Disappeared Inca Empire Supremacy CUZCO part 1 September 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cars, Chile, Cuzco, Destination, Flight Schedule, Sunblock, The Nile, Travel Clinic, Travellers Cheque , 2commentsMore than merely the capital of the Inca empire, the very name ‘Cuzco‘ in Quechua, the language of the Incas and still spoken today, means navel. It was the navel of the Inca world, the omphalos of their empire which at its height stretched over 2,000 miles (3,200km) from Chile in the south to Colombia in the north. It was both an administrative centre and holy city, and is said to have been conceived in the shape of a puma, with its head at Sacsahuaman, the great fortress of cyclopean stonework on the northern edge of modern Cuzco. (more…)
The Pharaoh’s Curse August 26, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cairo, Hotels, The Nile, Tour , 5commentsMONDAY
The blastfurnace heat at Aswan jumps off the tarmac and hits us like a blow as I lead my group towards the terminal building. “Keeping the River rest to clean your teeth?” nudges Doctor Whistler, pointing to my depleted bottle of mineral water. SUDAN v “Aha, that’s right!” I smile, through gritted teeth. My head’s pounding like a sledgehammer, and my stomach feels frail. I touch my pocket for the reassuring packet of Diocalm. Tour Directors aren’t allowed the luxury of being ill. Away from Cairo HQ I’m in sole charge of ninety physicians and their wives on a pre-congress beano — four days of cruising the Nile and doing the sites. (more…)
Egypt Ancient Thebes & its Necropolis continue… August 3, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Egypt, Flight Schedule, Memorial, Museum, Restaurant, The Nile, Tour, Trip , 6commentsHawkins crossed the Nile to the necropolis. This complex of mortuary temples and tombs hewn out of the living rock served many periods of ancient Egypt and covers a large area. The whole landscape is dominated by a remarkably regular pyramidical mountain. Atop it are the remains of a prehistoric mound, predating dynastic Egypt. It is difficult for a geomantic researcher not to consider that the shape of this peak was an important factor determining the Egyptians’ initial choice of this area as a major necropolis. (more…)
Egypt Ancient Thebes & its Necropolis August 3, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Cairo, Destination, Egypt, Hotels, Library, Memorial, Museum, The Nile , 5commentsThebes is the Greek name given to what was an ancient capital of Egypt, now most simply identified as Luxor, on the east side of the Nile about 370 miles (600km) south of Cairo. On the opposite side of the river is the great necropolis that includes the famed Valley of the Kings. (more…)
Boating in Eire Dolmens and Blarney, feeling of plunging Water, eXhilaration Adventure continue… July 25, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Air Tickets, Airlines, Asia, Cairo, Cars, China, Round The World, Sightseeing, Thailand, The Nile, Tokyo, Tour, Travel Gear, Travelling Bag, Trip, Victoria Falls , 3commentsLooking nervously over his shoulder in case the priest should hear, he scratched his head and rolled his eyes, all the time muttering that terrible word. Then suddenly he clicked his fingers and spat the word out.
“Pagans! Dere’s an old Protestant graveyard, overgrown now, you understand, up dere, by de old crossroads, as used to be dere.”
I waited patiently while he told me forty different ways to get there. Then, thanking him, I beat a hasty retreat to the sacristy door and knocked. (more…)
Hole in this sand continue… June 25, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Africa, Cairo, Cape Town, Egypt, Flight Schedule, Hotels, Round The World, The Nile, Victoria Falls , add a commentThe portion of sea deemed “safe” for bathing and surfing is marked by blue flags and an umpire’s chair. Does the immaculately-whiteclad, handsome-but-unintelligent umpire decide whether each death by drowning was fair play? He watches black frogmen emerge from the sea; soon they will haul in their golden treasure chests, spraying the worm-bubbling sand with ingots and ducats. Ah! It’s only surfboards they’re groping for. They are just the unchic relatives of those lemon, turquoise and sugar pink rubber-clad surfing super-heroes; those men who crouch, crest, lurch, then swirl in with the spent breakers and scrabble ignominiously at your feet. (more…)
My Perugia Travel Diary continue… June 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Aquarium, Art Gallery, Asia, China, Coliseum, Denmark, Destination, Dolphinarium, Egypt, England, Europe, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Greenland, Gymnasium, Iceland, Istanbul, Italy, Library, Memorial, Morocco, Museum, Norway, Oceanarium, Paris, Planetarium, Poland, Restaurant, Round The World, The Nile , add a commentMass cremation pits containing ashes and charred bones indicate that he feared a plague, but Carthaginian skeletons with all their teeth have been disinterred as well as the tombs, yielding cataphracts as well as bones, of thirty Carthaginian nobles.
Spello, the most appealing of the Umbrian hill towns, is still enclosed by Roman walls with five gates, the main one bearing the legend “Splendidissima Colonic Julia Hispellum” over the arch. According to Spellan tradition, a phallus carved in the inner wall of the Porta Urbica does not celebrate Orlando’s (Roland’s) amatory prowess but the range and perfect arc of his actus mingendi. Spello is noted for its restaurants and truffled cooking, its steep, winding, and narrow streets—all one-way only—its Roman towers and amphitheater. A Vocabolaro del Dialetto Spellano, compiled by NicolettaUgoccioni and published here last year, contains, at a thumb-through guess, 20,000 words in current usage—by a population of only 6,800. (more…)
My Perugia Travel Diary June 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, China, Egypt, Flight Schedule, Hotels, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, London, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, Round The World, Singapore, South Korea, The Nile, Victoria Falls , add a commentThe Brufani Hotel brings back memories of dinners with the Buitoni (pasta) and the Perugina (chocolate) tycoons, not here but in their homes. To judge by the absence of any renovation in the Brufani in the intervening third of a century, we assume that hotels in the smaller Umbrian towns are also not likely to have been upgraded since Smollett and Hazlitt griped about them.
The huge basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in the Tiber valley below Assisi was built to enclose the tiny church of the Porziuncola, whose walls are traditionally reputed to contain a stone from the tomb of the Virgin. Saint Francis died here in 1226, after, but not as a result of, throwing himself naked into the rose garden outside his small cell. His blood is supposed to have left a perpetual scarlet stain, but the roses bloom every spring, and the thorns have disappeared (miraculously). (more…)
Later Additions to the Temple of Karnak April 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Air Tickets, Beach Resorts, China, Egypt, Library, Lodges, Malaysia, Museum, South Africa, Thailand, The Nile, Travel Clinic , add a commentThis is a singular monument, perhaps unique among all those preserved in Egypt. Its general orientation is not east-west like the Amon sanctuary, but north-south. It is in rectangular form, divided into two parts that go along the entire length of the structure. The western part includes a colonnaded room whose minor axis is aligned with the axis of the sanctuary of Amon ; north of this room there are three chapels. The eastern section is subdivided into three parts: the southern part includes a colonnaded room surrounded by smaller rooms; the central part consists basically of three rooms aligned on their axis but oriented east-west; finally, the northern part includes a series of rooms that culminated to the north in a solar sanctuary (the same kind as we have seen in Hatshepsut’s funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri). (more…)
Egyptian Typical New Kingdom Temple April 17, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Beach Resorts, Egypt, Memorial, Museum, The Nile , add a commentWe have now arrived at the point where we can approach the temples of the New Kingdom as architectural constructions. One fact must be considered : every Egyptian temple was continuously subject to changes, which often meant that the old sections were absorbed by newer ones, or that certain parts were dismantled, their blocks then being used to fill up new parts or to serve as the foundations of new constructions. This last aspect of ancient Egyptian building technique has allowed us to establish the existence of still older structures in certain cases. (more…)
The Temple of Luxor April 14, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Art Gallery, Memorial, Museum, The Nile , add a commentWe have stressed that Karnak is not a temple but a complex of temples ; certainly there are a great many constructions of every size within the boundary wall space. Moreover, other temples adorned the city of Thebes outside the boundaries of the temple of Amon, even if they can be considered “dependent” upon the Karnak sanctuary proper. Thus, to the north, an avenue of sphinxes leads to a temple dedicated to the god Montu, just as another to the south leads to the above-mentioned temple of Mut. A second avenue of sphinxes, roughly parallel to the preceding southern one, connected the boundary of Karnak to another temple, much smaller, less complex, and not nearly so rich in historical remains as Karnak. Nonetheless, for the originality of its plan, for the better state of its preservation in certain places, and for the suggestiveness of its reflection in the Nile waters, this temple is one of the most popular tourist attractions. This is the temple of Luxor. (more…)
Abu Simbel and Medinet Habu April 11, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Egypt, The Nile , add a commentAfter what was said at the outset about the unsurpassed stone-cutting skill of the ancient Egyptians, the tour de force realized by Ramesses II’s architects at Abu Simbel in Nubia should come as no surprise. Yet it is understandable that these two sanctuaries — hewn out of the rock cliffs flanking the Nile at this point — continue to astonish visitors. Abu Simbel in recent years became the symbol of that part of Nubia submerged in the waters of the Nile as a result of the construction of the great Aswan Dam; the removal of the major parts of the monument to high ground is, in turn, one of the amazing achievements of modern technology. We shall, however, describe Abu Simbel as it was originally constructed in the rock cliffs bordering the Nile. (more…)
Final Stage of the New Kingdom April 11, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Egypt, The Nile , add a commentFor all the power and grandeur monopolized by these great pharaohs of the New Kingdom, we cannot ignore the role of the middle class in these developments. Near West Thebes, a village has been uncovered not far from Deir el-Medinet. Here lived the skilled workers employed in constructing the royal tombs and the notables’ tombs. Besides the rich documentation it has given us of the inhabitants’ daily life, this settlement has provided testimony of particular interest to us: the workers’ own tombs, situated in the hills that overlook the village. Common, humble people who came from every part of Egypt, yet they could afford the luxury of preparing tombs of more than one room, decorated with paintings that reveal to us in a singular manner the tastes of the lower levels of society. (more…)
Other Nineteenth Dynasty Temples April 11, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cairo, Egypt, Memorial, The Nile , add a commentIn discussing the great cult and ceremonial temples of the Eighteenth Dynasty, we did not explore the mortuary temples of the kings because they have been so poorly preserved. Their outer stones were taken off to be used for new constructions, and their inner cores became submerged by the flood waters and later covered over by cultivated fields. Their poor condition was probably also due to the fact that the further away, in time from the death of the king to whom these temples were dedicated, the more the cult tended to languish and then completely die. No pharaoh would be particularly interested in restoring the mortuary temple of one of his predecessors, and even less so in using the structures again, so that we have few remains of the Eighteenth Dynasty mortuary temples. However, it is known that the plan of these temples, in general, was not much different from that of Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahri ; that is, it had terraces and arcaded courtyards. (more…)
The Ptolemies Rule Egypt April 11, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Egypt, Greece, The Nile , add a commentDuring the many centuries that followed the end of the New Kingdom, Egypt was weakened by both internal rivalries and external pressures, often being literally invaded and ruled by foreigners, including Assyrians and Persians. By the time Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 332 B.C., the world had already changed profoundly. The Mediterranean basin had become the center of all political and economic life. The sea was dominated by Greece and Carthage; the power of Rome was beginning to take shape. Alexander’s general, Ptolemy, ruled Egypt after Alexander’s death in 323 B.C., and his successors, Macedonian-Greeks known as the Ptolemies, continued to rule Egypt for almost three centuries.
Ptolemaic Egypt was but one of the monarchies into which Alexander’s empire had been divided. This is not the place to discuss the profound changes made in the ancient world’s political system by these states; suffice it to say that each of these monarchies followed a policy of trying to make itself the leading country, each according to the particular social situation. (more…)
The Ptolemaic Temples April 9, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Egypt, The Nile , add a commentBefore examining specific temples, we should clarify one point. It is well known that in 30 B.C., as a result of the defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra’s fleet by Octavian, Egypt became a Roman province. There then began a period of Egyptian history that presents a number of problems substantially different even from those of the Ptolemaic epoch. Given their complexity, we cannot consider these problems here. For various reasons, the Roman emperors continued to enlarge and decorate even the basic parts of the Ptolemaic temples, so that these monuments exist today as a complex of elements from different ages. Nevertheless, contrary to what we have noted with the pharaonic temples, the Ptolemaic-Roman temples present considerable unity. As a result, it is almost impossible to separate single elements from the total context of a Ptolemaic monument. However, our discussion must concentrate on the way the Ptolemies approached the temples, even when the Roman influence is quite strong. (more…)
Tips For Trouble Free School Tours April 8, 2008
Posted by flyman in : Egypt, Flight Schedule, Library, The Nile , add a commentHere is an absolute travel guidebook for trouble school tours:
Catch all along a health check expert - If your finances permits for it and you require an additional chaperon on the tour, think about inviting your school nurse to stay on the tour with you. Additional substitutes can be the father and mothers of a learner that is a harbor or general practitioner. This being frequently will dig up a free of charge or at smallest amount cheap cost on the tour, but in response you will not enclose to be troubled as a great deal concerning what to do if a student gets ill once you depart.
Idea: If at all feasible take the school nurse. They comprise legal responsibility reporting throughout the school immediately in case somewhat goes incorrect. (more…)
The Significance of Ptolemaic Temples continue… April 7, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Egypt, The Nile , add a commentOne structure was especially typical of all the Ptolemaic temples: the birth house we have referred to previously. To understand it, we must first refer back to the myth of the divine birth of Queen Hatshepsut, painted on the walls of her funerary temple. Although other versions of this myth were employed at Luxor and Karnak by Amenhotep III and Ramesses II, it was in the Ptolemaic period that it was taken up again and developed. In fact, a separate structure was dedicated to the ritual of this myth, situated outside the enclosure of the typical Ptolemaic temple. Here there must have taken place a sort of sacred “birth,” which represented the decisive moment of the divine birth. It is interesting to note that, if during the pharaonic age such a myth was linked with the more personal construction of the individual king, during the Ptolemaic period every temple complex had a birth house. We can thus consider the Ptolemaic birth house as the final flowering of the ancient Egyptian tradition that saw every pharaoh build his own temple alongside the complex dedicated to the divinity. (more…)
Egypt’s Monuments Usurped by Foreigners continue… April 7, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Asia, Egypt, The Nile , add a commentAs for the great West Thebes sanctuaries, we know for certain that the temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu, and that of Ramesses II, were turned into citadels of sorts. Evidently the storerooms and boundary walls must have still been standing, and during difficult times the population used them as refuges. Hatshepsut’s sanctuary at Deir el-Bahri enjoyed a different destiny: it not only continued to function, but housed a new cult, that of Imhotep (Djoser’s architect, identified by the Greeks with their Aesculapius, patron of medicine) and Amenhotep, Son of Hapu. Possibly this indicates an attempt on the part of the Greeks to introduce their gods in the popular Egyptian beliefs. Certainly the popularity of these new divinities was due to the fact that they were “healing” gods that the poor people could appeal to in time of need.
We should also mention the unique case of the Colossi of Memnon. In Homer’s Iliad, Memnon, an Ethiopian hero, son of Aurora, went with his troops to the aid of Troy, and was tragically killed by Achilles. At first Ethiopia had no definite location in the minds of the Greeks; some held it was in Asia, others in Africa; (more…)
Egypt’s Monuments Usurped by Foreigners April 7, 2008
Posted by dodo in : The Nile , add a commentAmong the many treasures from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods — specifically, in the form of papyrus letters and receipts a large number have survived from the Theban zone. We are thus especially well informed about the situation of the monuments of this area, especially West Thebes. We have already noted that this was a unique case of a concentration of people who worked in connection with the local funerary activities. Political motives must have been the reason for such a concentration. Amenhotep III had already had a palace built near his mortuary temple (of which only the Colossi of Memnon remain), and we have seen how this was the place where the king met his people.
West Thebes thus developed into more than a “city of the dead” ; it became a meeting ground between the king and his people. This is also demonstrated by the palaces annexed to the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasty royal mortuary temples. Given these conditions, it is obvious to expect West Thebes to become the center of the unofficial religion of the country, the one not connected with Amon. We may recall the local cults at Deir el-Medinet, the workers’ village. Likewise, Amenhotep, Son of Hapu, prime minister of Amenhotep III, was granted the privilege of having his mortuary ten erected in this area. (more…)
