Al-Kab

I am not naturally a boat person, but I can honestly say...this is the way to go! I can see why Amelia peabody was so enamored with Dahibeyeh's as her preferred mode of transport! (That wont make sense to anyone who hasn't read Elizabeth Peter's books!!!! In answer to the question that everyone is DYING to know...unfortunately the Mezzuein DOES carry across the water! However, this morning I dint get up straight away to catch up with blogging...I managed to doze back to sleep! Sunrise on the calm waters of the Nile is beautiful, & with my ipod on, listening to David Suchet read Agatha Christie's 'Death on The Nile'...I cant think of anything more blissful! BUT we cant become too lazy...so after breakfast we disembarked & followed a dust track through farmland, past camels, buffalo & sugarcane to to the cave tombs of Al-Kab. These tombs are unusual because they are on the EAST bank, usually tombs are on the west, because the sun sets in the west. The ancient Egyptians believed in eternal life. They believed that man was like the sun; weak when it arose (born), strongest in mid life & getting weaker again as it sinks into the west(heads towards death. The analogy continues, that as the sun rises again to a new day, so too does man. Al-Kab chose to put their tombs on the East bank because their location was very susceptible to flooding & they wanted to protect the tombs. They are,however, facing west. We were able to see four tombs of Noblemen. The photo below show a section from a priest tomb, & represents the 10 doors. In the afterlife, the person has to pass through these ten gates, answer the question (ie; have you lusted after your neighbours wife?), in order to get to paradise. They are the Ancient Egyptian version of the Ten Commandments, EXCEPT, one of the questions asks, "Have you wasted the water of the Nile?" They were clearly ahead of their time in water conservation!!!