12 November 2024


I am sitting in my single room (two single beds) on the "Amunet," a really elegant little Nile boat. I'll attach some photos of it as we go along during the coming 4.5 days. For now, let me just say that on our way to the Amunet, we visited the Temple of Khnum in the town of Esna on the west bank of the Nile. This small temple, built near the start of the Roman occupation of Egypt, illustrates in original colors the practices of Roman conquerors throughout their holdings in the Middle East and western Europe. Even though they installed each King (ie. Pharaoh), some of whom were Romans or Greeks, they adopted Egyptian fashions of dress and Egyptian religious practices--that is, until Rome converted to Christianity in the time of Constantine (4th century AD). 

After a fairly brief stop at the temple, we boarded the Amunet,  a version of a "dahabeya," a small boat of ancient design. Types of these boats have been found in ancient Egyptian tombs. It has only 16 staterooms, and we occupy ten. The entire beautifully designed craft is ours. My room is the size of a small American motel room, only more elegantly furnished, decorated, and constructed. It has two single beds, a vanity, closet, and large bathroom with shower.

Our lunch was wonderful, offering freshly-made kabobs, vegetarian dishes, soups, fruits, desserts, and wine or beer (or water). During the meal we were asked for our dinner choices from the menu. 

A bit later this afternoon, we'll visit the village of Higz on the eastern side of the Nile and take a walk while watching the sunset. 

More photos follow. 



                                                                The Winter Palace hotel in Luxor (front)



                                                                                    (back)



                                                                        View out the front



                                                                    Gardens at the back



                                                            View from the breakfast room



                                                            Host family at dinner in their home




                                                                Luxor Temple gate at night



                                                                                    Inside



                                                                                Inside



                Avenue of the sphinxes leading a mile from Luxor Temple to Karnak Temple



                                                                Close-up of one of the sphinxes









Comments

  1. MartyNovember 13, 2024 at 8:08 PM

    Your remark about the way the Romans handled population diversity is important. Rather than forcing assimilation on the people they took control over, they met the people half way. Moreover, they had an inclusive policy toward citizenship. Of course, they only extended the empire to peoples who could contribute resources, including joining the army. They stopped at the Rhine, because the German tribes didn't have the potential in revenues or recruits to be worth the effort of governing them.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
 20-21 November 2024 I cannot report what the group did today, the 20th,  except to say that we flew to Cairo together.  Last night and all day today, I barely coped with the "traveler's curse," headache, upset stomach, overactive lower digestive tract. This ailment affected five of us and probably stemmed from the salads at the farewell dinner in Aswan.  I don't think the others visited the mosques in Cairo, as planned. They probably went shopping or to general, unescorted sightseeing. Meanwhile, I stayed in my room and missed the second farewell dinner at the Cairo Marriott. The night was very short.  On the 21st, most of us met in the lobby at 3am to catch the bus to the airport, which took about half an hour. There, we had to pass through three levels of security before boarding a tight, packed airbus, with a narrow aisle and no legroom, bound for London's Heathrow Airport. At Heathrow, we endured another two securithy gauntlets before scattering to find the...
Read more
Image
 9 November 2024 This morning we boarded the bus for the 30-minute drive to Giza, just outside Cairo, where the Pyramids, Sphinx, and Grand Egyptian Museum (the new museum) are located. It is Saturday, so the whole area was flooded with buses and cars carrying tourists and school groups. All around the biggest pyramid were hoards of people, some of them drumming us for money--for example, wanting to hand us a "gift" (perhaps a Chinese-made trinket or a photo) and then expecting from us a "gift" (i.e., money) in return. Our guide, Hend, had prepared us well for such approaches, so we weren't much bothered by them.  Although I had seen many pictures of the Pyramids, getting the three-dimensional view up close was very special. And the same goes for the Sphinx. I climbed up a few courses of the huge limestone blocks used the build the Great Pyramid, peaked into the entry door, and climbed back down. I didn't go in, because Hend had said that I would have to do ...
Read more