I awoke in Aswan, ready to hop on a plane. No, the trip wasn’t over. We drove over the river and through the desert to the small Aswan airport. We had a short flight farther south to the remote site of Abu Simbel. Carved by Ramesses II, it demonstrated the extent of his kingdom, how far south he had exerted control. Abu Simbel is actually a pair of monuments with one dedicated to Ramesses and the other to his favorite wife Nefertari. Besides the facades out front, each was carved back into the cliff-face, decorated from floor to ceiling. When […]
Tag Archives: Ramesses II
The Headless Archaeologist
An archaeologist is the best husband a woman can have. The older she gets the more interested he is in her. Agatha Christie When studying archaeology, it doesn’t take long before you come across one famous name in particular: Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie. There is a bit of connection with him at JUC because he is buried in the Protestant Cemetery next to the school. Born in 1853 near London, England, he learned surveying from his father and enjoyed roaming the English countryside searching for ancient artifacts, visiting places like Stonehenge. In 1880 he went to Egypt, where he […]
Temples and Titans
So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, “This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me.’” Exodus 10:3 The west bank of Thebes is home to many temples to various Pharaohs. After visiting the Valley of the Kings, we poked around some of them. Our first stop was Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahri. Hatshepsut was one of the few female Pharaohs. When her husband, Thutmose II, died, his heir, Thutmose III, was not old […]