Egypt Nile Cruise, Luxor Temple

After a bus drive through the streets of the East Bank of the Nile we arrived at Luxor Temple.  The missing obelisk now dominates the Paris roundabout on the Place de la Concorde. And this is a picture of it we took while we were in Paris in 2008.  How's that for a bit of a synchronicity for an adventure blog. 

We probably have a shot of the Cleopatra Needle on the Embankment in London somewhere.  It is an interesting fact that the Thames -side obelisk is in fact the obelisk of Thotmes III in 1460 BC, not Cleopatra.  The barge that bought the obelisk to England was called the Cleopatra, it was shipped from Alexandria, Cleopatra's city, that's why the obelisk erected now on the Thames to celebrate the Pommy victory over Napoleon is commonly called the Cleopatra Needle. Sorry I said no egyptology didn't I?

Anyway, the Egyptians would now like them both back please.

Luxor temple is also interesting because of the many religions evident by use through the ages.  This shot shows a mosque which is still in use today and has inside some quite erotic pagan hieroglyphs which are apparently inappropriate for a building of such a use.  This shot fails to give an indication of how high the sands were when the mosque was used. There are about three floors of height below of ancient temple which was all under sand.

 Our guide was not prepared to talk openly about this god figure with the erection but it is all about divine conception and birth, semen being anointed with essential oils and other imagery.  I have more pics of the larger wall but didn't think you'd be interested. See http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/luxortemple.htm for all the guff on the temple but following are our images which interested us.

In the middle of the temple it was incongruous to see roman arches and pillars

and ecclesiastical paintings still in evidence

Gail could not resist looking like an egyptian

These sphinxes once went all the 2 miles from Luxor to Karnak, both sides of a wide polished granite roadway,  quite impressive really.   I have no idea how many there were but we will know soon as Unesco is buying back all the land, buildings, schools, churches, businesses, roads, and farms and excavation is well underway.  There is a time limit on the funding from Unesco and I do wonder.... I fear the egyptian process/endemic corruption and current unrest may defeat the best of international intentions.  But Egypt is very dependent on tourism.

Back on board for drinks in the afternoon sun we still had not done any cruising on the Nile.  This was a Nile mooring tour so far.

No mechanised goods handeling systems on the Nile.  36 bottles per back load.

A lingering sunset over the Luxor mooring.

and an elephant and rider was on our bed.