This colossal statue of King Tutankhamun (at 17 ft. 4 in., the tallest ancient Egyptian statue in the Western Hemisphere, and weighing in at approximately 12,000 pounds) can be found at the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago. I took this photo during my Egyptology tour of Chicago in early August. The statue was discovered near Medinet Habu (west bank at Luxor--ancient Thebes) in the Temple of Aye and Horemheb in 1930.
Well, I'm chuffed! This photo has been selected for inclusion in the entry about the Legion of Honor in the Schmap San Francisco Guide (online) 3rd edition.
This is a photo I took at Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir el Bahri. Check out the latest buzz about her mummy by clicking on the title of this post.
I'm on my way back to California via Paris. We spent the day yesterday in Père Lachaise Cemetery, and I made a point of paying hommage to "decoder" Champollion (you know–the Rosetta Stone, hieroglyphs...). I think it's also great that he was a municipal librarian. Only the best and the brightest!
Wishing you "new life" and an abundance of joy!
One of the delights of my late afternoon visit was to be able to see the Abu el-Haggag Mosque in sunlight! This almost surreal juxtaposition of the ancient (1550 BC) and the merely old (ca. 969 AD) in the same space is fascinating. This original entrance to the mosque has three arches covered with marble and faience. Inside the mosque, there is a niche of simple design that is free of ornaments. There is also a small grave in which Yousef Ibn Abdel-Raheem, known as Abu Al-Haggag, was buried. On the top of the mosque, there is also a row of balconies that were built with baked bricks as it was restored in AD 1914 by Khedive Abbas Helmy the Second. 
My primary reason for wanting to visit the temple was to see the newly cleaned Roman wall paintings in the Chamber of the Divine King. The chamber had served as a bark shrine but was converted to a chapel for the Roman imperial cult. Scenes of Amenhotep III and Amun were plastered over and painted with scenes of Roman officials. [NB: There is a long-held belief which still surfaces on many websites about Ancient Egypt and is promulgated by many of the Egyptian guides that this room served as a Christian church and that the scenes were actually renderings of the Last Supper! In fact, it was on this spot that early Christians were made to forcibly declare their allegiance to the Roman god-emperor.] Just last year the Egyptian Antiquities Conservation Project under the auspices of the American Research Center in Egypt launched a major effort to clean and conserve these unique paintings with the assistance of a group of Italian conservators. The first stage was completed earlier this season, and I had not yet seen the results without scaffolding in front. The paintings are remarkably beautiful, as you can see in this photo.
Sophie is one of the three tiny kitties who came to live with us at CH (they were born in Cairo) last season. As you can see, he (yes, Sophie's a boy!) is no longer tiny! But he is truly a sweetheart of a cat :-} One morning I was snapping photos of him in the backlight of one of my bedroom windows when he assumed this pose. It's been a very popular photo among the cat lovers on Flickr!
Shopping in Luxor is always an adventure. The day these photos were taken we were bringing fabric which one of us had purchased in Cairo to be made into curtains for her rooms at CH. As I waited outside for the confab to finish up (there were three people from CH--our driver, one of our artists and the person wanting the curtains--jammed into the tiny shop, in addition to the tailor! And they were joined by two Egyptian women who needed some work done, but were more than happy to observe the "hawagas" in action while waiting!!) I took these photos of some of the buildings across the street. There's an interesting mix of architectural styles in Luxor as you can see. Unfortunately for those of us who value examples of Egypt's more modern history, there is a concerted effort underway to tear down much of the lovely 18th and 19th century city and replace it with generic Egyptian 21st century construction.
Better late than never, right? This is one of the first photos I took in Egypt this season, from the roof of CH. Because it moves back 10 or 11 days every year, next season Ramadan will have ended by the time we arrive.
