Esna The “town of the fish"   The town of Esna (Ta-senet to the ancient Egyptians and Latopolis to the Greeks). Its name Ta-senet and Latopolis means “town of the fish” where the Nile perch was worshiped. The agricultural town of Esna is on the west bank of the Nile 55km south of Luxor. Cruise boats often make this town their first port of call after leaving Luxor to visit the remains of a Ptolemaic temple in the centre of the town. The temple was built almost nine metres below ground level and although the hypostyle hall was excavated by Marriett, the rest of the temple is still buried underneath the modern town. As a result the temple appears to sit in a large pit hollowed out from the town. it was dedicated to the god Khnum and several other deities, including Neith, Heka, Satet and Menheyet.   Esna Temple would once have been built to a plan similar to the temples at Edfu and Dendera but all that now remains is the hypostyle hall which was built by the Roman ...

Gebel Silsila is the name given to a rocky gorge between Kom Ombo and Edfu where the River Nile narrows and high sandstone cliffs come right down to the water’s edge. There was probably a series of rapids here in ancient times, dangerous to navigate, which naturally formed a frontier between the regions of Elephantine (Aswan) and Edfu. In Pharaonic times the river here was known as Khennui, the ‘place of rowing’. On the West bank there is a tall column of rock which has been dubbed ‘The Capstan’ because of a local legend which claims there was once a chain ( Silsila in Arabic) which ran from the East to the West Banks. Arthur Weigall in his ‘Antiquities of Egypt’ states that the name Silsileh , is a Roman corruption of the original Egyptian name for the town, Khol-Khol , meaning a barrier or frontier.    It is hardly surprising that by Dynasty XVIII, travellers had developed the custom of carving small shrines into the cliffs here, dedicating them to a variety o...

On the east bank of the Nile 100km south of Luxoris one of the oldest settlements of Upper Egypt. The ancient town of Nekheb was called Eleithyiaspolis in classical times and comprises of monuments spanning periods of Egyptian history from Predynastic through to Ptolemaic. El-Kab and its sister site of Hierakonpolis on the west bank of the river were the home of Nekbet, the vulture goddess of Upper Egypt.  Driving south along the road between Luxor and Aswan the visitor comes first upon the huge mudbrick walls of the town enclosure, 12m thick, which still contain within them the ruins of temples, cemeteries and a sacred lake. The central temple is the oldest of the remains, with its origins possibly dating to the Early Dynastic Period. Of the two ruined structures remaining today, the Temple of Thoth was begun by Amenhotep II in Dynasty XVIII and enlarged by later New Kingdom pharaohs. A contiguous monument, a larger Temple of Nekhbet built during the Late Period, part...

The private tomb of Kheruef (Kheruf), TT 192 in the Asasif district, is the largest such tomb on the West Bank at Luxor (ancient Thebes). Even though there is no evidence that Kheruef was ever buried here and it was unfinished, the tomb is one of the most important, both religiously and historically, in the Theban necropolis. It has helped us understand the history of rituals celebrating kingship. The owner was most likely an significant individual who organized the first and third jubilees for Amenhotep III, though he probably died in during the reign of Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten). He was a Royal Scribe and First Herald to the King, he was later appointed Steward to Queen Tiy.     The tomb is entered through a descending corridor that first leads to a large open court with pillared porticoes on both the east and west sides. This is the only portion of the tomb that is decorated. There is a possibility that, though most of the tomb had been constructed, at this poin...

Public holiday observed in Egypt on October 6, celebrating the day in 1973 when combined Egyptian and Syrian military forces launched a surprise attack on Israel and crossed into the Sinai Peninsula, which marked the beginning of the October (Yom Kippur) War. Egyptian Pres. Anwar el-Sadat planned the attack in an attempt to bolster Egyptian and Arab morale and to regain control of the Sinai territory that had been lost to Israel during the June (Six-Day) War in 1967. The plan met with initial success when more than 80,000 Egyptian soldiers crossed the Bar Lev line—massive fortifications built by the Israeli on the east side of the Suez Canal. The 1973 war is the fourth round in the Arab-Israeli armed struggle since 1948. In 1967, Israel occupied Syria's Golan Heights, the West Bank and Jerusalem, Sinai and the Suez Canal and for six years, it spent a lot on fortifying its positions on the East Bank, in what later came to be known as the Barlev Line.  Preparations for th...

  Two false toes, dating back to ancient Egypt, are believed to be the world's earliest-known prosthetic devices. Both are big toes from the right foot, and both were found near present-day Luxor. One toe, found in the 19th century, is tho ught to have been made in about 600 BC. It is crafted from one piece of cartonnage - a linen and animal glue version of papier-mache. The other toe dates back to between 950 and 710 BC. It was found attached to the foot of a mummy in a tomb just over ten years ago. This toe is comprised of three pieces, two are wood, the other possibly leather. It had been suggested that because ancient Egyptians believed the body should be prepared for the afterlife in a complete state, the toes were purely decorative. But new research by Dr. Jacky Finch at the KHN Centre for Biomedical Egyptology at the University of Manchester, England, proves otherwise. The toes were recreated to fit amputee volunteers and tested for flex, pressure, gai...