A Little Day…

Three locations today on the West Bank of the Nile; The Valley of the Kings, Hapshepsut’s Temple and Howard Carter’s house. But you’ll forgive me for not having any photos of the Valley of the Kings due to a total ban on cameras, both still and video. Very peculiar. I quit understand banning them from tombs, if only to ward off stupid tourists using their flash when asked not to, but to deny photos of the Valley itself? Its really just a rubble-strewn path with rubbly hills on either side. I suppose with the volume of tourists generally visiting the Valley in previous years, the total ban could not be excepted for images outside the tombs due to people not listening to or reading the “please, no photography in the tombs” signs. In fact, despite a posted $1000 fine for sneaking your camera in anyway, I saw three people who had done so and were shooting images of tomb entrances and those hilly piles of rubble to either side. Big deal.

Off then to Hatshepsut’s temple, thoroughly-restored by the Poles. The image of this temple from its two massive flights of stairs leading up to it will be familiar to many. But it seems the familiarity has bred an acceptance of this temple as a de facto restoration of the original, whereas sooooo much has been restored that its original countenance can really only be guessed at. Early photographs show a literal pile of stone and rubble. When viewing a restored frieze, for example, perhaps 3 blocks out of twenty are original, and the entire staircase stretches are all new, most of the columns are new as well. There is virtually no statuary. My sister Jennifer rightly passes up visiting this location with each sojourn back here.

And then Howard Carter’s house. This was the house built for him during his excavations in the Valley of the Kings in the late teens and early 20s. Its lovely. Cool, with adobe-washed walls and curved doorways, it contains his bedroom, office, guest room and darkroom. The darkroom image below is the all-red one. Why red? I suppose because red lights were used in darkrooms (still can be) with paper-based emulsions. It is a small oasis of green in a sea of tan-coloured sand around it. Remarkable. It was only opened very recently and we feel lucky to have had a chance to see it.

That’s it. It was a little day.