I'm Lovin' It

I know this isn't about my current trip to Luxor, but since I'm still in Luxor, I think this post will count.

As I've mentioned before, we were all craving cheeseburgers, so when we went to Luxor that first weekend, we stopped to grab some. Did we go to a normal restaurant and order burgers? No, that’s not how we roll. We went to McDonald’s. I wouldn’t be writing this post if it were just a normal McDonald’s, though. Oh no, this one was special. Let’s take a look:

These were for sale and were huge. I was sooo tempted to get one (only $11),  but it's almost too big to get back.

I know you can't tell, but the food was gigantic. This was a normal-sized Big Mac, and the fries were what came with the meal, not super sized. Yeah. (Note that I only was allowed 2 bags of ketchup for all those fries- not enough).

The walls had murals on them. I wish I could have gotten the whole mural- all of the classic McDonald's characters were there.

Yeah, I'm not exactly sure what's going on with Ronald and the sphinx there...

- Hamburgler

Hiking in Luxor

Guys, today was AWESOME! Susan, Lindsey and I got up really early and headed over to the West Bank again. We started at Medinet Habu, which was built by Ramses III to show his battle against the Sea Peoples (a group of nomads from somewhere up north- maybe Crete- who came down the Med. coast, ravaging anything the found). The place was almost completely deserted.

Me at the first pylon.

Trampling some Sea Peoples.

You can't see it very well, but the colors on the inner walls were breath-taking! And Ramses III really liked carving super deeply. If you blow up this picture, you should be able to see it. Amazing.

 After Habu, we moved over to Deir el-Medina, which was the village/tomb area of the workmen who built the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. You couldn't take pictures inside the tombs, but the 2 we went in were so pretty! Look up the tomb of Sennedjem (spellings may vary) on Google images to see how yellow everything is! After the tombs, we hiked up the gebel (mountainside) to get to Deir el-Bahri (Hatshepsut's mortuary temple).

View of Deir el-Medina from the gebel.

I'm queen of the gebel.

Looking down at Bahri (on left) and the destroyed temple of Montuhotep II (from the Middle Kingdom)

Stuart, I went way out on a ledge and almost fell off to get this one. I have a ton more from on top that I can give you once I get back to the US.

That's all for now, but there are a ton more photos to come once I get them from Susan's nice SLR camera (including one of us smiting each other at Medinet Habu and the smiley face we found while hiking). Now it's time to lay by the pool and relax before the Luxor Museum tonight!

- Hiker

Vacation Time!

Ok so I have no idea why this didn't post yesterday like I told it to! So sorry!! Guess you'll just have another day of double posts!

We're headed to Luxor this afternoon for Eid (well, since I'm posting this Friday, we actually left yesterday). Since I don't have much time to tell you what I did today, let’s talk a little about what Eid actually is. Eid is the end of Ramandan, the Muslim holiday month when the prophet Muhammad visited heaven. Apparently, this is when the revelations of God were given to man through the prophet Muhammad. They ‘celebrate’ the holiday month by fasting from sunrise to sunset and by being overly generous to the poor. It is technically forbidden to fast on the day of Eid, so there’s a big feast day (which day it falls on is determined by the lunar cycle, so Ramandan varies in length, and the actual feast day is only decided at the last minute).

In Egypt, the Eid is celebrated with an official three-day holiday, where schools, the government, and many businesses are closed. If you really, really wanted to find something comparable in Christianity, I guess I would say it’s like Lent, where you try to be on your best behavior during the fasting period, then be joyful and forgiving and happy on Easter (just don’t try to overlay any of the religious significance). The Eid feast day is treated like Easter, in that it is usually celebrated with families and everyone is dressed in their finest. There’s even a special Eid prayer service, and for the Sunnah Muslims, it is expected that wealthier families pay the Sadaqat-ul-fitr, a charity tax of sorts, to the needy before attending the service. The other 2 holiday days are used as holidays- to be spent as one pleases.

The worst part of Eid (well, to the Western sensibilities) is the slaughter of the goats. Really early in the morning on the feast day, just after the first call to prayer (which is at about 4:30 or so- I hear it every morning), families will slaughter a goat or cow if they can afford it to eat at the feast meal. In the provinces, this means a whole lot of scared, crying animals and a whole lot of blood running in the streets. People dip their hands in the blood and put bloody handprints all over the town for good luck. CSI: Egypt would have a tough time during Eid. Needless to say, none of us really wanted to be around in Edfu when this was going on, hence why we escaped. While they’ll do the slaughtering in Luxor as well, it’s usually separated from the tourist areas.

Eid Mubarak (“blessed Eid”), everyone!

- Muslim Theologian (or at least I play one on the internet)

Greetings from Luxor!

Hello from Luxor everyone! We got in last night and are staying at the super swanky Sonesta St. George (we got a really great price- $100/person for 3 nights at a 5-star hotel!). After we got in, we crashed for a bit to take showers in glorious bathrooms. Then we went to dinner at an Italian place, since we were all craving spaghetti with real tomato sauce. Then we called it an early night.

This morning we got up early and headed to the West Bank via ferry (it was only $.15 to cross- much cheaper than a taxi). We have special passes that get us into all of the tombs that are open at the Valley of the Kings, instead of just the 3 tombs you're allowed if you actually buy a ticket to the valley. Unfortunately, only the Ramesside tombs were open, so we got done really early and didn't get to see the ones we really wanted. :( Maybe next time. I'd love to show you pictures, but cameras aren't allowed.

Since KV was super fast, we came back to the East Bank for lunch, then decided that we had plenty of time for Karnak Temple. Cameras are allowed there, see:

Me and the White Chapel. It's in a side open-air museum that Dan and I didn't go to last year. The guard saw we had fancy passes, so he let us actually go inside. It was so pretty!!

Now we're hanging out in our room, taking a break and cooling off. It was very hot today and we're a little burnt out on sun and walking. Tonight we'll go out to dinner with Kat and Tasha (they took a pool day today since they've done the West Bank a million times), then go to the Luxor Museum, which is supposed to be super nice. Plans for tomorrow include: Medinet Habu, Dier el-Medina, a hike over the gebel to Dier el-Bahri, then probably back to the hotel for a dip in the pool.


- Tourist

PS. We have to pay for internet, and it's kind of expensive, so I'm thinking I won't post tomorrow or Sunday (I know, I know, I'm sorry!). I'll have lots to tell you about our hike tomorrow and our trip to our reis' house on Sunday, which I'll tell you all about on Monday. Maybe I'll try to have something automatically post tomorrow.

PPS. Susan took a lot of photos of me at the temple since she has the nice SLR camera. At some point (and it may have to be after I get back when my internet is a lot faster), I'll post a huge dump of photos for you. But for now, the text will have to suffice.

Double Post Day!

Here's a better view of the Old Kingdom part of the tell from above. The New Kingdom silo area is to the right in the picture, and where Susan and I are working is just past the bottom of the picture (if the photographer had looked down, he would have seen our heads).

Here's a slightly better over-all view of the Old Kingdom area Susan and I are working on. My demolition layer is just to Susan's left, and she's working on the door:

- Site Explainer

Time to Start Drawing

I finished my little area today. Wanna see? The left side will get excavated at some later date by someone else.

Notice the little ledge on the right? That's probably a shoring-up of the bottom of the wall in ancient times when it started to bow.

 That little pot sticking out there came out eventually. I found lots of good things. Here are the best:

The top thing is a 6th Dynasty bread mould. The bottom left is a 5th Dynasty bowl, and the rim of the right one is a 4th dynasty bowl. So, you know, solidly Old Kingdom.

After I got done excavating, I had to start drawing the profile of the area that's not yet excavated (so not the nice flat wall in the back, but instead against the area that will be excavated later).

Don't I look studious? This wasn't a staged photo at all.

This is what my profile looks like so far:

That's pretty much all I have to say today. I found some things, now I'm drawing. I'll finish up tomorrow and then we'll head to Luxor. Next week it'll be back to pottery drawing.

- Rasama (remember your Arabic? It means "drawer")

Weekend Wonders

Ok, so today I got dirty again excavating my area (I found some stuff that was interesting to me, but it was just pottery, so that’s not interesting for you- but maybe I’ll tell you about it tomorrow, since I just read the comments that some of you are interested). So I’ll tell you about last weekend.

After site on Saturday, we rushed back to the house to eat lunch and take showers with the minimal water we had and the hour before our car came. Then we hopped in the car and cruised on to Luxor. We were all fairly hungry once we got there, and aside from Tasha (who is kind of a vegan), everyone wanted nothing more than a nice, juicy cheeseburger. Where else can you get one but McDonald’s? Yes, we went to McDonald’s in Luxor as our first non-Edfu meal. And it was glorious. There will be another post all about the awesomeness of the Luxor McDonald’s (there’s more than just a good burger).

After the glorious cheeseburger, we split up and Nadine and Greg went to Chicago House while the rest of us went to our hotel, The Nefertiti. It wasn’t much to look at, but it had decent beds, AC, and a shower where the head was mounted to a wall, so we were all pretty happy. Once we were all clean, we piled into a cab and drove out to Chicago House for their Halloween party.

I wish that it hadn’t been so dark by the time we got there, because calling it a house is something of a misnomer. This thing is a freaking complex. Seriously, google image search it- it’s crazy, with tennis courts and a place for old cars. But the party was fun and we looked really cute. I’m not allowed to put up a photo of our costumes under pain of death by my colleagues, but I wore a cute little cape and bat ears that had been my cousin’s about 20 years ago. For those of you that remember your Arabic lesson, I was a “wat-wat”. We were super tired since we’d woken at 5am and had already had a full day of excavation, so when the party wrapped at 10, we were pooped.

We were allowed to take Sunday off since we needed to get our visas upgraded (I am now considered a resident until January 16, 2012). Greg and Nadine needed to rub shoulders at Chicago House, so us ladies did a little shopping! We hit several fair trade centers for Christmas presents, an import store for chocolate, a restaurant run by a Brit-ex-pat for lunch, and a pharmacy for those of us that were running out of essentials. We also hit Luxor temple (we have these fun little things that get us into all temples and sites for free since we are fancy dancy archaeologists) and since no one was around, we had a photo shoot:

At the end of the day, while killing time before our car came, we went to Snack Time. They have the most amazing desserts. Look, aren’t they yummy-looking?

 

Our ride back to Edfu was interesting, since our driver was a nut-job. I wish I could say that wasn’t typical for Egypt drivers, but they are basically all nut-jobs. At least this car had seat-belts. Then it was dinner and bed and up for work at 5am, where I had my second day of excavation, which you heard about yesterday. See? Told you I’d fill you in on all the details.

- Luxor Explorer

PS. Wades: I didn’t try the cinnamon roll, I’ll get it next time. I’ll let you know how they compare to... Stanley’s? Stuckey’s? Whatever that place is on the way up north.

PPS. We’re headed back to Luxor this weekend because there’s a huge holiday (Eid- I’ll explain later) this weekend. I’m hoping they’ll have some internet so I can post daily, but I might have to figure something out. Lindsey, Susan, and I are planning to do the tourist thing hard-core (I’m talking hiking the gebel behind Deir el-Bahri all morning [Yes, I’m already planning on taking a 1.5 liter bottle of water with me. Dan taught me well.]). Woot!