hall where the festivities used to take place. There were 2 rooms on either side with the library on the left and another smaller room where the priests used to store the oils and other items required for the festivities. At the end in another chamber filled with inscriptions was a replica of the boat that was used to bring Hathor here. The original boat now sits in a museum in France. We kept walking and exploring all the other chambers for the Gods. Each room had hieroglyphics and cartouches telling many tales of the Gods and their wars with the most notable one being the war between Horus and Seth (God of chaos).
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The Karnak temple was all about pillars and rooms and obelisks and chambers and halls, while to me the most striking feature of this temple was its massive walls, which there was another one as we stepped outside through an exit on the left side of the temple. The wall was filled with clear inscription from one end to the other 2000 years later of the tales of war. Most of the temple was rebuilt by rulers who came later but there was still one of the original pieces of the temple still on display with its original colors if you look closely (unrestored) still visible.
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After marveling at those gigantic walls once more we were back in the horse carriage on our way back to the boat by 9:30AM in time as the boat was set to depart, which was again delayed to 11:00AM by some late arrivals.
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As the boat sailed slowly along the Nile River we passed through many different landscapes from shallow beaches, to manicured sugarcane fields, to open green lands with cattle and horses grazing and all through there was one constant, the backdrop of flowing sand dunes or hills covered up only by the rows of palm trees in front. There were quite a few cruise ships meandering along at the same pace, but we were also greeted with plenty of other smaller sail boats minding their own business.
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We arrived at Kom Ombo by 5PM, but it took us another 30 minutes to get the ship positioned. Seems like quite a common thing here where ships line up one next to the other and tourists just walk through one boat to another to disembark. The temple was just a 5–10-minute walk from the boat.
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The Kom Ombo Temple was constructed between 205 BC and 180 BC. Over time it was destroyed by floods, earthquakes, erosion, and builders repurposing material. Ptolemy VI started reconstruction which was finished by Ptolemy XIII. The temple is dedicated to multiple Gods, notably of which being the crocodile headed God Sobek (crocodiles, strength, and power) and falcon headed God Horus (war and sky)
This whole place used to be filled with crocodiles and hence a perfect site for this specific temple which is unique since it is a double design meaning it had courts, halls, and rooms for the Gods. It’s also a perfectly symmetrical temple. Most of the temple is in ruins now, but the main entrance with its tall imposing columns still supporting the roof stands to this date. The engravings and inscriptions on the walls are still visible to the date talking about Kings, Gods, their tales, and their achievements. The front of the temple is dedicated to the God Sadek and the back is dedicated to the God Horus. There is a section of the wall in this temple that sill depicts the Egyptian calendar which represented 360 days plus 5 bonus or gift days from the God almost like a do whatever you want to get of jail free card. The calendar represents days, months, and years; as well as the 3 phases of cultivation from planting to harvesting.
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This is where some of the Gods and their stories started to get mixed up so here are the cliff notes ...
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Osiris (God of the underworld) also symbolizes death and resurrection was murdered by his brother Seth (God of chaos and violence). Osiris was married to Isis (God of healing and magic) who later resurrected Osiris to have a son, Horus (God of war, victory, and sky) who avenged his father’s death by killing Seth. Hathor (God of fertility) was married to Horus. Anubis (God of funerary rites and guide to the underworld) was the consort or lover of Bastet (God of home and childbirth) who was the daughter of Ra (God of the Sun) and Isis.
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Walking around the temple there were a couple of unique features, with the most scary one being a deep pit that used to house crocodiles into which the punished were thrown as punishment. There was what is now called a Nilometer. It kind of looked like a room within a room with levels that were used to measure the level of the Nile River to warn them about flooding or at what ground level to plant their crops.
Right next door was a crocodile museum as you would expect that we browsed through. On display were several well-maintained fully-grown crocodiles unearthed from their graves as well as many mummified remains of them still in their sarcophagus. They were worshipped as Gods so makes sense; they were treated with the same respect in death also.
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The cruise organized a traditional song and dance presentation by a local group for which we were encouraged to buy and wear traditional clothes. We did not get sucked into that marketing ploy, but quite a few did, in fact some went overboard by purchasing jewelry and getting fully dressed from head to toe. Mom and brother decided to retire for the night, but I went up to the top deck to enjoy the quiet and dark skies of Egypt before going to bed by 10PM.
Day 7
The ship had docked at Aswan sometime in the night and the first sights in the morning were truly amazing. A busy port with several feluccas, which are traditional wooden boats with tall sails typical of the region meandering back and forth along the Nile River against the rising Sun.
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Breakfast was at 6:30AM before meeting our guide at the lobby of the boat to make our way through the city to the Philae temple. My first impression of the city was it was more impressive compared to Cairo, not because of any tall buildings or anything like that, but because there were more schools and universities and students. The city just had a more vibrant and modern feel to it. We had to take a short boat ride to the temple that was located on an island in Aswan’s Low Dam reservoir. The day was quite cool, and the sun was out, which made the boat ride a pleasant one as it made its way through rock formations and little hills spread out over the entire reservoir.
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The Temple of Philae was one of the last ones built by the 30th Egyptian dynasty by Ptolemy II and later finished by Ptolemy III and was dedicated primarily to Isis.
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The Ptolemaic period (332 BC – 30 BC) was the last dynasty of ancient Egypt which was founded by Ptolemy I and ended with Cleopatra. These rulers traced their origin to Alexander the Great. This era lasted for almost three centuries before falling to the Romans with the deaths of Cleopatra and Caesarion, who was the son of Julius Ceasar. The execution of Caesarion was ordered by Octavian, who was the nephew of Julius Ceasar.
The sight was chosen for its tranquility and intentionally to keep it far away from the main city. It was meant to be a place of calmness and worship where people used to come to relax and just get away from the daily hustle of the ancient Egyptian life. The main corridor was bordered with pillars on both sides to form a large open-air hallway before going through the massive pylons of the main entrance. Once inside there is another open courtyard bordered by pillars. The most significant piece here however was a large marble tablet carved into walls of the temple that spelled out an agreement between the Egyptians and the Nubian people about sharing the land and the corn produced. Like a contract but carved in stone and binding for all to see.
Inside the temple there were both Egyptian and Roman inscriptions as well as Christian crosses on the walls and pillars as this was another one of those rebuilt temples. The temple was first transformed by the Christians in 550 AD by destroying or disfiguring many of the statues and hieroglyphics. This was followed by its destruction by the Arabs in 640 AD and to convert it into an Islamic site, but they left some of it still intact due to its historical significance. This temple and the island on which it stands were once completely buried in water before the construction of the Aswan High Dam.
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Very much like the Kom Ombo temple this too had chambers for the Gods surrounding the main chamber where the high priests used to worship and perform their ceremonies. Again,
like in the Kom Ombo temple the French had pillaged the site and had taken away the original boat to Paris. Outside to the side there was a large courtyard surrounding some of the most massively tall pillars, which was the original reception area to welcome the boats from the Nile River through its main entrance which was also called the Sun gate. Next to it was a smaller site which is jokingly referred to as the discotheque of the era. Basically, it was a small music hall for musicians.
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After a few more minutes of exploring the temple, we were on our boat back and heading to the see the High Dam, which the Russians had funded and helped build. As you walk along the dam on the Nasser River in the distance you can see the temple of Octavius which was also under water at some point and had to be completely taken apart and rebuilt after the construction of the dam. Next on the stop was the ancient granite quarries of Egypt with the notable attraction being the unfinished obelisk of Queen Hatshepsut that was still lying there on its back. It must have been a massive piece of engineering to move these stone blocks, and successful they were many times except for this one. As they tried to move this one it cracked right through the middle, which you can see clear as day today and hence it had to be abandoned.
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After that we went to board a felucca for a quiet and pleasant ride through the various inlets of the Nile River to see the mausoleum of Agar Khan before stopping at the botanical gardens. To be honest after all the temples and pyramids the gardens fell a bit short in terms of excitement, but from a landmark perspective it still holds a lot of significance as it is a collection of some of the most diverse set of trees and plants brought together in spot and maintained in the middle of this vast desert. The felucca then took us back to the ship by 1PM.
Lunch and a nap before packing up and heading up to top deck for some tea and relaxation as the Sun started to set to give us some great shots of the felucca’s sailing across the river against the backdrop of the fading light. There was a belly dance performance later that night followed by dinner and more singing and dancing by the traditional Nubian people. Very colorful but also very loud!
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As we went to bed that was the second leg of the tour coming to an end on the Nile River.