My Head Goes Round and Round

Hundreds of temples and tombs, 100’s of thousands of servants, slaves and workers and millions of hours of labour. I can’t get my head around how all this building was done to honour the pharaohs, kings and queens. The construction is one thing, the decoration of the walls and tombs with drawings and hieroglyphics is totally another. The workmanship and intricacies of all the tradespeople who constructed these mammoth monuments and the artists of the drawings, carvings and statues is something to behold. God’s, goddesses, priests and pharaohs, all to be honoured and revered. It all is overwhelming. From the Temple of Karnak and the Temple of Luxor to the Valley of Kings and the tomb of King Tut and Queen Neferari. We were fortunate enough to get into Tut's tomb and I was able to take a picture of his mummified remains.This famous tomb was discovered in 1922 by the British archeologist Howard Carter. Then there is the Valley of Queens with the tomb of the first female pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut and the untold number of tombs still to be discovered. We talk about the Romans but the Egyptians were well ahead of them and the Greeks as a society and paramount in the world order. The tombs were hidden for centuries and the terrain they were built around is bleak and barren in order to discourage looters and allow those in search of a quiet afterlife, peace and prosperity. We are on the Nile sailing south, upstream. As I write this blog on the top deck of the ship I am listening to the prayers of the Iman drifting across the river from the minarets as they sing out their praises to Allah. The source of the Nile is Lake Victoria to the south in Uganda. 6600 kilometres in length, it is one of the longest rivers in the world and a potential source of regional and international dispute with different countries threatening to dam and control the water reserves which are becoming more and more critical to sustainability. The temperatures are hovering around 19 to 20 Celsius but the early mornings and evenings are cool. Considering the river traffic, the river itself seems relatively clean this far downstream and it is certainly the lifeblood for agricultural survival. Very few tractors are in evidence and men on their donkey carts and the manual labour in the fields appear to be an inefficient way of keeping the country fed. The unemployment rate is in the mid 20 percentile and the guide agrees there is a population problem but between the Muslim faith and government decree, abortion is illegal except in cases of rape, the wellbeing of the unborn and the health status of the mother. Relations with Israel appear to be calm and the subject of the six day war and the Yom Kippur war in 1973 are still fresh in the minds and not far from the the surface. Peace and prosperity are at the forefront but the gap between haves and have not is apparent everywhere. The population survives but it is difficult to see how they do. Shalom!