Nubia

Abu Simbel

Posted by carol.fletcher@rocketmail.com
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To Abu Simbel

It was still night at the Happi Hotel in Aswan when we took coffee, and picked up breakfast/lunch boxes with boiled eggs and snacks. On the way out of Aswan, we stopped for our “co-pilot”–more like a bus/road marshall or security officer–as we were headed into a border area considered risky for tourists. Some slept on the bus as we waited in a line of traffic to cross the old dam. More night. Finally, red highlighted the horizon. It took over three hours driving through the desert to reach this place called Abu Simbel, just 12 miles from Sudan.

Mythic in Scale

Abu Simbel is mythic in every way. For it’s sheer scale and construction–monumental seated statues carved straight back into a mountain along the banks of the Nile. Ramesses II ordered the building of his temple in the 1260s BC to warn, impress, and awe anyone entering Egypt via the Nile. One can only imagine the fear and wonder sailors felt when they first saw it from the river.

Abu Simbel Egypt
Abu Simbel, UNESCO World Heritage Site. Built in the 1260s BC to impress upon anyone sailing down the Nile that they were entering the land of the Pharaohs, and moved in the 1960s to prevent submersion in Lake Nasser. The temple’s doorway leads to a chamber with more Ramesses II statues and alcoves filled with bas relief stories of epic battles. In the back is a final chamber, with 3 gods and god-wanna-be, Ramesses II. Two days each year, the first rays of sun reach into this chamber and shine upon 3 of the inner statues. The 4th god, Ptah of the underworld, prefers the darkness.

 

Mythic for the Ancient Architects’ Precision

Mythic for how the ancient architects figured out a precise solar alignment so that the first rays of the sun reached all the way into the inner chamber on two days each year (February 22 and October 22–said to be Ramesses II’s birthday and coronation date).

Abu Simbel inner chamber
In the first chamber, statues of Ramesses II line the way to the inner chamber. Bas reliefs in the alcoves behind tell the stories of battles won.
abu simbel innermost chamber
This is Abu Simbel’s inner-most chamber. On February 22 and October 22, the first rays of the sun shine through the doorway into this space, lighting the faces of 3 of the 4 figures here. Ptah, the god of the underworld–faceless on the left, never gets the sunbeams. The dates have changed now because of the temple’s relocation: some say it is on/around the 23rd-24th of February and October now.

 

Lost and Found

Abu Simbel was “lost” over time, and nearly buried with blowing sand until it was “rediscovered” in the 1800s.  Astounding old photos of the massive sand dune– pouring over the mountain and covering the entrance while long-dead souls stand in the lap of one of the Ramesses II statues. Mythic stories of discovery.

Abu Simbel 1800 graffiti
1800s graffiti. The temples had been forgotten until rediscovery around 1813. They were first photographed around 1854, when a dune spilled over the top of the temple’s mountain, and sand filled the entryway. The sand enabled early exploring vandals to etch their names high on the legs of the 66 foot tall statues.
Abu Simbel face of Ramesses II
The face of Ramesses II. The far left one. Ramesses II (aka Ramesses the Great) lived to be 96. It is said that he had more than 200 wives and concubines, and 96 children. His name and accomplishments are carved all over Egypt, and most every ancient site mentions Ramesses the Great. So long was his reign, and so prolific was his ego, that there was panic that the world would end when he died.

 

Abu Simbel Moves

And finally, Abu Simbel is mythic because the entire temple was MOVED in an engineering miracle in the 1960s to avoid being submerged by the Aswan Dam’s Lake Nasser. Impressive photos of cranes lifting away the statues in pieces, of a magic mountain built with similar chambers– 213 feet up and 656 feet back from the water. A feat as audacious as Ramesses II’s building of the temple in the first place. What must have the locals felt when witnessing the disassembly and movement of so ancient a monument?

A face of Ramesses II Abu Simbel
A face of Ramesses II. One on the right. Note the lines where the engineers cut the face for moving, and the old graffiti carved high on his chest.
Abu Simbel-Ramesses II on the left.
Abu Simbel:  The two Ramesses II on the left. Ramesses II #2 lost his upper body to an earthquake believed to have happened not long after construction. During the monument’s move in the 1960s, because the fallen face had eroded, engineers decided to leave the broken piece in the exact same position at his feet in the new location.
Abu Simbel Ramesses II
Abu Simbel:  The two Ramesses II on the right. Tucked in between Ramesses’ legs are smaller statues of his favorite wife, his mom, and some of his 96 kids.

Second Temple for Nefertari

Did I mention there are TWO temples? Just to the right of Ramesses II’s temple to himself is a smaller temple to his favorite wife, Nefertari. Its sanctuary, also carved into the mountain, is filled with bas reliefs of the king and queen making offerings. This temple is one of very few in Egyptian art where the statues of the king and his queen are carved in equal size.

Temple of Nefertari
The smaller temple to the right of Ramesses II’s monument to himself, is a temple for his wife, Nefertari. Temples cut into the mountains and cut from them 3,220 years later, to be moved up-and-over into newly created “mountains”.
Bryan and Carol at Abu Simbel
Us at Abu Simbel, just in front of the fallen top half of Ramesses II statue #2.
film holga Abu Simbel
Old film shot with a Holga at Abu Simbel. The film has been through one too many X-ray machines.

 

Thank you for reading

If you’re interested, select photos are available for sale on Etsy.

Finally, if you liked this post and would like to stay in touch, please…

 

Carol Fletcher is a traveling, dog-loving, tree-hugging, coffee-addicted, Nashville born-and-raised photographer living in Chicago. To see more photo essays and projects, please visit www.carolfletcher.com.

To Aswan and Elephantine Island

Posted by carol.fletcher@rocketmail.com
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Taking the Night Train, Cairo to Aswan

From a moving train, an overnight trip heading south to Upper Egypt:
We left Cairo at night. Boarded, found our cabin (car 11, bunks 7/8), and settled in. The swinging – swaying motion of the train, a glass of red Omar Khayyam Bobal 2016 “vin d’Egypte” and I was comfortably numb in my little bunk. Wound up and tucked in happiness at the very thought of being on a train, moving up the Nile Valley, at night, many many miles from home.

Awake to a tiny bit of light, the Nile glistening. The Nile! The valley is never more than 13-miles wide–a green strip in the middle of the largest desert on earth.

As the sun rose, how verdant green the valley appeared. Palm trees abundant like Cuba. Scarecrows in fields wore sheet dresses over sticks. Small boats paddled along the Nile, the Sahara just steps away.

The windows are double-paned with blinds in-between. They clamor as we pass junctions. My window was dirty, but it cast a fitting strangeness over the scenery. Diffusing the light, blurring the edges.

Breakfast arrives at our door. A tray with tea in a little blue cup, a boiled egg, some bread. Simple. Welcome. And made delicious by the environment.

A white dog lays in a patch of white in a green field. Donkey carts and their white-gowned men wait to pass the tracks. The sun rises. This part of the trip will soon be over and I want more of it. Maybe an eternity of it. Maybe the afterlife is an never-ending ride through the world–to see its beauty, its ugliness, and all the things between.

Night train to Aswan Egypt
Boarding the night train from Cairo to Aswan in Upper Egypt.

 

Welcome to Aswan, Upper Egypt

I’m happy when we check in to the Happi Hotel in Aswan. A man greeted us in the lobby with a white metal tray full of little tulip shaped glasses filled with a deep red Hibiscus tea. Delightful.

market baskets hibiscus flower leaves
Hibiscus flower leaves for sale at the market in Aswan.
Hibiscus tea on a white tray
A refreshing cool and sweet red hibiscus tea  served to us when we entered the Happy Hotel in Aswan, Egypt.

Up in our room, we overlook a little market. A mosque calls to prayer. And then, what are they doing down there? There are bamboo cages of pigeons. Pigeons fly down from the buildings to have a look and grab a bite of the treats the women throw down. They are captured. I watched in horror and disgust as she wrings one’s neck. He writhes for a moment–the wings fighting for flight. And then she begins plucking his feathers out. He’s grilled. This happens a hundred times a day. The birds come to stillness. Why don’t the caged pigeons warn them? They too are wrung, plucked, and grilled before nightfall. The market closes and empties. And pigeons still coo from buildings around. I want to shout at her–and the people who eat animals. I want to tell the pigeons to fly far away from here. Escape. Instead, I cry.

Opposites…Nile & Sahara

After breakfast overlooking the Nile, we embark on a cruise on the Happy Day boat.

There’s a Nilometer! Farmers built steps down to the river 5,000 years ago to try and predict the Nile’s rise and fall…would there be feast or famine? A Nilometer as described by Mark Twain in the 1860s:  its “business is to mark the rise of the river and prophesy whether it will reach only 32 feet and produce a famine, or whether it will properly flood the land at 40 and produce plenty, or whether it will rise to 43 and bring death and destruction to flocks and crops.”

Bulrushes and long-legged birds! Trying to picture a baby Moses in a basket floating among the reeds.

The cataracts! A shallow spot of the Nile, broken by large boulders. There were six cataracts along the Nile between Aswan Egypt and Khartoum Sudan. One is submerged now because of the Aswan Dam.

The Old Cataract Hotel where Agatha Christie dreamed up “Death on the Nile”. Built in 1899 for tourists, it reeks of old worldliness. And sand dunes right down to the water’s edge.

window table overlooking the nile river
Our breakfast table, overlooking the mighty Nile. Aswan, Egypt
Sahara desert Nile River banks Aswan Egypt
The banks of the Nile and the edges of the Sahara. Aswan, Egypt
Sahara sand dune nile river aswan egypt
The Sahara desert comes to the banks of the Nile. Aswan, in Upper Egypt.

 

To Elephantine Island

In the late afternoon, we disembark on Elephantine Island, one of 10 remaining Nubian villages.

Nubians are a group of people living in Northern Sudan / Upper Egypt. There once were 22 villages in Egypt, but 12 were flooded with the building of the Aswan Dam in the 1960s. Our guide told us that given a choice to be Sudanese or Egyptian, the Nubians chose Egyptian.

Tasty and filling dinner of rice, and cast-iron pots of potatoes and peppers, and carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes. And delicious Hibiscus tea 🙂

Elephantine Island home graffiti artwork
At the quiet place on Elephantine Island where we had a home-cooked meal.
Elephantine Island Nubian artwork
A modern take on the Egyptian woman, found on Elephantine Island, Aswan Egypt.
Cat in street of elephantine island aswan egypt
A cat passes through an alley on Elephantine Island near Aswan, Egypt.
Veggies and beans, nubian egyptian crock pot meal
Veggies and beans, a Nubian Egyptian cast-iron pot meal.
Vegetable dish in tomato sauce Nubian cuisine
Another vegetable dish in tomato sauce, Nubian cuisine.
Hibiscus tea in a handled glass
Hibiscus tea. Yum.

Walking back to the Nile in the pitch black night. Burning trash. Sounds of birds flying free. Soft voices in the narrow alleys. Singing…from a mosque? Cats cats cats. Boys on bikes. Then the eternity of the Nile. The lights of Aswan glowing across from us. Another place–of colorful narrow alleys and quiet life–where I’d like to spend more time.

 

Thank you for reading

If you’re interested, select photos are available for sale on Etsy.

Finally, if you liked this post and would like to stay in touch, please…

 

Carol Fletcher is a traveling, dog-loving, tree-hugging, coffee-addicted, Nashville born-and-raised photographer living in Chicago. To see more photo essays and projects, please visit www.carolfletcher.com.