It’s October 2023 and Cuffysark is now in it’s winter home in Monastir, Tunisia and it being our Silver wedding anniversary soon we decided we’d like to do something to commemorate it.  Being in North Africa we decided to go a little further south to Egypt and be a proper tourist for a while.  So, as we don’t get enough of being on the water we opted for a Nile cruise. 

We started in Cairo and spent a couple of nights here on our own before the tour started.  We would end up back in Cairo and be going to the pyramids and to the Egyptian museum, but from experience there’s not always a lot of time when you’re on a tour to look around.  So we took ourselves off to the Egyptian Museum.  It houses over 170,000 artefacts and spans the pre-Dynastic Period till the Graeco-Roman Era (c. 5500 BC – AD 364).  There’s some really old things displayed there!

The Egyptians believed that there was an afterlife and so the tombs contained everything they thought they would need in the afterlife.  The coffins were like the Russian dolls.  The body would be embalmed, then depending on the status and wealth of the deceased, placed inside a coffin and this coffin was placed in another and then another.  This is the middle tomb for Queen Ahmose Merytamun which was approx. 1525-1504 BC. 

The coffins of Yuya and Thuya, the parents of Queen Tiye, the wife of king Amenhotep III and Great Grandparents of Tutankhamun are on display in the museum. The pair were buried in the Valley of the Kings, which was discovered in February of 1905 by the British Egyptologist James E. Quibell.

Thuya was between 50 and 60 years old. It is amazing how well preserved the body is considering she lived about 3,400 years ago.  The tomb is covered almost entirely in reddish gold on the outside and the inside is silvered.  The outside of the coffin has chapters of the Book of Dead in hieroglyphics. 

The internal organs, with the exception of the heart, are removed from the body and stored in jars.  These four jars are then placed in the Canopic box which was protected by the four sons of Horus,  Hapy (lungs), Imsety (liver), Duamutef (stomach), and Qebehsenuef (intestines).

The highlight of the museum is the Tutankhamun room which we decided to wait to visit when we returned with the tour.  Unfortunately, it is not permitted to take photos although not everyone visiting understood that and so the stewards were shouting on a regular basis “NO PHOTOS”. We stopped for a coffee at the café outside the museum and on realising we were Brits the waiter went rushing off to change the music and rather surprised when “Vindaloo” starting booming out of the speakers followed by “knees up Mother Brown”, quite a contrast. 

We then flew to Luxor and made our way to the river boat.  Our tour group was made up of nine people, Spanish, German, Belgian, Canadian and us Brits.  They were a great bunch.  The tour was the start of our visit to many temples

Karnak Temple was built between 2055 BC and around 100 AD. It was dedicated to the gods Amun, Mut, and Khonsu.

Luxor Temple was dedicated to the rejuvenation of kingship and was built in 1400 BCE during the Egyptian New Kingdom. 

Hatsheput Temple was a memorial temple to Queen Hatsheput who reigned for 18 years.  Hatshepsut acted as regent for her young stepson, Thutmose III, who became king as an infant.  However, after seven years she was crowned king and she and her stepson co-ruled but with Hatshepsut the dominant ruler.   She often depicted herself as male to show she was as good and powerful as a man.  There are a number of theories as to how she died, one, that she was killed by her stepson.  At the end of Thutmose III reign attempts were made to remove all traces of Queen Hatsheput’s reign.  Her name was removed from the official list of kings, her statues were destroyed and monuments defaced. 

Valley of the Kings

The authorities rotate the tombs that can be visited and generally you visit three on one visit.  Surprisingly the further underground you went the hotter it got which wasn’t what I expected.  We visited the tombs of Ramesus IV, Ramesus IX and Merenptah.  The walls and ceilings were decorated with pictures and hieroglyphics and the colours were so vivid which was amazing considering how old the tombs are. 

The Kings were originally buried in the pyramids with possessions they thought they would need in the afterlife however, they were often robbed.  So the Kings of the New Kingdom  (c. 1539–1075 BCE), decided to hide their tombs below ground in a valley in the hills behind Dayr al-Baḥrī.  To date 63 tombs have been discovered and most had been robbed in ancient time with the exception of Tutankhamun.

We visited three more temples  Edfu, Kom Ombo and Philae over the next couple of days, as well as the Aswan Old Dam and High Dam.  The High Dam was built in 1960 to protect Egypt from annual floods from the Nile. 

You do tend to get hassled by the locals trying to sell their wares, much more than where we’ve been before.  Ian managed to send them on their way as he started singing (and those of you who’ve heard him sing, know he can’t) Night to Cairo by Madness but only two lines.  Thinking he was mad, hmm ….

🎵🎵 🎵 It’s just gone noon, half past monsoon
On the banks of the river Nile 🎵🎵🎵

You have to give the locals their due as they were enterprising.  Sitting in our cabin we could hear shouts of “Hello”. Going to see what the noise was all about we discovered two guys in a small boat tying it to the side of the river boat, and yes this was while we were going along.  They had goods to sell which a few passengers did buy.  They passed them up on ropes and the money went back down in a bag. 

The cleaners in our cabin were quite imaginative.  I think they got Ian to a tee.

Our Nile cruise had come to an end so we flew back to Cairo and then took our final trip to the Pyramids and the Egyptian Museum.

It had been a whirl wind of a trip but definitely somewhere worth visiting.  An amazing place.

November 2023