Happy New Year!! I hope you had a good trip back to DC. It was great to see all of you in Madison. It had been quite a long time! How was the rest of your stay? Thank you very much for the Christmas presents. Kelly and I are planning a shopping spree for Thursday so the money will come in very nicely. It’s new shoe time. Maybe something else too will have to see. A new cd could be quite nice also. Some exciting news for me today… I got a new internship today!! This one is at WCCO/CBS Channel 4, in the Special Projects department. It starts next Tuesday. I am very excited. It will really balance out the PBS internship of last semester. There is so much to learn. I might even get to help with some undercover reporting!! Once again news junkie I must be. I’ll keep you posted!
I went to the Chicago Museum of contemporary art but didn’t see this fellow — still thought you might like him. I will need your new address for future mailings! K is off being tested to see what she should do now that she is grown up.
Mt. Nebo-Siyagha. The basin of the Baptistry in the Memorial of Moses
The Hague, Feb, 1982
Hi
This is one of the many mosaics beautifully preserved in Jordan. Twas good visiting with you last week, hope the snow is abating. Yesterday the 2 Alicias and I went up north of Amsterdam to the Frisian Floral Fair and it was just fantastic. This whole building filled with flowers — mostly bulbs (tulips, crocus, daffodils) in every color of the rainbow (even black tulips!). We bought some sprouted bulbs to plant in pots inside which should bloom in 6 wks — we hope! Bill is due on Tuesday, we go to the St Martins in the Field concert in Amsterdam that nite. It is still hold here.
We are staying in a cabin. It is very small. I think it is the best place in the whole wide world. All of us are well and Astra. We saw Mt Rushmore. It was pretty big.
Love, Allie
This year has seen a return to the extensive use of geometric designs as well as pictorial panels. A new marquee and the extensive addition of new paneling have provided surfaces for more grain decoration than any time in the past fifty years.
Wait, that isn’t for you… It was nice to chat with you in Madison. Hope you had fun after we left. Here’s another battle scene for your collection from the Zurich Museum.
Love Tim and K
Feb 10, 2022 – Today is actually my father’s 102nd birthday. He sent me many of these postcards and helped to build my collection. He visited 90 countries by his 90th birthday. These days he doesn’t have much desire to travel but he loves to hear about others’ travels. He very much enjoyed my recent trip to Egypt and the photos of my son on the camel. I see him most weekends for lunch and I often hear new stories of his life.
We tried to call you Sun. to see how your party went. We had Mikey and Alicia, Alex and Rosie here for wild rice and strawberries last night. It was a wine-y, late eve. Mikey returns to Mexico today. We four drove up north to Friesland – learned much about dikes, dunes and poulders. Fantastic what these people have done! It is very chilly, tho sunny and very windy as usual. Alex and Rosie leave for a camping holiday in Spain during July. I’m finally washing the curtains. Have a nice trip to Cal.
One comment. The Sphinx was smaller than I had imagined. But otherwise my expectations were met.
Fifty years ago my father visited Egypt and went to Giza and rode a camel. My son went with me on this trip and my father told him he should ride a camel. We tried to re-create the scene.
Back into Cairo. Cairo had really bad smog. A city of over 20 million people. Big noisy smoggy dirty. But not as dirty as I expected. Actually, pretty clean. No open sewers, no piles of trash, no stench. Quite nice, really. In the evening I met up with an old friend I hadn’t seen in ages. He has lived in Cairo for 40 years and loves it. I have to admit, I’m a bit jealous. If you haven’t been there, I highly recommend it. I think I need to go back sometime…
That morning on our way to Giza, we stopped in a parking lot across from the Pyramids to rendez-vous with a physician. He diligently swabbed all of us and went off to do our Covid tests. This was required for us to re-enter the USA. Later that afternoon I received an email with my official document, photo and all, proclaiming I did not have Covid. That was a relief. On the way out of Egypt, the airlines did check to see I had the document but on returning to the homeland, nobody even mentioned it. All they looked at was my passport.
Indiana Jones in the Valley of the Kings, pyramid shaped mountain in background
It was about a half hour drive from our ship to the Valley of the Kings. We saw agriculture and street scenes along the way.
Our first stop was a photo op at the statues of Amenhotep III and the Collossi of Memnon. These originally guarded the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III. They were damaged by earthquakes in 1200 BC and 27 BC.
Amenhotep III and the Collossi of Memnon
We wound up the hill into the valley where the tombs were hidden. One reason they picked this area was the mountain was naturally shaped like a pyramid as you can see above. Only twelve of the 63 discovered tombs are open to the public at any given time and they alternate as they are worked on and restored. We saw four of them. The whole area was still being actively excavated. Some tombs were in better shape than others. King Tutankhamun’s tomb was the only one that still had a mummy in it and it will be moved soon. It is hard to describe the experience, it was beyond beautiful, so amazing to think how old they are.
I read all the Amelia Peabody books by Egyptologist Barbara Mertz aka Elizabeth Peters, that span the time from 1884-1923. She wrote 20 books based in Egypt mostly about archeologists digging around and solving mysteries. As I read them, I kept trying to imagine what the Valley of the Kings actually looked like back then, or even now. All I could imagine was a vast desert with nothing much else. Well, now I know. Take a look.
Tomb of King Ramses III, first discovered in the 1730’sTomb of King Ramses I, discovered in 1817Tomb of King Tut, discovered 1922Tomb of King Ramses IX, open since antiquity as it has graffiti from Romans and Coptic visitors
On the other side of the mountain, facing Karnak, was the Mortuary Temple of Pharoah Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut’s reign started roughly around 1500 BC and she was on the throne for 22 years. She ruled as a Pharaoh, presenting herself as male, wearing a false beard. She was an important figure. Her mortuary temple was where they prepared her body to be buried in the Valley of the Kings. It was an impressive structure built into the cliffs and directly opposite the Eighth Pylon, her addition to the Karnak site. It had three terraces with shrines to Hathor, Anubis, and Amun.
Ancient GrafittiMorturary Temple of Hatshepsut
Then it was back to the ship for lunch and off to the airport. Return to Cairo.
We docked in Luxor about lunchtime. We were tied to another ship so we had to walk through that one in order to get onto land. We could see in some places the ships were four or five deep. In the afternoon we set out for Karnak on the east bank of the river. In old Egypt, the east side of the river was associated with life as the sun rises in the east. The west side of the river was associated with death as the sun sets in the west. Therefore, generally, temples were built on the east side and tombs were on the west side. In Luxor, the Temples of Karnak and Luxor are on the east side and the Valley of the Kings is on the west side.
Karnak was built about 4,000 years ago. It was a large complex built for the priests and the King, no others were allowed entry. There was a man-made lake in the middle and outside the entrance was a large platform for commoners to gather during festivals. Different kings contributed so it grew over the years. The site was overwhelming, so much to see. The entrance was lined with ram-headed sphinxes. As we entered, the Great Hypostyle Hall was 54,000 square feet with 134 massive columns all beautifully painted. All but 12 columns are 10 meters (33 ft). high with the remaining ones being 21 meters high (69 ft.). The site is considered the largest religious building in the world.
Karnak Temple
From there we headed into town and stopped at a place where they made papyrus paintings. We had a lesson on how papyrus was made and then were free to spend as much money as we wanted. The prices were reasonable so I bought one and framed it when I got home.
Anubis on papyrus
By this time it was getting dark, apparently the best time to see Luxor Temple. The temple was built about 1400 BC and was used mainly for coronations. In about 395 AD, the Romans occupied Egypt and converted the temple into a fortress and later put a Christian chapel inside. In 640 AD a mosque was added and is still used to this day. There were originally two obelisks at its entrance. One is now at the Place de la Concorde in Paris. Our guide kept lamenting how many things had been stolen from Egypt. Recently excavated and open to the public, the Avenue of the Sphinxes ran from Luxor Temple to Karnak.
Active mosqueAvenue of SphinxesLuxor Temple and Avenue of Sphinxes
Postcard Buzz 