Mon, 5th Sep.: Valley of the Kings andHatshepsut's Temple

Five hours later at 6am, a wake-up call for a 7am bus trip to the Valley of the Kings, a forty minute or so drive into the mountains on the west bank of the Nile.

We began with tomb KV 1 (Kings Valley tomb 1), that of Ramesses IV. It illustrated the common pattern that we should look for in all the tombs.

1. The king at the entrance beginning to answer the innumerable questions by the gods that would allow him to open the invisible door into the spirit world.
2. The corridor with: the 10 gods of days of the week, 24 gods for every hour of the day, 3 gods for the three weeks in a month,12 gods of the months of the year, four gods for the seasons and the 360 gods for every day of the year, making 413 gods; the answers to questions by the gods, all starting with “I did not...”; rows of prisoners who would do the bidding of the king in the afterlife. 
3. The main chamber with the book of the second life, which includes the book of the dead, which in turn includes the book of the gate and the book of the hours. 
4. The rear chamber or vestibule for storage of goods. Because of the limited space in a tomb, the number of workers that could work in the space was also limited, meaning that a tomb in the Valley of Kings could take as much as 20 years. 

If the king died in the meantime, there would only be 7 months to finish any remaining work. So different strategies were used, such as plastering and painting or even almost cartoon like. One King specified that the tomb chamber be completed first and the rest be done later so that at least his burial chamber would be ready in the event of a premature death.

The tomb of Ramesses IV was one of the shorter ones, so the texts were more limited in the corridor. However, the presence of colour was a revelation. The goddess Nut was spread in two aspects over the ceiling of the main chamber, representing the sky at night and during the day. Stars on a blue sky filled the space between the body of the goddess and the ceiling edge. The second tomb visited was of Ramesses VII which was longer and the final tomb was that of Ramesses IX.

The valley of the kings was like an oven by 10am as we moved on to visit an alabaster factory. We were welcomed by an ebullient owner of the family run business, who had his staff piping in in chorus with different catch phrases during the introduction and demonstration. The stone products could not only be made from alabaster, but also moonstone and others.

Objects, vases and figurines could either be hand-made or machined. Ironically, the hand made ones were thinner and lighter and cheaper than the machined ones. The reason being the high cost of machinery as opposed to the low cost of labour. The selling was more western with less pressure, but I did not find anything that took my fancy.

Refreshed, we continued on the Hathepsut temple. Originally a total ruin, it was reconstructed as best possible with the help of Polish workers and was the only temple known to have three levels. The canny queen Hatshepsut, widow of Tutmosis III father, did not want to give up her role as queen, therefore married her son of eight and effectively imprisoned him and continued to reign.

This was not popular and amongst other ways to overcome this, she creatd the myth that she was a goddess (hence ruler by divine right). In part to support this story, she commissioned her temple, facing towards Karnak and Luxor on the other side of the mountains to the Valley of the Kings. At the same time, since she was King, she had her tomb in the Valley of the Kings constructed on the side closest to her temple, (with a connecting passage?) effectively allowing her to shortcut the journey from the present to the afterlife. This apparently was too much for the priests who, with the young King, arranged for her demise.

Because it had been impossible to align all the fragments of the temple, a large part of it was reconstructed with embedded fragments where they could be placed. In the light morning sun, the temple was blindingly bright. The long stepped ramp leading from ground level to the first floor, gave way to another smaller plaza from which the second ramp rose. At each level, there were colonnades left and right. Right at the top, the last plaza led to a gated inner court which in turn led to an inner temple, which we could not enter.

On the return journey, we stopped off briefly to view the battered statues known as the Colossi of Mnemnon, the sole standing remnants of a former temple.

The evening's entertainment was a treasure hunt. I gave it a miss for once, however our A team of Tony, Angie, Liz, Jenna, Dan and Zoe won under Louise's masterful direction (so I heard later)!