Sobek-Horus, Shiva-Vishnu.. same same but different

The previous post in this series is here..

Our cruise docked at its first stop, Kom Ombo!

Every ship had docked at around the same time to catch the sunset and it was like a zoo. We could hardly hear our guide in that crowd. To top things off, many guides had powerful laser pointers that should have been banned for public use given their power. They were blinding and for some reason the tourguides were all trying to one up each other in pointing.. that made for bad photos! 

Our guide Walid told us that this was a very special temple that survived intact inspite of all the changes in Egypt over time. 

Special because there was the faction from the North that predominantly believed in the Falcon god Horus. The southern folks were all with the crocodile god Sobek. 

This was cause for a lot of concern. So a great unifier built a temple that had two entrances, similar murals on either side , two side by side shrines and the back wall with a description that split everything including the festivals, offerings, etc. right down the middle. 

As a kid raised in India, could understand some of this. There is always Shiva temples and Vishnu temples and followers of one don't necessarily go to the other even though they acknowledge them both as gods. This wasn't any different. (We actually have a temple in Livermore called the Shiva Vishnu temple, so everyone goes.. it has two shrines but only one entrance. that is progress over the years for you!)

 

There is also some other intersesting stuff at this temple. A scribe on the wall that shows the 12 months and the season during the months. Apparently the Romans moved from 10 months to 12 months after coming to Egypt and realizing that 12 months made sense with the solar and lunar cycles. They inserted July and August as months to commemorate Julius Ceasar and Augustus. (November was the original 9th month). We knew this from history but didn't know this connection with Egyptian temple!

Then there is an inscription of all the surgical instruments used during birthing. There was a Royal birthing room at this temple where surgeons used to practice their craft! It was fascinating. 

We got some photos of this temple that keeps going on and on length wise, with the two parallel tracks for the two gods. 

Finally we came down to yet another interesting area. The crocodile museum. They had so many mummified crocodiles.. some of them more than 20 feet long ! We learned more about Sobek here! 

Then we were late! The boat was going to depart at 7:30 PM latest at dinner time. There was still a crowd trying to get to the docks. I delayed the group trying to find a fridge magnet.

The boat stack up one behind the other, from the dock and you go through multiple boats before you get to yours! 

We all raced to the boat and were almost the last group to get in before they started moving! 

Did have time to set everyone up for this masterpiece(and I say that loosely) in front of the mirror. They had started putting Christmas decorations in the dining area! Group photos are challenging.. makign everyone look at themselves in the mirror instead of my camera in the mirror was intersting.. then I looked down and messed up a few shots.. 

A video highlight of Kom Ombo..

We were going to travel and dock sometime late in the night at our second stop for the cruise. 

Walid gave us that look again after dinner. Slightly better but a 5 AM start from the reception area the following morning! We had already gotten used to this. A 3:30 AM wake up to fly, 4AM start to drive to Abu Simbel the next day and now, a 5AM start.

The trend was going in the right direction...

Narasimha' at the Egyptian Museum Cairo

Read that title as Narasimha Prime...

The previous post in this series is here..

One of the avatars of god Vishnu is Narasimha (Nar - human, Simha - lion) and has the head of a lion and body of a human.. 

In Egypt, we have the "prime" version.. the head of a human on the body of a lion.. everywhere! Two ancient cultures, just flip the part of the body that is animal. When I told the group  "get your blessings from the Egyptian Narasimhar!" there was a lot of eye rolling. They did appreciate the way my weird brain connects things.

After visiting the Pyramids and Sphinx, we drove across the Nile river into downtown Cairo in peak traffic to reach the Egyptian Museum. It is an old and amazing place. Still without a tourguide, we would have been lost. Ibrahim was upfront and said "I am going to hit the highlgihts and keep moving. So please keep up with me!" and we did.. 

There were a few amazing pieces here like the first steele of North and South Unification , the only statue of the first ruler (a very small figurine), some lifesize statutes of the kings and queens as well as giant statues of Anubis and the pharohs. 

Posting select photos here ..

 

The highlight of the museum of course was the King Tut section. There is a part of this section where photos and videos are allowed.. 

In a relatively small chamber they found so much!!

A fan with ivory handle and ostrich feathers that was miraculously preserved for 3000+ years

Jars with heads that screw on made of alabaster where king Tut's internal organs were separately mummified..

Jackals seem to be another commonality between the dead, spirit world and life after death. The Tantric worshipers who do penence sitting on dead bodies in a cemetary in India also wait for a Jackal to show up as part of the success of their ritual. Just thought it was an interesting parallel..

 

King Tut ruled for ~10 years and he was a kid. His tomb had treasures like this. Just imagine the larger empty tombs we visited earlier ! Rameses II was 93 when he passed on to his afterlife.. One can only imagine how much got looted from there...

We did get to see the golden mask and the actual coffins of king Tut. However there was no photos or videos allowed in that section. There were many guards continuosly following folks and making them delete photos. I just respected their rule and put my cameras away. That golden mask with blue black and gold is a few thousand years old made me think a lot. How can something that great just disappear ? No matter how impregnable they thought their tombs were, it just took less than 10 generations for folks to loot it all. Nothing is sacred. It just goes to show how insignificant and arrogant we are in todays age knowing what happened in the past. 

The rest of the photos are in this slideshow..

we walked past another section of large statues.. 

We then walked out of the musem through the place where the famous Egyptologist Auguste Mariette is buried right outside the museum. 

A video highlight of this visit..

After this we got back into the van and drove towards Giza again. Given the time constraint and the hunger levels, we had to eat in the van. Ibrahim picked up some vegetarian food for us. Sadly he realized there was not much I could have given everything there had sesame seeds. So I was given white rice cooked with vermiceli. It was plain rice but the vermicelli added a flavor to it and I gobbled it up. The rest of the group were very happy with the food and ganna (sugarcane juice) that was given. 

Our next stop in the next post!