Egypt- Land of the Pharaohs (Day 13)

 Day 13: Edfu and Kom Ombo

Egypt- Land of the Pharaohs (Day 12)

 Day 12: Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens

Early today meant early. The crew on the Historia opened up the breakfast buffet for us at a crisp 5:45 AM.

As we arrived, the sun was just peeking over the mountains, casting a stunning golden glow across the Valley of the Kings.

The Valley of the Kings was part of the ancient city of Thebes and served as the burial site for almost all the pharaohs from 1539 to 1075 BCE, spanning from Thutmose I all the way to Ramesses X. The pharaohs of the New Kingdom eventually realized that the lavish burials of their predecessors in Giza—with their giant pyramids acting like flashing billboards screaming “Hey, endless treasure in here!”—was just asking for grave robbers to do their worst.

Fearing for the safety of their eternal stashes, they adopted a stealthier plan: concealing their tombs in a lonely valley in the western hills behind Thebes. Here, sunk deep into the heart of the mountain, pharaohs were interred alongside several queens, a few high-ranking officials, and the numerous sons of Ramesses II.

The layouts varied, but they essentially consisted of a long descending corridor interrupted by deep shafts to baffle robbers, leading to pillared vestibules. At the far end lay the ultimate burial chamber with a stone sarcophagus enclosing the royal mummy, surrounded by packed storage rooms stacked with furniture, food, and statues for the king’s next-world comfort.

It sounded like a foolproof plan to stop grave robbing. But honestly, if you bury a king’s ransom, someone is going to talk. Virtually every single tomb was completely sacked over the centuries.

With exactly one exception: King Tut.

Today, there are 62 known tombs in the valley, though only a handful are open to the public at any given time. We had the incredible opportunity to visit five of the most beautiful: King Tut, Ramesses V & VI, Seti I, Merenptah (a son of Ramesses II), and 

To beat the crushing crowds, we made a literal beeline straight for King Tut’s tomb the second the gates opened.

This modest, sunken staircase sits directly underneath the entrance of the much larger Tomb of Ramesses VI. When ancient laborers were digging out the Ramesside tomb centuries later, they carelessly dumped their rock debris and built temporary workmen's huts right over this lower entryway. This completely hid the staircase from view, accidentally protecting Tutankhamun's treasures from tomb raiders for over 3,000 years. In November 1922, Howard Carter's team cleared away those exact huts and discovered the very top step.

·       While Tut’s legendary golden treasures now reside in the Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM), his actual mummy was left undisturbed in its final resting place. Seeing him in person definitely makes for a wonderfully creepy, surreal visit.

As we checked off our next four tombs—Ramesses V & VI (KV9), Ramesses III (KV11), Merenptah (KV8), and the legendary Seti I (KV17)—one universal common denominator became clear: the heat.

Ventilation underground was entirely non-existent. Combine a hot, arid desert environment with thousands of excited tourists heating up the narrow spaces, and the deeper chambers quickly became absolute furnaces. I’m convinced that's the subterranean authorities' secret strategy to keep crowds from dawdling too long!

The Tomb of Merenptah

The Tomb of Ramesses V & Ramesses VI

The Tomb of Ramesses III

The Tomb of Seti I

After visiting our fifth tomb of the morning, we were more than ready for some actual sun exposure. We left the Valley of the Kings and took a short ride around the other side of the hill to find the Valley of the Queens. Active archaeological digs are still happening all over both valleys today, so if we come back in 30 years, we might have a whole new batch of pharaohs to visit!

The Valley of the Queens is where the royal wives, princes, and princesses were laid to rest. It is significantly smaller than its brother valley around the corner. The ultimate attraction here is Queen Nefertari’s Tomb, but unfortunately, it is currently closed to the public due to humidity damage caused by the trapped, exhaled breath of past visitors, which directly degrades the fragile, 3,000-year-old wall paintings.

Next up was the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahari, universally considered one of the pinnacle architectural wonders of the ancient world. Masterminded by her royal architect Senenmut around 1479 BCE, this grand structure took nearly 15 years to complete.

The complex serves as a profound monument to her political power, designed explicitly to legitimize her rule as a female pharaoh. Of course, after her death, her stepson and successor, Thutmose III, ordered an extensive damnatio memoriae campaign to systematically erase Hatshepsut from history. Royal workmen marched through, smashing her statues, chiseling her image off the walls, and defacing her royal name seals.

Thankfully, they missed a few spots. Deep inside the Chapel of Anubis on the northern side of the middle terrace, the painted reliefs were carved into the living limestone rock, protecting them from the harsh desert elements for thousands of years. The deep reds, brilliant blues, and crisp yellows look remarkably intact.

At the highest level sits the innermost, sacred Main Sanctuary of Amun-Ra, where the temple meets the mountain cliff.

After playing Indiana Jones and Lara Croft all morning, we decided to make a stop at a local alabaster factory to see exactly how these smooth stone wares were produced for the pharaohs.

The workers even enlisted Dave and me to help out with the incredibly boring, manual scraping process—undoubtedly due to our obvious wealth of latent knowledge and expertise in ancient alabaster carving. Fortunately, we didn’t break anything.

Jeri and I eventually spotted a beautiful piece we liked, but that's when the real ancient ritual began. The salesman took our opening offer to his manager, who then took it to the uber-manager—a sequence utilizing high-pressure tactics straight out of a modern car showroom. Refusing to play the game, we walked out.

Later on, our guide Mahmoud smoothly stepped in and negotiated our price with "a friend" (I guess he knows a guy who knows a guy). Success! We eventually secured our mini sarcophagus, complete with a set of tiny canopic jars for our little mini vital organs.

Our final stop before returning to the ship was a classic roadside find: the Colossi of Memnon. These two massive stone titans stand as lone guardians over the West Bank floodplain. Built around 1350 BCE, the 60-foot quartzite statues depict Pharaoh Amenhotep III seated on his throne.

They originally flanked the gateway of his massive mortuary temple—the largest ever built in Egypt. However, because it was built too close to the river's flood line, a violent earthquake in 1200 BCE combined with centuries of seasonal Nile floods caused the buildings behind them to completely collapse and dissolve into the mud. Later, in 27 BCE, another earthquake fractured the northern statue, causing its upper half to collapse and famously creating a strange morning "singing" sound when the sun hit the stone cracks.

We spent the rest of the afternoon sailing peacefully down the Nile on the Historia, floating alongside at least a couple of dozen other river cruisers

We lazily watched local fishermen working out of small wooden rowboats

and were briefly "accosted" by local river pirates hawking towels and dresses from speedboats as they hung onto the side of our giant cruise ship for dear life.

Overall, it was an incredibly relaxing afternoon. 

That evening, we successfully traversed the massive lock at Esna between Luxor and Aswan, smoothly raising our boat about 30 feet up the river.

Tomorrow, we head further south to visit Edfu, the Temple of Horus, and Kom Ombo!