Our last official stop on our cruise was the Kom Ombo Temple. As far as sights go, this was among the youngest we visited, and dates to 180-47 BC. This period is known as the Ptolemaic Era, and corresponds to Read More
Gebel el-Silsileh
I spent the morning of my 30th birthday in a rock cut temple built in the 13th century B.C. There’s nothing to make you contemplate your existence like gazing at ancient graffiti in the even ancient-er Speos of Horemheb. In Read More
Life on the Nile
Although we have traveled quite a bit during our almost-three years in Cyprus, the vast majority of our trips have been long weekends– dip in, dip out, sometimes hurriedly. We’ve taken longer trips to Scotland/Ireland, the Christmas Roadtrip, and of Read More
The Ides of April
A short spring is quickly being chased out of town by the rapid onset of summer– it’s in the high 80s this weekend, hard to believe considering it was only (Orthodox) Easter last weekend. After a week-long spell of Saharan Read More
Hieroglyphs at Edfu
The circles in the text below are cartouches, which mean they are the names of the pharaoh. Many of them were left blank at Edfu because there were many successive pharaohs during the tumultuous Ptolemaic period– they didn’t want to Read More
Temple of Horus at Edfu
Our second stop of our first full day on the Nile was the Temple of Horus at Edfu. It was built during the Ptolemaic period, which means it is a young relative to many of the sites we saw in Read More
Wordless Wednesday: Near El-Qab
Mud Brick Walls of Nekheb
After we finished touring the tombs, we headed back down the hill toward massive these massive brick defensive walls, which are relatively young (only 4th century B.C.) Surely carving sandstone with magnificent hieroglyphs is an amazing feat, but there was Read More
El Kab Tombs
It’s amazing the speed with which the lush-green farmland irrigated by the Nile gives way to nothing but sand and rocks. This modest hillside, completely overlooked by most tourists’ itineraries, is home to several 3,500 year old rock-cut tombs. These Read More
Cruising, Day One: Where are We?
Sleeping on the boat wasn’t as bad as I expected. It helped that (1) I had unintentionally guilted the owner into a free upgrade (for which I felt slightly guilty for most of the trip) and (2) I had taken Read More