Egypt 111
 
 


Roaming about Egypt:  Ancient  and Mysterious Temples. 

As I was building this web site,  I decided to go into my image files and scan more negatives to share  perspectives that are not seen as often as the Pyramids and Sphinx.     I seem to have had a fetish for pyramids , standing stones and ancient temples.    You might think that is an understatement....

When contemporary western garb is absent from the few people in these images,  they have a timeless quality, which is how it feels to be in them, especially in the early morning when no one else is about.    You hear a rooster here and there, a dog barking, a donkey perhaps, a musin singing the call for prayer from a nearby mosque, and there you are alone, in the shadows of morning surrounded by ancient artworks and symphonies of stone created by master artisans....  

All  Images   Copyright

Caroline Daves © 2010

The Ramesseum:   Ramses 11 Mortuary Temple, West Bank Thebes


“Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley


I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

.............


Another great place of curiosity can be found behind the main structure of Abydos Temple (dedicated to Osiris, Lord of the Underworld - the Duat).   Constructed below ground level of Abydos Temple, the massive pillars are red Aswan granite, some weigh up to one hundred tons.  The Temple is also built into an artificial mound with watery foundations to which some scholars associate the creation myth of the mound emerging from the water,  and not the tomb of Osiris.     The only other temple known of presently, that has a similar construction and size is the Valley Temple on the Giza Plateau.  


I recommend taking a trip to Egypt with John Anthony West    His books The Traveler’s Key to Ancient Egypt   (the best “travel guide” on Egypt,  and much more than that)   and   Serpent In The Sky   are great books to have and will deepen your understanding and perspective of ancient Egypt you won’t discover in other history books.

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