The shrine was built by King Sety I. (B.C. 1300), the father of Rameses the Great, for the benefit of the miners passing to and from the various gold mines near the Red Sea; and the story one hears from the modern engineers, which vaguely relates that the temple was erected by King Ptolemy as a memorial to his son, who died at this spot on his return from the mines, does not require consideration. During the brilliant reign of Sety I. the gold mines were energetically worked, and the produce of those upon the road to which this shrine was built was intended especially for the upkeep and ornamentation of the king’s great temple at Abydos, about 180 miles by river north of the Wady Abâd. There are so many old gold workings between the river and the Red Sea that one cannot say definitely where Sety’s miners were bound for who stopped to offer a prayer to the gods at this wayside shrine, but one may say certainly that Edfu, the old Apollinopolis Magna, and El Kab, the old Eileithyiaspolis, were the cities from which they set out. It will, perhaps, be best to state that Edfu stands on the Nile about half-way between Aswan and Luxor—i.e., about 520 miles above Cairo—and that El Kab is situated some 10 miles down-stream from Edfu. The Wady Abâd enters the desert exactly opposite Edfu; the shrine stands about 35 miles east of that town; and the Red Sea coast is about 100 miles farther east as the crow flies.
The Roman station of Abu Gehâd. Some of the rooms as seen from the court, looking west.—Page [152].
Front view of the Temple of Wady Abâd.—Page [155]
Pl. xxv.
Towards the end of March 1908, when the hot south winds were driving the tourists towards the sea, and the trains from Luxor to Cairo were full to overflowing, the writer and his wife set out in the opposite direction, travelling southwards in an empty train as far as the little wayside station of Mahamîd, the nearest stopping-place to the ruins of El Kab. The camels which were to carry us and our camp to Sety’s temple in the desert were awaiting us upon the platform, surrounded by an admiring throng of native loafers. The caravan, according to orders which were ultimately carried out, was to consist of ten baggage and four riding camels, and an assortment of camelmen under the leadership of a Shêkh; but more than double that number of camels lay grunting in the sunlight as the hot train panted into the station. This was due to the fact that a rival and more wealthy camel proprietor, who had not been invited to do business on this occasion, had sent a few camels to the rendezvous on the chance of their being required, and this move the chosen proprietor met by the doubling of the number of his camels. The disappointed owner was himself at the station, and eloquently dilated upon the danger of trusting oneself to a Shêkh of inferior standing. In the infallible ‘Baedeker’ one reads that for this journey it is necessary “to secure the protection of the Shêkh of the Ababdeh tribes”; and though the edition in which these ominous words appear is a few years out of date, one realised in what a dilemma a traveller who did not know the country might have found himself. The Shêkh, it appeared, had even telegraphed his warning to me at the last moment; but this having been really the last of a short series of cards which it seems that he had played, it did not require many words to soothe matters into the normal condition of hullabaloo which everywhere prevails in Egypt at the departure of a caravan.
The baggage at last being dispatched southwards, we set out towards the ruins of El Kab, which could be seen shimmering in the heat-haze a few miles away. It was our purpose to ride to Edfu, thence into the desert, and thence back to Edfu and on to Aswan. The first night was to be spent under the ruined walls of the ancient city of Eileithyiaspolis, and it did not take long to trot to the camping-ground by the river-side. Here, in explanation of the route which we followed, I must be permitted to enter into some archæological details in connection with El Kab and Edfu.
In archaic days, when the great Hawk-chieftains who glimmer, like pale stars, at the dawn of history were consolidating their power in Upper Egypt before conquering the whole Nile valley, there stood a city on the west bank of the river, opposite El Kab, which in later times was know as Hieraconpolis, “the city of the Hawks.” This was the earliest capital of Upper Egypt, and here it is probable that the great king Mena, “the Fighter,” the first Pharaoh of a united Egypt, was born and bred. This king and his father conquered the whole of Egypt, and for that conquest a certain amount of wealth was necessary, even in those days when might was as good as money. For this purpose, and for the reason that the arts of civilisation were already in practice, the gold mines of the Eastern Desert began to be worked. This industry led to the establishment of a station on the east bank of the river opposite the capital, where the miners might foregather, and where the caravans and their escort of soldiers might be collected.
As larger deeds and wider actions became the order of the Pharaoh’s day, so the mines were extended and the number of workmen increased; and it was not long before the station at El Kab grew into a city almost as large as the metropolis. In Dynasty XII. (B.C. 2000) a wall was built around it, which stands to this day, in order to protect it from incursions from the desert. Gradually great temples were erected here, and the city, now known as Nekheb and later as Eileithyiaspolis, was one of the busiest centres in the world.