UPPER EGYPT

In the times of the pharaohs the lands in southern Ta Mery ("the beautiful land")—modern Egypt—were known as Ta Shemau ("the land of reeds"). This green, highly fertile strip stretched along the Nile nurtured a seminal civilization, which withstood the vagaries history not for centuries but millennia. While exact boundaries shifted over time, for the purposes of this book they are defined as the Nile valley south from Asyut though Luxor, Aswan to the Ptolemaic Temple of Isis of Philae below the Aswan Dam and Lake Nasser. The term “upper” may be a bit confusing as it is describes the flow of the Nile rather than its place on the map of Egypt. Prior to about the 3100 BC, Upper Egypt was an independent kingdom. At that time the pharaoh, possibly Namer, unified the upper and lower kingdoms together forming for the first time a single realm. For historians this marks the beginning of native dynastic rule, which was to last, albeit with a few interruptions, until submission to the Persian Empire in the 6th Century BC. Perhaps the high point of this twenty-five hundred year odyssey was the 19th Dynasty in the 13th Century BC, particularly the reign of Ramses II (“the Great”), who built many of the temples and tombs depicted here. So much material regarding the history of Egypt is readily available that it is pointless to go into detail in these pages. Thus the writing in this book is mainly focused on identifying the photographs so that the curious may more pursue the complex stories behind them than is appropriate here. The images were gathered on a short, fortnight visit with my wife in the winter of 2005 and capture what is perhaps the typical farangi point of view. Landing at the Asyut Airport on a cheap flight from the Gulf, a hurried five hour drive due south to the ancient capitol landed us in our first goal, Luxor, the modern tourist center for what was known a Thebes, including Karnack and the west bank tomb complexes. These cultural riches are so great that there is little cause for tarrying in Asyut. Also there are the questions of the need for visitor security (or the perceived need) as tourism—an important part of the Egyptian economy has become a target for dissident groups. The effectiveness of this was underscored on a visit to Egypt in the fall of 1997, shortly after the so-called “Luxor Massacre” when 67 persons, mostly tourist, were killed visiting Hatshepsut’s temple complex near Luxor. While it was convenient for me—huge discounts on hotels, no hordes at the sights—it had a devastating effect on the industry and the economy upon which much of Egypt depends.