Best Of

I think I need to revise the alternate name for this tour.

Last night while I continued my attempt to more accurately locate the recently discovered city of Aten I also did some research about Thebes (Luxor) and that entire area on the west bank. Last night I was reading articles and watching videos and lectures about the area. One specific especially interesting location got most of my attention- the Medinet Habu complex and funerary temple of Ramses III (see map in my post above). While I strayed from my original quest, I learned a few things.

First, wrt the previously announced discovery of Aten- though it is said to be the largest ancient city ever uncovered in Egypt, the ruins as shown in press releases do not appear to be what we would consider a city today. Though it appears to have been densely populated with many closely packed residential, commercial, and religious structures, it does not appear to cover an area we think of as a city.

The west bank area of Thebes was littered with many, of what has been referred to as funerary temples- from modest sized ones to the expansive Ramesseum. But, there are many more than what are annotated on any map like the one above and little or no trace remains of most of them.

The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (link) , founded in 1919 and continuing to this day is responsible for the discovery, excavation, and restoration of a number of sites in Thebes and throughout Egypt and the Middle East (along with funding support from USAID and private benefactors like the Rockefeller family). One lecture I watched was about the epigraphic studies at Medinet Habu by renown epigrapher Dr. W. Raymond Johnson. He is director of field studies at the Epigraphic Survey of the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, based at Chicago House in Luxor, Egypt. The mission of the Survey since its founding in 1924 has been to produce photographs and precise line drawings of the inscriptions and relief scenes on major temples and tombs at Luxor for publication. They have been instrumental in helping reconstruct ancient structures from piles of rubble by piecing together fragments of inscriptions and artwork.

Now back to my first statement- I suggested this is an ABT (Another Beautiful Tomb) tour. Others, due to descriptive or linguistic differences have suggested alternatives to the 'B', e.g. "blasted" or "bloody," but, I must revise my Egypt tour description- to the ABT² tour- Another Beautiful Tomb and Temple tour.

I don't have a tour company, but evidently have a "people"- the "Alans" were an ancient and medieval Iranian nomadic pastoral people of the Northern Caucasus. A branch of the Alans left the Steppes and headed westward, crossing the Rhine and eventually joined the Vandals before entering the Iberian peninsula. They were later defeated by the Visigoths and eventually crossed the Straits of Gibraltar to North Africa where they founded a powerful kingdom which lasted until its conquest by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I. It sounds like I'm making this stuff up. Seriously, check out the wiki at this link . Who knew?!?!?