Karnak

Temples and Sites
by Orlando A

Today we went to Karnak temple. It was only a three block walk, we woke up and Candice gathered up some lunch stuff for the kids and we walked down the road a bit and went in. The site is huge and was quite impressive, athough there are areas closed and being reconstructed. Not bad though, considering the site lay buried in sand for about 1000 years.


It is humbling to consider the number of people throughout time who have walked through the space you occupy as you walk and sit in the temple. Meanwhile Russians walk by rudely and you try to ignore them. I thought Americans were the brash tourists of the world, not anymore! I met my first American in the last ten days sitting in a little shop inside the compound, she was nice as can be and from Connecticut. She operates tours here and has been doing so for over 20 some odd years. I wonder is she is followed down the street by vendors and such with chants of Obama! Probably not.


Anywhow, this temple was central to the worship of Amun, or Amon who is still a part of the amalgamated God form worshipped by many unbeknownst adherents to the mysteries around the world today in one form or another as they let it be, or so it is said. Of course the later Amen was synergized with the god Ra who is a solar diety and thus became Amen-Ra. While all this was going on, most other god concepts didn't exist or were just coming into existance.

Technically, our modern English name for the creator, "God", comes from the German Language as "Gott." This language didn't come into a full existance until after the 6th century AD. So the word assigned to name our creator, "God" didn't come into being until a thousand or so years later, than when Egyptian high culture was defining and communicating with God right in these here temples. Although I suppose that aspect of the creator was assigned to Ptah. But I digress.


We just scratched the surface with a three hour visit to the temple today. We saw the row of sphinxes, which originally led to the Nile, the Colossus of Ramses II, the Great Hypostle Hall and the obelisk of Hatshepsut. This is the largest obelisk in Egypt, since they been jacking them (well technically gifting them) and putting them in London, Paris, DC, New York and so on. Nice to see one still here though. We didn't go into the open air museum which is supposed to be magnificent. However, the kids were looking like they were draining down, and we had to force Asari to drink water when she started looking like a zombie. After a few minutes and a few nice drinks of water, she was fine, but we decided, better safe than sorry. We did manage a few other sites within Karnak however.



We were led in the back to the temple of Ptah where his headless statue and his wife Sekhmet's statue remains. I am still trying to get a grasp on everything here, however, I suspect the next temple we will head to is Luxor Temple, which is really an extension of this one, it is a few miles down the road, however, it is also beneath where I sit writing on my bed, because technically, the temple exists beneath as well, since we are only viewing excavated sections above ground. Happy halloween to all my US friends, picture me in the temples tonight, underground, drinking a brew with a mummy.