Thursday, 1st September: The temples of Karnak and Luxor, upriver to Esna

We woke up before the early morning call at 7am, covered ourselves suitably with sun-cream factor 50, dressed and made out way to a quick frugal breakfast (personal restraint over rich variety presented) before the 8am briefing with our Thomson tour guide Siobhan.

At 9am (or a bit after) we set off in an air conditioned bus with our Egyptologist, Osama, to the Karnak temple complex. The temperature was already rising in the thirties centigrade as we disembarked and wandered into the museum at the entrance, Osama had given us a good introduction to the numerology of the ancient Egyptians, starting with the 360 day calendar (with five days that were excluded before the start of the next years calendar) made up of 12 months of 30 days, each month having 3 weeks of 10 days.

Disused since the end of the Ptolomeic period, Karnac had become buried beneath the sands. Earthquakes of magnitude 13 , nine and eight over the intervening millennia had also led to the collapse of walls and colonnades that were only held together by the weight of the layered stone. Climate change and human intervention by damming had also led to higher Nile floods, so that by the eighteenth century, the remains could be visited by boat at times of high water.

We crossed the large plaza before the entrance to the first, West and Nile facing temple gates at Karnak. These were the most recent and uncompleted Ptolomeic building. As one passed through and on to the next temple , the hypostyle hall and onwards, past the sacred lake – we moved ever deeper into the past, to the very first temple built more than three millennia ago.

A Southern complex marked the start of the avenue of sphinxes that ultimately led to Luxor. The remains of the mud-brick ramp still remained by the Ptolomeic gate and Osama explained how the decorations on the walls of any temple were carved from the top down as the mud brick was removed layer by layer after the mounting of the final cap stones. The one exception were the columns. These were made of roughly hewn blocks. When fully exposed, these were surrounded by wooden scaffolding. Plumb lines were used to ensure that the columns could be carved vertically and more accurately.

We could also see the flood marks halfway up the walls. In the hypostyle hall, we were taught to recognise the different cartouches of the birth-names and the royal- names of the kings. Birthnames were preceded by a sun disc and a goose (beloved of Ra) and royal names by bee/wasp . Only kings were ever shown in hieroglyphs (female Pharaohs were kings), wives were not. Kings did not hold anything unless it was an offering. Deities were shown holding an ankh and a staff – male, female and child gods were all represented. Reading hieroglyphs, the direction was indicated both by the bar at the base of a cartouche text and by the way birds faced – one reads towards the bird face.

Looking at the hypostyle columns, we could see that they were identically decorated in mirrored pairs (after it was pointed out by Osama). A number of the cartouches were far more deeply engraved than the others. These belonged to Rameses II. The temple had been designed by the father but the son replaced the father's cartouches with his own, engraving them more deeply so that his would not suffer the same fate.

The heat was having its effect on us, now reaching the forties Centigrade, despite using any available shade and drinking lots of water, so we were glad of the respite in the air conditioned coach as we drove to Luxor to see the temple there.

Dating mostly from the 14th century BC, it was predominantly dedicated to the festival of Opet. The temple had also had been buried to a large part under the sand, even by Roman times. Early Christians, who were persecuted in the first centuries BC, hid out and created their own sanctuary within the partially exposed temple, beheading the statues and painting their Last Supper on the walls.

Later, the Muslims built mosque in the ruins. When modern excavations removed the sand, the entrance to the mosque was left out or reach and a new access had to be carved from the new ground level up to the mosque.

Under the Christian painting was an opening to a temple dedicated by and to Alexander the Great. The inside of the outer walls was decorated in the older raised hieroglyphs. The walls of Alexander's temple within were decorated with inset engraving and numerous cartouches of Alexander’s transliterated name.

Reaching Northwards from the temple was the other end of the avenue of sphinxes which was only partially excavated and disappeared under the rest of Luxor. Plans are under way to remove up to 75% of the city to reveal the full avenue and return the unobstructed view between the Luxor temple and Karnak.

The return to the Commodore for a buffet lunch just after1pm was a welcome relief from the heat. Moving onto deck afterwards, the constant strong breeze and shade, with plenty of drinks, made the afternoon an enjoyable relaxed affair.

The boat left Luxor just before 2pm and steamed upstream. The verdant banks of reeds, date palms and fields were backed by beige mountains against a bright sky. Children waved and called whenever we passed them. There were a number of fishing boats, generally manned by two, one rowing, the other passing out the drift net and then slapping the water with a long pole to frighten the fish into the net.

Minarets indicated villages that would appear and then fall behind us downstream. At around 4pm we passed a larger village or complex of villages hidden behind date palms but identified by the cacophony of calls to prayer from the minarets that started at slightly different times, volumes and phrasing.

There were egrets fishing in the shallows, white donkeys and the occasional water buffalo. After tea and cake at around 4:30pm, Louise and I purchased some cotton traditional garments for tomorrow's evening festivities.

By 6pm we had reached the lock at Esna and were attacked by hawkers flouting their wares of multi-colored cotton clothes, both in small boats and on the lock quayside. In the darkness we watched the boat being guided through a second open lock, with little room on either side. There was a relaxed interchange of banter between a helper on the quayside and the sailors on deck. If the boat drifted to far to port, a rope would be fixed to a bollard on the quay and the sailors would use the on board fixtures to wind the rope around , in a slow release that would exert just enough tension to draw the boat back into line.

We showered and changed for a short cocktail party before dinner at 8pm, where we caught up on the days events with Tony, Angie, Liz and Jenny. The conversation continued on deck in the balmy night, interspersed by Egyptian Bingo. We finally made it to bed by midnight.