Down the River Nile

We begin our journey down the river Nile, which is the life blood for Egypt. On either side of the Nile is green fields, palm trees, sugar cane, and small farm plots. Not far from the edges of this green is simple dessert. Dry, harsh, hot dessert. Before the dam, there were seasons where the river dried up and communities would perish. This reality is reflected in the temple life along the river.

Our first stop is Kom Ombo where we visit the temple share by two gods Sobek and Haerorsis. Gods of fertility and medicine. Sobek's incarnation was in the Alligator and so this temple had a pit where an alligator was kept and fed and offerings made to until it died. Then the alligator was mummified and place unto the catacombs below and a new alligator would be brought up for the waters of the nile and the process would begin again. Haerorsis was the god of medicine and on the walls are descriptions of operations for cancer, surgical tools, anesthetics, etc of a very advance civilization.

We return to the boat and continue down the river until Edfu where we visit one of the best preserved cult temples dedicated to Horus . This Temple is massive and it is hard to convey the scale of it in pictures. Here we see some good examples of color, design, destruction again from the crusades and then ottoman empires, and a very good sense of the worship practices. A statue of less that a meter was what would eventually be housed in the inner most sanctum and would be brought out and paraded at certain times of the year. The huge amount of hieroglyphics and illustrations all over the walls is an incredible testament to the power of myth and story telling in the development of culture. The role the Greeks played in resurrecting these temples as a way of cooperatively bringing the egyptians into the control and oversight of their expanding empire is a testament to alternative ways to dealing with integration and assimilation instead of war and annihilation.

To stand in places where many ancients have walked, worked, imagined, worship, struggled and prayed is a truly humbling experience and I am grateful for the opportunity to be here and one cannot do a trip like this without realizing how privileged we are to live where we do and have the resources to do these kinds of things. Often on this trip I've encountered sellers whose things I do not need or wish to carry but I buy simply to support their small enterprise and to give some hope in very hard times. Egypt's economy is in a tough place since the uprising and many people are suffering and despairing in the new presidents lack of positive action since taking power.