Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Nile Cruise Day 2

 

A 7am pickup so we headed to breakfast (and croissants) at 6am. Ibram took us to The Valley of the Queens, The Valley of the Workers, The Valley of Alabaster and The Temple of Habu and got us back to the boat in time for lunch.

The Valley of the Workers was, surprisingly enough, where the workers stayed while they were building the tombs. Half walls and some tombs to look at as well as a Temple kept us busy. No photos in the tombs, just some outside shots. The colours inside the tombs were amazing after all these years, a coating of egg white!

Then the Valley of the Queens, or more accurately the wives. The tombs were well preserved and the main corridor was about one person wide. Still no photos though.

The Valley of Alabaster is where many of the locals make alabaster jars in the original manner with hand tools. We bought a jar and tea-light burner (at an inflated price) and then made our way to the Temple of Habu driving past a current excavation on Ramesses Temple as we did.

After lunch we took the first visit with the tour guide from the ship to Karnock, Luxor Temple and a papyrus shop. We timed the trips to be at Luxor when it was floodlit, which was quite amazing.

The photos are temple roof, Karnock Temple, Karnock Temple, Pool of water for sanctification before the Priest and King went before the Gods, Karnock, Luxor, Luxor, Luxor, Valley of the workers, Temple wall in the Valley of the workers, Alabaster workshop, Habu Temple, Habu Temple, Pharaohs toilet, Habu Temple wall showing counting of hands of enemies. The bottom, slightly less clear glyph shows them counting ‘something else’ to number their enemies. Habu Temple, Geoff, Maddy and me!

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