Acropolis

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The Acropolis is a mountain smack in the middle of Athens. We walked around for half a day without seeing it, but as soon as we got onto our hotel's roof, we couldn't believe we had missed it. On top of the Acropolis is one of the most famous ancient temple still in existence, the Parthenon. One entire side has been dismantled for restoration, so you will notice scaffolding in many of the pictures. Sadly, a giant steel crane is right in the middle of the temple, so if anyone is considering coming to Athens, I'd wait a few years until they finish. Fortunately, they left the other side intact so that you can still block out the view of most of the scaffolding and appreciate the immensity of the columns. There are also a number of other temples, buildings, arches, etc to be seen on and around the Acropolis.


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This is the Odeon of Herodes Atticus. This is the theater from which Oedipus Rex first opened, and it is still in use today. We were able to get tickets for opening night of Aida coming up on Sunday. We're really excited since we've never seen an opera before, and it will be interesting to see how the open Greek theater style affects the acoustics.


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Another shot of the Acropolis.


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Random ruins in the National Garden where we had a picnic. We have started a little backgammon tournament, and I maintain that Scott is only winning because the dice are loaded. He has been rolling an inordinate amount of doubles. He is white below.




The Temple of Olympian Zeus. This is part of a larger complex of buildings including more temples, Roman baths, and Byzantine houses. This is the last building left standing.



Notice the Acropolis in the background.



One of my favorite things about cities with ancient ruins is that they light their monuments at night. There is no better evening entertainment than walking with a gelato in hand and looking at famous monuments at night.


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Wish you were here!!
- Anna

Valley of the $4000

Today we visited the valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens. The Valley of the Kings contains 64 tombs, of which 62 have been found. King Tut's tomb was the last discovery of significance, which I think was in 1922. At any rate it's been awhile. Some of the tombs are finished, while others aren't. If the king expected to live a long time, he would dig very low and attempt to make a huge tomb. If he died in the middle of construction, it didn't get finished and they buried him there anyway. Only 6 tombs out of 62 were complete. One of these was Ramses IV. The doors of the tombs are much larger than in the pyramids, because the building wasn't constructed around the huge sarcophagus. The tombs were carved directly into the cliffs and then hidden with sand.

So as you approach, the door doesn't look like anything special. But when you get inside, there are beautifully preserved painted heiroglyphics covering every surface. They are painted with natural colorants like egg yolk for gold, crushed turquoise for teal, lapis lazuli for blue, hibiscus for red, charcoal for black, and grass for green. There are massive relief carvings of the kings meeting the gods, and you descend through several rooms into the final chamber which usually has a vaulted ceiling to hold the sarcophagus. It's very impressive. I wish they allowed cameras inside.

The first picture below is the tomb of a prince who was buried in the valley of the Queens because he died at age 10 and did not have time to have his own chamber constructed. He basically budged in front of the queen who owned this tomb which was near completion at the time.



The valley of the Queens is much smaller in scale in terms of the size of tombs. Usually there is just a single room. I found it interesting that the tomb of Queen Nefertari (below), the favorite wife of Ramses the Great, costs $4000 US dollars to visit. It can only be visited for one hour, with up to 24 people, but the cost is the same. So if 2 people visit, they still pay $4000 between them! And our guide told us that people actually go in there with some regularity!

- Anna

Luxor and Karnak Temples

We flew this morning to Luxor, which is about 13 hours south of Cairo by car. The Valley of the Kings is there, along with several beautifully preserved temples. We saw the temple of Queen Hatchepsut (the only woman to rule as a king), and the Medina Habou as well but forgot to take Ipod pictures.









Below are pictures of Karnak Temple. The temple is huge, (can't remember, maybe 60 acres?) and the grounds contain the world's first swimming pool. Ramses the Great, Queen Hatchepsut, King Tutahnkamen, and Tutmoses III all built here, along with many other Kings. There originally were 6 obelisks, but now only two remain. Most are in other countries, such as the one standing in St. Peter's Square in Vatican City. There is a statue of a giant scarab here, which symbolizes eternity. Rumor has it that if you want good luck, you should walk around it three times, and if a woman wants to get a husband she should walk 5 times, and to get pregnant she should walk 7 times.



Aren't the columns amazing? They are 20 m tall. The entire hall was once filled with 132 of them, but one guy who used to be site manager a few decades ago thought it would be a good idea to allow the flood waters in to "clean" the temple. Unfortunately, he didn't think far enough ahead to determine how he would pump the flood out again, and the temple stayed flooded for 4 months. When the waters finally receded, several of the columns toppled and the ceiling caved in. Imagine having to explain that to your boss....



Karnak Temple is exactly 3 km straight across from Luxor Temple, and the street between them was lined with 164 sphinxes. The city of Luxor is working to restore the road so that you can again walk the distance between the two temples, restored exactly as it would have been in ancient times. I am definitely coming back to see that.

- Anna

Airport

For some reason Egypt Air felt it was necessary to cram 10 flight's worth of people into a single departure gate. It was awesome.

- Anna

Disclaimer

I would just like to note that we do not have ready access to dictionaries and computers much of the time. Please forgive us if we misspell foreign terms. Also, we may need to post in a fashion where we put all the pictures separately, then write about them in one area, because this is how the iPod tries to do it and we need a computer to rearrange it. Thus there may be multiple posts for one day. Also, I think I fixed the issue with allowing comments, you should all be able to comment now. - Anna

Abu Simbel

This is a plagarized picture, because we forgot to take one with the iPod, but this is exactly like the pictures we took. This is the temple Abu Simbel, built by the King Ramses the Great. There is another temple built nearby for his favorite wife, Nefertari. The entire temple was moved 60 m higher in elevation by the government when the Nile was finally dammed, because the lake that formed (Lake Nasser) would have flooded it's original location. Inside, there are beautiful heiroglyphics depicting King Ramses reign, military victories, etc.
- Anna

Markets and Mosques

This square is where the bombing happened several months ago. The market is called the Khan el Khalili market. The umbrellas in the background are in the shape of a lotus flower, the symbol of Upper (Southern) Egypt. As you can see, the square looks fine and people are back to business as usual. Let nothing stand in the way of commerce and text messages. - Scott

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This is the Muhammad Ali Mosque, and it is part of a structure known as the citadel. There is a lot of information about more recent (than ancient times) wars and revolutions that have affected Egypt here. The silver caps have been newly refurbished and the ceilings indoors are beautifully painted. Note that this is NOT the same as the boxer Casius Clay. The twin towers, called minarets, indicate the builder was Turkish.



This is the ceiling inside the Mosque. The lights are thousands of candles inside blown glass jars.

- Anna