Traveling the Nile, Abu Simbel and Cairo

 We continue our trip up the Nile to Upper Egypt.  We are actually traveling south but the river flows south to north.  Very unusual.  

We stop to tour the Temple of Hathsheput, devoted to one of the few female deities 1498-1483 BC.  It was totally defaced because she lost favor with the next Pharoah.

The pharoahs broke with the pyramid tradition and began to hide their tombs deep in the mountainside.

64ft  Colossus of Memnon are standing in the middle of a field.  The one on the right was hit by an earthquake in 27 BC and then restored in AD 199.  Wild!

Heading down to Edfu we visit the Temple of Horus by horse draw carriage.

It is the most complete temple and in near perfect condition. Built 2000 years ago it is an example if Greco-Roman.

At night we visit Kom Ombo which is dedicated to two gods, Horus the elder and Sobek, the crocodile god.

 We even visited the crocodile museum to see the mummified crocs😬

Visited Philae Temple dedicated to Isis.  It was the most importabt shrine in Egypt for the next 700 years.  When the Aswan Dam was built in 1902 it resulted in partial submersion.  When the high dam was built in 1960 and 1971 Philae was threatened with total and permanent submersion so a coffer dam was built to protect it and eventually the temple was dismanteled and transported to Agilqiyyah Island at the cost of $30 million.  It was worth it!

An excursion we have been looking forward to, a trip to Abu Simbel a Nubian village south of Aswan.  The largest monument in Nubia is the Temple of Ramesses II which was carved out of a mountain face between 1274-1244 BC to confirm the might of Ramesses II to all who sailed down the Nile from the south. Over the centuries the desert sands covered most of the temples facade and it was lost until 1813 when a Swiss explorer discovered it by chance.  It was being submersed by Lake Nasser.  The whole mountain was moved up 600 hundred feet from where it stood.  It is considered at the time as one of the wonders of modern engineering.

And the Temple next door in honor of Wueen Nefertari.  She was the favored wife of Ramesses' 68 wives.

Let me just tell you it was  soooo hot at this site.  110!  It just does you in.  An umbrella doesn't even help because the ground is so hot.  It was an amazing site to see but a really long day doing so. 

Our last day in Egypt we visited the Egyptian Antiquities Museum built in 1902.  It was a little worn from the recolution and lake of money to keep it up BUT it was amazing!  We saw the "A" collection which is all the important works of art that they have an "exit" plan for in case the museum is attacked.  We saw everyday items like combs, baby dolls, tools, farming equipment, medical equipment, surgical tolls that were 5000 years old and it great shape!  It is so sad that all that knowledge was lost when the Romans took over.  They wanted to go back to the "good old days".  Sound familiar?

Of course we saw an extended exhibit on King Tutankhamun.  So much more than the traveling exhibit had.

Next we visited the Citadel which was begun in 1176. The most important building is the Muhammad Ali Mosque (1830-1848).  If you are tired of looking at our mugs here is a pictures sans Nances

But of course here is on con Nances

We say farwell to Egypt and our great travel companions at a farewell dinner.  Don and I are off to Jordan in the early morn.