Breathtaking scenes from the Nile
Liz Price
CAIRO
Saturday, June 9, 2007
THE Nile is the life force of Egypt. Its waters have nourished her over the years, watering and fertilising a land which otherwise would be total desert, making it flourish, rich in history and culture.
The 6500km river begins in the Great African lakes, flowing northwards to the Mediterranean, dividing Egypt into two parts. Culturally, Egypt is also divided into Upper and Lower Egypt. And there is no better way to see Upper or Southern Egypt than from a boat cruising down the Nile. There are dozens of "floating hotels", cruise boats plying the river between Aswan and Luxor, or vice versa, offering a relaxing way to see the sights of Upper Egypt.
Aswan is currently the most southerly point for the cruise, as the Aswan dams are sited here, and behind is Lake Nasser, the world's second largest artificial lake. It stretches 500km, 350km of which are in Egypt, the remaining 150km in Sudan. The dams were built for irrigation the first by the British in the 1900's and the Aswan High Dam by the Soviet Union in the 60's. They were built at the first of the cataracts on the Nile.
Although the dams are of great value for cultivation, their construction meant the flooding of priceless historical monuments. One such monument was saved the Philae temple, which was underwater after the first dam was built. When the High Dam was erected, the temple was dismantled and moved, piece by piece, to the island of Egelika, 150m to the north. Today the temple to Isis stands in glory and is one of the best preserved Ptolemaic temples.
The granite blocks used for the construction of the temples were quarried from sites along the Nile near Aswan. In one of the quarries can be seen the famous unfinished obelisk dating from 1500 BC. It was to have been erected for Queen Hatshepsut, who was interested more in the arts than in military campaigns. The obelisk had to be carved out of a single piece of granite, and was to have been about 41m high, but unfortunately, when almost complete, it developed a crack and was abandoned.
No Nile trip would be complete without a sail in a felucca. One can be transported back through the centuries when stepping into a felucca, the ancient sailing boats which have been used for thousands of years. As the wind fills the sails the boat quietly glides across the waters of the Nile. However, if there is no wind, the Nubian boatmen have to row. Nubians are inhabitants of this area of southern Egypt and northern Sudan which was once known as Nubia.
Leaving Aswan, life aboard the tourist river boat is lazy. Waking up the first morning one is greeted with an unforgettable sight of the Nile through the huge picture window of the bedroom. The changing scenery of the desert, green palm trees and villages all bathed in the early morning sun is mesmerising.
The first stop is Kom Ombo, an ancient city, and home of the crocodile god. There is a double temple, one dedicated to the crocodile, the god of fertility and creator of the world, and the other to the falcon headed Horus, the Solar god of war.
Edfu, an ancient capital of Upper Egypt, has the best preserved temple in Egypt, due to centuries laying partially buried under sand. Two black granite statues of Horus guard the entrance. Inside, many halls lead to the inner sanctuary containing a beautiful tabernacle constructed in 360 BC.
The history of Egypt has been determined from the hieroglyphic writing, first deciphered from the famous Rosetta stone. This stone (now in the British Museum in London) was written in three sets of inscriptions hieroglyphs, demotic (a local script) and Greek. Because Greek could be translated easily, it meant the hieroglyphics could be read, thereby unravelling the mysteries of Egypt's past.
No one knows for sure how the ancient Egyptians illuminated their tombs and temples. One idea is that they used polished metal sheets as reflectors, catching the sun's rays from the surface and transmitting them through the building. But a more recent theory is that these people had electricity. It is thought that as the obelisks are usually in pairs, maybe they were capped with gold leaf and had connecting wires a form of dry battery. And in the temple at Edfu, a hieroglyph on a pillar depicts this theory.
Between Edfu and Luxor lies the lock at Esna, which required very careful manoeuvring by the captain to position the large boat in between the narrow walls of the lock. The boats queue up to enter the lock, with two cruisers able to enter at one time. The passengers stood by the rails, watching the process and vendors in small boats arrived to sell their wares to the tourists. From the lock we went onto Luxor and Valley of the Kings but that's another story. The Brunei Times
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http://www.bt.com.bn/en/en/classification/life/travel/2007/06/09/breathtaking_scenes_from_the_nile
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