The 2005 Tour
Our group of 44 enthusiastic amateur archaeologists spent 23 days touring the major archaeological and historical sites of Egypt, Jordan and Israel during our annual tour.
Our first day in Cairo was spent at the Pharaonic Village, where ancient Egypt comes to life using reconstructed houses and temples and dozens of costumed actors.
The next day we flew to Luxor, 500 miles south of Cairo in Upper Egypt where we spent five relaxing days in a luxury hotel overlooking the Valley of the Kings on the other side the Nile River.
At the Temple of Karnak our group was suitably overawed by the 65 foot stone columns in the hypostyle hall and the massive reliefs covering the walls. Restoration work continues and has even involved the relocation of the large granite scarab from its time-honoured location at the northwestern corner of the sacred lake. Now it is in a more accessible position on the western end. Dedicated by Amenhotep III, the stone scarab, or dung beetle, was believed to be a god of resurrection.
We also saw the colonnaded courtyard, beneath which French archaeologist George Legrain discovered a cache of over 1000 statues in 1899 and went on to recover 17,000 artefacts of bronze, wood and stone between 1902-1905. I later visited the special exhibition in the basement of the Cairo Museum to view 25 of the fine stone statues he found. The statues include several kings, their wives and viziers, as well as statues of noblemen and scribes. This year marks the 100th anniversary of Legrain's discovery.
The exhibition also features the work of Jean Francois Champollion who deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Cairo Museum's very poor replica of the Rosetta Stone has been temporarily relocated downstairs for the exhibition. On display beside it were Champollion's original notebooks in which he worked out the meanings for many of the hieroglyphs. Also on show was a copy of Champollion's "Lettre a M Dacier" published in 1822 in which he announced his discovery and outlined the rudiments of the language for the first time.
High fences surround large sections of the ground behind the two huge statues of Amenhotep III known as the "Colossi of Memnon". Recent finds have included building blocks and carved stones, as well as a huge statue of Amenhotep and his wife Tiye. This is the site of Amenhotep's mortuary temple on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor, close to the Valley of the Kings where he was buried. Our group later visited the famous valley and explored three of the royal tombs with their elaborate paintings covering almost every wall. We also entered the tomb of Tutankhamen where the body of the king has been returned to its golden coffin after the recent CT scans of his mummy.
On a day trip from Luxor, we travelled to the temple of Sethi I at Abydos with its famous king list and also saw the Ptolemaic Hathor temple at Denderra. Then on our trip south to Aswan, we visited the temple of Horus and the double temple to the gods Horus and Sobek at Kom Ombo. This temple features some fine reliefs of the god Sobek on the right hand half of the temple and even some mummified crocodiles in a dusty glass case in a small chapel beside the temple.
The most famous tourist attraction in Aswan is the Temple of Isis on the Island of Philae. Along with large crowds we explored the temple and its surrounding buildings in its beautiful setting.
The antiquities authority has opened up a large new area of the quarries from which the ancient Egyptians obtained much of the granite for their temples and other building projects, including the covering for the outside of at least one pyramid, that of Menkaure at Gizeh. Archaeologists have identified the beds where at least 7 obelisks were cut out in antiquity. One obelisk is still in the quarry but was rejected because of a fault in the stone. It is known as the Unfinished Obelisk and if completed it would have been one of the largest ever made, standing 136' 6" high and weighing 1170 tons. From the quarry, a massive causeway ran down to the river at Aswan to facilitate the transport of the huge blocks of stone. Part of the causeway is still visible and in use today.
Because our departure time from Aswan had to be changed, we were able to add an extra feature to this year's tour. We hired a boat and crossed over to Elephantine Island in the middle of the Nile River at Aswan. The island is named on account of the water-worn granite blocks in the water that appear like the backs of elephants. We toured the small museum on the island. The items displayed included a collection of Ptolemaic mummies, one of which was of a child. There were weapons and tools from the Old Kingdom, pottery from the Middle Kingdom, cosmetic caskets and alabaster vessels from the New Kingdom, as well as ritual and sacred objects, amulets and charms from all periods.
Around the museum are various temples and other buildings, some which have been moved from other sites and reconstructed here, including temples from the 6th Dynasty, the 18th Dynasty and the Ptolemaic era. A large area of the ancient village, with its houses and temples made of mud-brick, has been excavated. Of special interest to our group was the ancient Nileometer. Walking down the steps beside the river, we saw the marks on the walls that recorded the depth of the annual flood each year. The Nileometer was restored in 1870 and still functioned until the construction of the High Dam in the 1960s.
With the increase in tourism to Egypt, the only changes at Gizeh were the large crowds of people and the increased admission prices. Our group was again fortunate to obtain tickets to enter the pyramid of Khufu and for many this was a highlight. Afterwards we saw the perfectly preserved Solar Boat that was discovered in a pit behind the pyramid before walking down to the Sphinx to get those photographs everyone dreams about
We left Cairo and travelled under the Suez Canal and through the Sinai desert on our way south to Santa Katarina. We stayed in a motel at the base of Jebel Musa (Mt Moses) close to the Greek Orthodox monastery. In the morning some of our group climbed to the summit for a view of the surrounding mountains and valleys.
After crossing the border from Egypt into Jordan, we visited Petra, the long-anticipated favourite of all the group members. The entrance to the city is through the mile long Siq, a gorge between the cliffs ending at the spectacular temple of el-Khazneh, glowing pink in the early morning sun. From here some of the group climbed to the place of sacrifice or High Place, before joining the rest of the group in exploring the royal tombs, the Urn Tomb and the Silk Tomb. From there, the Roman road crosses the valley floor passing the Great Temple and the Nymphaeum or formal fountain. Our group was interested to see the elaborate mosaics found in the Byzantine church on the hillside above the city and also noticed the new excavations in the courtyard in front of the Temple of Isis (Kasr el Faroun).
The next day we crossed the Jordan River into Israel and spent the remainder of the day in the Israel Museum with its collection of artefacts including the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Some of the most famous digs in Israel have taken place in Jericho. Archaeologists like Garstang, Kenyon and Finkelstein have searched in vain for Joshua's fallen walls. Of course the Early Bronze Age fallen walls are there but most archaeologists have dated them according to the Egyptian chronology and placed them 600 years too early. No new digs have taken place at Jericho, but worse, the site is being neglected. With few tourists visiting the site, the tel is rapidly degrading. Explanatory signs have disappeared in the last year and archaeological baulks are overrun with weeds and are rapidly crumbling. Unless something is done to conserve what is still left, Jericho will become a total ruin.
More of Caesarea is excavated all the time and this year another new area was opened to visitors. The site includes a large nobleman's house from the Byzantine Period (4th-6th century AD) built over the earlier city level of Herod the Great (1st century AD). Boasting magnificent marble floors, a columned hall and extensive entertaining rooms, the house was right opposite the bathhouse. Here restoration work on the plastered walls was in progress on the day of our visit.
Caesarea is now a very large site indeed and our visit there included the restored theatre, the palace of Herod the Great jutting out into the sea and the nearby hippodrome. Some of our group were especially interested in the ruined guardhouse where St Paul was most probably imprisoned and where he spoke to the Roman governors Felix and Festus before appealing to Caesar in Rome.
As reported earlier, Dr Yizhar Hirschfeld has been excavating at the Roman city of Tiberias on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The city was built in the 1st century AD by Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great. A short visit to the excavation site south of the modern city revealed the outline of numerous buildings. The street plan was clear, and the doorways leading into various houses and shops were evident. Other excavations have exposed more of the Cardo, the main street of Roman Tiberias.
While the group explored the bazaars of Nazareth, I visited the newly opened "Nazareth Village," a replica of a typical village from the time of Jesus, similar to the Pharaonic Village in Cairo. The village contains houses, shops and a synagogue identical to Biblical times. Around the village are olive groves and fields growing the same crops as in ancient times, as well as wine and olive presses, giving the place the look and feel of a typical village in Israel 2000 years ago. Christian Arab guides lead tour groups around the displays and explain the daily life of people in that time while more than 100 costumed actors continue their work. Although not part of this year's itinerary, we plan to include the 1-hour tour of Nazareth Village in 2006.
During the time we spent in Jerusalem our group explored the bazaars of the Old City and took a guided walk from the Damascus Gate, along the Via Dolorosa to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. From there we walked down to the Western Wall, the only remains of the Jewish temple and saw the Moslem "Dome of the Rock" mosque on the site where the temple used to be.
Excavations are about to commence below the Moor's Gate (Bab es-Silsila), for years the only entrance for non-Moslems into the Haram esh-Sharif. The earth ramp was badly damaged in an earthquake some years ago, and now the decision has been taken to demolish the whole ramp and replace it with a bridge from the Western Wall plaza up to the gate. The excavation will allow for a large-scale archaeological project that will link the Western Wall from Barclay's Gate with the excavated area at the southern end of the wall. This is where we worked in 1995 to expose the huge stones from the temple lying on a Herodian street, an area now forming a large outdoor museum.
For many on the tour, the walk through Hezekiah's tunnel was another highlight. Hezekiah's tunnel, 1664 feet long, brought the water from outside the walls into the safety of the city and was constructed before the Assyrian invasion about 700 BC. The walk takes about 45 minutes through knee-deep water in total darkness - our group remembered to bring their torches so that they could see the pick marks on the wall and notice the point at which the marks changed direction. Hezekiah's workmen started from opposite ends and met in the middle.
The major find of the year however has been the Pool of Siloam in the southern part of the "City of David". Huge excavations in progress there have found part of the pool that received the water from the Gihon spring via Hezekiah's tunnel. One whole side of the pool, about 160 feet long, has so far been exposed, showing three flights of steps leading down into the pool.
After the three-week tour ended in Jerusalem, about half of our group opted to stay on for another week to join our archaeological dig at Mareshah, about 30 miles south-west of Jerusalem.
