MissTick
Thingish Things

Wonderful song it is…On the West Bank of the Nile in Luxor there is a place where the Dead are still in charge…where every stone speaks for the dead…where they buried their Pharaohs and their history…the Valley of the Kings…

"…It normally took about three months to bury the newly deceased pharaoh in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings on the West Bank across from modern Luxor. This was because the embalming process was complex, and included a period of 70 days…In many cases, this time was also used by the craftsmen to quickly add the finishing touches to the king's tomb...After the mummification process of the pharaoh's body was completed, the funeral procession began at the royal palace and moved on to the West Bank.. The king's body was carried on a sledge pulled by oxen, followed by a second sledge that held the canopic chest. On the west bank, the procession would reach the "Road where Ra Sets" and would head for the "Great and Majestic Necropolis of the Pharaoh's Millions of Years Life Strength Health in the West of Thebes". In a funeral tradition that remains today, crying and screaming women would follow the royal mummy in its wooden sarcophagus. The bald headed priests solemnly walked along with the procession burning incense and shaking their sistrums. Often the procession was led by the new pharaoh…Once the funeral procession reached the tomb, the coffin was stood upright. Now the high priest, and at times even the new pharaoh, would perform the Opening of the Mouth ceremony. This procedure was believed to restore the dead pharaoh's senses, as well as his use of speech and ability to eat and drink…After the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, the dead king was finally carried to the monumental stone sarcophagus deep in the tomb's burial chamber. After he was placed in this sarcophagus and the heavy cover carved in high relief was affixed, family, friends and other dignitaries would attend a funeral banquet, while workmen sealed the tomb…"

Well…we visited the Valley of The Kings in one of our days in Luxor. It happened to be the hottest day of our trip as well. The valley is simply a piece of land with lots of burial tombs carved into the limestone of the hills surrounding the area. And when I said "lots of tombs" – I mean – more then 100…there is even a small village – El Gouna – which is a mix of houses and tombs (the government wants to move the houses some other place to let the archaeologists to excavate the tombs, but of course, there is always an issue of people not wanting to leave place they’ve occupied all their life)…Lovely village anyway…

Most of the tombs followed a similar design: three corridors, and two chambers –"upper" one and a sunken - sarcophagus chamber. The tombs decorated with the numerous pictures of the pharaoh and even more numerous mentioning of his name, for ancient Egyptians believed that "To speak the name of the dead is to make him live again"…Inside each tomb you will find the text from the Book of the Dead, the Book of the Gates and the Book of the Underworld…

The ticket for the valley itself allows to visit 3 tombs of your choice. So we bought 3 tickets for the two of us to be able to visit more. We’ve done some homework and picked up 6 tombs that we would really like to see, mostly because of their unusual texts or pictures…There are always restoration works going in the valley, so some of the tombs were closed to the public. Unfortunately, most of them were from our list…however, what we saw, was interesting enough to leave a lasting memory of this strange Kingdom of the Dead…

Perhaps, I would identify the feeling with the sense of humbleness and reverence in front of those who lie there…and even the necessity of standing in a long line of eager tourists before entering each tomb couldn’t undermine the feeling that we entering the very sacred place, for ancient Egyptians sure did their best to provide their pharaohs with all the means of safe passage into the Afterlife. Including written instructions, things that might be useful, even detailed maps and schemes of the procedure of the transition…You may think that all the tombs have similar pictures and texts, but it was not the case. In fact, one can study the whole history of perceptions by the tomb decorations…how the views, traditions and beliefs were changing in time…Inside the tomb…the feeling as if the time stands still to be in pace with the owner of the tomb…different from the feeling inside the pyramids though…not suppressed by the centuries of silence, but rather – spiritually lifted up by the magnificence of it.

Well, there is always a spoon of tar in a cask of honey…the tombs are completely empty. Apart from the wall decorations of course. All the content has been robbed or taken to museums, often out of the country…the other thing that spoilt our joy was almost unbearable heat. If this is how hot it gets in their "winter", I can not even imagine what’s in "summertime"…however, maybe it’s just for us, northern type of guys…Some might find +32C and merciless sun trying to melt you down like a snowman, right where you stand, quite refreshing, I suppose…

However, we used all our time to make the most of it, we’ve been in quite a few tombs and even climb the surrounding the Valley hills…

Beside the tombs themselves, there are many temples on the west bank near Luxor. The temples within the Valley, each built by individual kings or queens, were collectively known by the Egyptians as the "Temples of Millions of Years". They were considered before as funerary or mortuary temples, but in fact they were temples built for the worship of the deceased kings, and were even used for his worship while he lived. There were originally many more temples then one finds today, and those that remain are in much ruin. But on our way back from the Valley of the Kings we managed to get into one of the very distinctive temple – Medinat Habu…
More on this – later…