Hello from Sharm!

A quick note to catch you up on Friday’s and Saturday’s activity…by the way I am writing this from the comfort of the Starbucks coffee house at Sharm el-Sheik (free internet and a taste of home).

Friday we started at 6:30am in Thebes and loaded the bus at 8am for our first stop at Deir el-Medina. This the workers village for the artists for the Valley of the Kings (KV) and Valley of the Queens (QV). The site is important because it gives us a glimpse into the daily life of the working and artists class of workers in Egypt (in the New Kingdom and Ptolemaic periods). This is the site of the first organized labor strike(for a higher beer ration) – which was a success. In addition this is the site of a Hathor temple (Ptolemaic period) that shows a fantastic final judgment scene. A last important location at this site is a visit to the tombs of two leaders of the community. It is fascinating that these tombs are perhaps even more beautiful than the tombs of the kings! It shows the workers made time to create their own tombs in off hours.

After the visit to Deir el-Medina, we hiked over the hill to the Valley of the Queens (taking the same path that workers took to go to work over 3,000 years ago. The title Valley of the Queens is actually a misnomer as the Valley of the Queens was not just for Queens but important royal family members (sons of the king and queens). We entered two of the tombs including the royal tomb of Ramesses II son Kha em Wast. These graves are not as large as those of the king, but equal them in artistry. Kha em Wast’s grave has beautiful color and show several artistic features including translucent robes on the prince and an elongated skull (perhaps an influence of the earlier Akhenaton period).

After the visit to the Valley of the Queens we went to lunch across the street form Medinet Habu (our next stop). Lunch Friday was notable because we had a traditional Egyptian “take-out” lunch. A bowl of rice, thin spaghetti, macaroni noodles, covered in grilled onions and a tomato sauce – one of our best meals on the trip!

Next we visited Medinet Habu – Ramesses III’s mortuary temple and sometime palace. This is an important site because it depicts the successful repulsion of the “sea peoples” who attempted to invade Egypt in the 12th c BC. These sea peoples ultimately settled near Israel and became known as the Philistines…a thorn in the side of Israel for much of Old Testament times (in modern times the Philistines are known as the Palestinians). The color of this temple is fantastic and it allowed us to imagine how colorful these temples were in ancient times.

Our last stop in Thebes was an afternoon visit to Karnak temple (A VERY large temple dedicated to Amun-Re). The temple was added to by most of the Pharaoh’s of the New Kingdom and visitors could take days to tour the site completely. Like at many of our sites we explored the site until the guards forced us to leave. There were 30+ tour busses at the temple when we arrived and we were the last bus to leave! It was encouraging to see the students beg for additional time…you would be proud of their enthusiasm.

Leaving Karnak we had a leisurely dinner…Egyptian concept of time is a slower than ours and a 2 hour dinner is not uncommon. After dinner we boarded a plane – arriving in Sharm at 10:30pm. We arrived at our hotel around 11:30 and everyone rushed to bed (well not everyone….)

I was a bit surprised…we all had the option for a day to sleep in (as we have been getting up each morning between 5 and 6am) but 12 people opted for a 7am wake-up call and snorkeling trip. Another 3 decided to go for a horseback ride…leaving 5 to rest by the pool. The day was filled with fun, shopping and relaxing…more of the same tomorrow until we board the bus for Mt. Sinai.

We will be out of internet range for a few days as we stay the St, Catherine’s Monastery and then the Nunnery at Wadi Feiran. More in few days from Cairo.

Bryan