Tombs of Astounding Horror

“I, Philastrios the Alexandrian, who have come to Thebes and have seen with my eyes the Colossi, and the work of these tombs of astounding horror, have spent a delightful day.” - Ancient graffito inscribed on a tomb wall in the Valley of the Kings, date unknown 


Last year on our Nile cruise, we sailed by some very good interesting rock carvings in a very narrow part of the Nile called Gebel el Sisila.  This was a large sandstone quarry and during the New Kingdom starting around 1500 BCE was used for the raw material for many of the monuments we visit today.

Amy and I found a great guide and driver, Amr and Zak, for a day of visiting this and two of other ancient sights.

The first was the temple of Esna. This is a rather small, but very well preserved Ptolemaic temple about an hour south of Luxor. Built around 300 BCE, it consists of a beautiful hypostyle hall, tall pillars richly decorated with carvings. Some of these pillars have been painstakingly restored, their colors amazingly vibrant after more than 2000 years. By applying a special paper with solvents, restorers are able to clean the pillars of dirt and grime.

Coffee and a shisha

From here it was on to El Kab, which consists of many tombs of nobles. We saw four of them. The best was the tomb of Ahmose, who was a general at the beginning of the New sea tombs are especially nice because they not only have religious carvings, but carvings of everyday life. 

Our last stop was Gebel el Sisila. This is an ancient sandstone rock quarry, which was used by the Egyptians for over a thousand years. There are also many tombs here, mostly of quarry foremen.  There is also a small temple cut into the rock for Horemheb, the last pharaoh of the 18th dynasty. It is a lovely spot, right on the Nile river. We were there for over an hour and were the only visitors.