We walked back out of the Temple full of awe. An amazing place.
Karnak – Walking through the ancient wonders.
Civilisations come and go, wax and wane, makes you wonder.
History always provides perspective. What phase are we in? Waxing, cusping or waning? I think I know the answer.
Now that we have a global society will that make a big difference? Is culture becoming global? Will religions, cultures, nations and races come and go like before? Or will there just be jostling for position and status?
We wax and wane.
Egypt – Luxor – Karnak – into the magnificent interior.
The huge statues and hieroglyphics were immense. You could appreciate just how fabulous this would have been. It knocks you out.
Luxor – The Temple of Karnak
It was extremely impressive to see the remains of this incredible temple. It is salutary to see how mighty empires and religions fall. Our empire, culture and religions will one day be nothing more than a historical relic. All our lives and beliefs no more than traces.
Egypt – The Temple of Karnak – last shots of Wonder and Awe
All too soon it was time to go. I slowly made my way back through the complex taking the last shots.
We were incredibly lucky because there were hardly any visitors so I could take photos fairly easily.
A place of wonder and awe.
Egypt – Karnack – the Hieroglyphics
All over the walls and columns were the most amazing hieroglyphics. I couldn’t help taking lots of photos.
Egypt – the Temple of Karnak – Amun’s Temple – photos
Once inside the temple complex I began looking around. There was so much to see and photograph.
The rows od ramshead sphinxs in front of huge columns holding up great lintels.
A great column in the centre and a massive statue of the god.
As I went towards the Temple of Amun I was confronted with a whole row of statues – priests?? Gods?? Pharoahs??
Inside the temple I could see the old decoration. My imagination ran back to when this would have been gaudy with colour and rich costume.
All the walls and columns were carved with hieroglyphics and reliefs of gods, Pharaohs and inscriptions. The ceiling lintels still had some of their decoration.
The columns were enormous – creating avenues of majesty. It was huge.
The walls were intricately carved and decorated. Everywhere you looked there were incredible details to look at.
Entering the Magnificent Temple of Karnak – photos
We headed past the stalls of tourist merchandise and desperate traders. The terrorism that devastated Egypt has frightened off the tourists. Their living had evaporated. My eyes were fixed on the wonders ahead of me.
I could see the great wall of the temple. I was eager to get inside but I also wanted to calm myself down and appreciate everything around me. I did not want to miss anything.
On my right I noticed there was a mosque.
I was very taken with the obelisk, badly eroded but with all manner of heiroglyphs.
Ahead of me was an avenue with rows of ram-headed sphinxes. Back in the days, the effigies of the God Amun would be paraded down this avenue.
A lot of these were quite eroded by time but some were still very clear.
Each one of the sphinxes had a priest standing between its paws.
This was the beginning. I went in through the gate.
I was confronted with column and rows of more sphinxes.
A number of these seemed less eroded.
I was inside one of the greatest marvels of ancient times. So exciting.
Gods, Men and When – a poem about dead religions
I wrote this poem after walking through the temple of Karnak in Egypt recently and then visiting the glorious technicoloured tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
I was standing among the dead Gods and faith of the past.
This is another poem from my 8th book of poetry which will be appearing in print shortly.
Gods, Men and When
Dead gods and decaying pharaohs
Amid heaps of rock
Under a searing sun
Where it hardly ever rains.
Lost beliefs and faith
Strong enough to build empires,
Now buried in sand,
Slipping between the grains.
Such colossal majesty and splendour,
Built on sand
Without foundation.
Such fantastic effort and sacrifice,
Based on hope,
Binding a nation.
Such is the way of gods and men
They come and go,
Leave their mark
And vanish in the when.
Opher 21.4.2017
Gods, Men and When
It always seems to me that we never learn from the mistakes of the past or see ourselves in people who have gone before.
The mighty Egyptian empire was based around a philosophy that bound them together – that there was a god who had to be worshipped and sacrificed to, that the priests and pharaohs were special and had divine powers and had to be obeyed.
The religion unified the nation. The monuments, temples and tombs are testament to the power of that religion and the pharaohs. Huge enterprises, trade and war were undertaken merely in order to satisfy the gods. Massive expenditures of time, effort, manpower and resources were placed into building those tombs, statues, obelisks, pyramids, sphinxes and temples. Thousands, maybe millions died to complete them. Did the pharaohs really believe the lavish arrangements were the key to the afterlife? Or did they serve to denote power, solidify the status, impress enemies, and subjugate the people?
Who knows?
What we do know is that those gods and beliefs no longer hold sway. All that sacrifice, energy and effort was hollow. They were not real gods and that was not the way to the afterlife. Thousands of years, lives and sacrifice down the drain.
Yet we still appoint Kings and Bishops, Imams and Emperors, Popes and Dictators and create new gods to worship. Gods that are the real ones this time. Gods that will last for ever. Gods that demand sacrifice, worship and ever bigger temples, cathedrals, mosques and churches.
I cannot help thinking that a lot more could be achieved if we were to work out that the kings, bishops, imams, emperors, dictators, popes and the rest are just ordinary people, just like us, with inflated egos and a heap of psychological problems, that there is no god demanding that we dress in a certain way, pray five times a day and worship in peculiar manner, neither is there any afterlife. Then perhaps we could put our energies into a more equal society and do away with poverty, ignorance and the superrich and overly powerful.
We never seem to learn from the past.