Lake Nasser, of course, was created in the late 1960's with the building of the Aswan High Dam across the Nile River (a lower one was built by the Brits in 1899). It is now the second largest man-made lake in the world...huge and deep and home to immense crocodiles. The Nile flows through 9 African countries (beginning in Lake Victoria) before arrriving in Egypt and hence is full of nasty stuff like zebra and water buffalo parts--food for the crocs who keep it clean and hence are protected by the government. They grow to be 30' or more.
Not surprisingly, there is no swimming in Lake Nasser.
Not only does it boggle the mind how they moved these temples, which were cut into the rock originally--not built up out of stones, it is completely amazing to think about the exact methods (still unknown/unproven) they used to build them in the first place.
The four seated statues all represent Ramses II...and were moved (after being cut into pieces, numbered and so on) exactly as they were found. The head of the second Ramses from the left is missing, knocked to ground by an earthquake in something like 27 AD. You can see the head below his feet--as found. They also built the mountain above/behind the temple to resemble the orginal location.
It also turns out that graffiti is not such a new idea...this details shows names and dates carved into Ramses leg by visiting British, French and Italian soldiers.
This is one of many local men who work around the temples--he was making sure that no one took pictures inside the temple, and seemed very cheerful.
The Abercrombie & Kent rep found us after the flight back to Aswan to board the Nile Adventurer, but took us instead to the A & K's Sunboat IV. Turns out that we were the only ones booked on the Adventurer, so they sent back to Luxor empty to pick up people booked on the next cruise, a they consolidated us onto the very much upscale Sunboat IV. This ship holds 87 passengers, but there are only 22 of us aboard for this cruise!! We have met a family from Tennessee, another from London and another from Brazil. Among them they have several teenage girls and a few boys, all of whom ask lots of questions about the history and seem quite interested.
The boat has an amazingly comfy upper deck.
And they serve lunch on the outdoor dining deck.
This morning we went to visit the temples at Philae, another set of temples that had to be moved...these because of repeated flooding, partially as a result of the dams. The upper Nile (in the south) area is home to the Nubian population, darker than Egyptians and they have a traditional language that is only spoken--there is no written alphabet or grammar. They run all the hundreds of boats that ferry visitors out to the restoration on an island. They wear long coats and wrap up with great scarves and also sell souveniers.
The temples before they were moved.
and in their new location.
Above the village surrounding the temples are several turrets that were erected as guard towers right after the 1997 massacre of 73 Swiss tourists at Luxor. They aren't manned any more. Our guide said that Egypt evacuated 2.5 million tourists in the two days after the shootings and it took 2 1/2 years before any tourists came back.
The views along the Nile are fascinating. There are farms, small islands with herds of donkeys, pumping stations for banana plantations...some very lush and green sections, some sections where you can see the demarkation between the areas that get water and the desert beyond.
and in some places, like Kom Omombo, you can see temples right from the boats.
We're learning alot about how the temples were abandoned when the Christians came in, covered with sand over the succeeding centuries, the rediscovered in the 19th century by French and British explorers and ultimately restored (well, not restored, but preserved). A Frenchman named David Roberts explored during the late 1830's and left incredibly detailed drawing of the Sphinx, the temples at Luxor and much, much more, so we can see the exact extant to which everything was buried.
To bed now...we've made some friends and are looking forward to Luxor and the Valley of the Kings tomorrow.
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