Egypt Evocative: Art and Architecture for the Dead

Couldn't take photos at Valley of Kings, but here are some of the incredible

Queen Hatshepsut's temple and tomb, on Luxor's west bank. Just amazing.






I'm back in Starobelsk via a few days in Kyiv with lots of Peace Corps stuff, mid-term medical exams, trying to close grants (unsuccessfully because I didn’t have the right receipts and have to go back and get them), and then the long overnight train ride to Lugansk, and the two-hour bus ride through the snow and ice of eastern Ukraine. I'm unpacking and getting organized, and I welcome a rest, but Egypt is on my mind.

It’s the Nile River calling, for tourists almost like the Call to Prayer, almost like it called the Pharoahs from about the 18th to 11th centuries BC.

Today, the Nile River valley is a huge amazing archeological site, one of the largest in the world (it’s a World Heritage Site) and this is what fascinates and dazzles. It includes, among many others, the Valley of the Queens; Queen Hatshepsut’s tomb, carved dramatically into a limestone hillside; and the larger and renowned Valley of the Kings, the pharoahs’ burial sites, all on the West bank of Luxor. Digs are still going on and new tombs are still being unearthed. It's a never-ending archaeological feast.

The sun rises in the East: LIFE. The sun sets in the West: DEATH. So the pharaohs built their tombs in the setting sun, “the Necropolis of Thebes," now called Luxor. Mind-boggling art and architecture for the dead.

I toured these sites with an informative and funny guide, Aladdin (another Aladdin), along with his excellent driver Mohammed, and 14 other people. We were from all over the world: Japan, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Belgium, England and America. Among them was a former Peace Corps Volunteer, James Hunt, who served in Kazakhstan several years ago, and his wife Kundar, a former Muskie fellow who studied at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Small world, especially since I just finished reading 54 Ukrainian applications for the Muskie Program, and discovered how many talented people apply and how extraordinary it is to be accepted. They both now teach at the American University in Afghanistan, something else I’d like to learn more about. Imagine, we are fighting a war there, and James and Kundar are teaching at the university as if nothing extraordinary is going on around them.

So here we were in the desert on the west bank of Luxor, new friends and strangers from around the world. We stood together in the rising sun, surrounded by the undulating brown hills of the Valley that holds so much history, so many legends from the Old and Middle Kingdoms, united in our amazement at the fantastic findings that the royal tombs reveal, some 63 of them, all built, sometimes buried, deep underground, some 30 or more meters under the sand. Archaeologists must have had a field day discovering these tombs, and still do! The tombs range from small to very large with over 100 chambers. Some have been raided beyond recognition, and some are nearly in tact, decorated with scenes from Egyptian mythology that tell stories in elaborate details that are works of art. Egypt evocative.

We weren’t in search of a magic lantern with Aladdin, but he showed us the power of ancient funeral arts in the elaborate designs, paintings, bas reliefs and carvings of the entrances, corridors, columns, walls and ceilings of the tombs of Ramses I, II, VI, and IX. We asked about King Tut's tomb (probably the most famous), but Aladdin said there wasn't much to see because all the furnishings and art were at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and in other museums around the world. After seeing the Egyptian Museum I could understand that, not to mention all the Egyptian artifacts, mummies, papyrus, gold and silver items, jewelry, and art in just about every museum I've ever visited, including gems like the Rosetta stone in the British Museum in London. Egyptian obelisks adorn the world too, like the twin of the Luxor temple obelisk that is in Paris, or "Cleopatra's Needle" in Central Park in New York City, now the cause of concern for Egypt's Director of Antiquities (NYT, 7 January), who threatens to bring it home to preserve and care for it.

Also, the west bank "Necropolis" is so huge that it's impossible to see all the royal tombs in a day. It's a lot of walking in the hot sun from one tomb to another. We just scratched the surface.

Aladdin took us to four of the best, all awesome in their own way. The tomb of Ramses VI was especially beautiful, because it's almost fully restored to its original splendor. The gloriously painted walls and ceilings graphically tell the story of creation and death, of sunrise and sunset, in bold blue and gold with many images and hieroglyphics, packed with exquisite paintings, carvings and artisanal flourishes. Cameras are not allowed in the tombs, not even on the grounds, but I have vivid mental images that will last a lifetime.

We could take photos of Queen Hatshepsut's grand tomb and temple, however, and for me this was among the most impressive sites of all in the Valley of the Kings and Queens. Queen Hatshepsut is considered the most powerful of the queens who ruled Egypt. More an arts patron than a warrior, Hatshepsut, who dressed like a man, had her architect built the most expansive structure imaginable, an incredible work of art, for herself and for her father, Thutmose I. It is set in a limestone hillside, built on 3 floors, a sweeping set of stairs leading up to the temple, the ochre color rocks fanning out behind it, the carvings and reliefs bountiful, clear and colorful on walls and columns, statues and obelisks, astonishing detail, a story in pictures, graphic, haunting. Hatshepsut's temple and tomb are all that's left of her legacy, which was wiped out, intentionally it seems, after her death, and replaced with other stories. For a while, Hatshepsut's temple even became a Christian church, which some scholars think protected it from destruction. It remains one of the most glorious structures of ancient Egypt, truly a wonder to behold, an architectural feast, an archaeologist's dream.

Discoveries continue in the Valley, with a recent dig in 2008 being worked on now, and more on the way. There’s an underside to these fantastic finds: in one small village an enormous new site has been discovered and the government is forcing people to move out, without any compensation whatsoever, so archaeological work can begin. Some residents are holding out, but Aladdin thinks it's a losing battle. He was sad about it. Perhaps if people were paid for the cost of their homes, the situation might be better, he suggested. We understood, and sympathized. Aladdin pointed out a dramatic yellow house against the desert sky, informing us that a photo of this very house had served as the cover of the 2008 Lonely Planet Guide to Egypt. It now stands empty, it's inhabitants forced to leave, a forlorn presence in the Valley of the Kings and Queens.

Egypt evocative. Evocative of hopes for eternity and warriors' triumphs, mythology and reality, culture and craftsmanship, awesome architecture rivaling anything that came after, and the complexities of archaeological discoveries and people's daily lives. It's all part of the complex mosaic that is ancient and modern Egypt.