Travels in the Upper Egyptian deserts

by Arthur E. P. Brome Weigall

The ruins of the old caravanserai are of wonderful interest. One may pass through the narrow doorway of the fortified enclosure, and in the silent area where once the soldiers and miners camped, and where now a few goats graze, one feels completely shut off from the world of the present day. The dark walls rise around one almost to their full height, and one may still ascend and descend the sloping ramps where the sentries paced in the olden days. Here there are the ruins of the temple where the vulture-goddess was worshipped; and yonder one sees the mounds of potsherds, bricks, corn-grinders, and all the débris of a forsaken town. In the side of a hill which overlooks the great ramparts one observes the long row of tombs in which the princes of the district were buried; and here in the biographical inscriptions on the walls one reads of many a feat of arms and many a brave adventure.

The Temple of Wady Abâd. The east end of the Portico. The square pillar was built in Græco-Roman times to support the broken architrave.—Page [155].

The Temple of Wady Abâd. The east wall of the Portico. The king is seen smiting a group of negroes.—Page [156].

Pl. xxvi.

The hills of the desert recede in a kind of bay here, and if one walks eastwards from the town one presently sees that there is, at the back of the bay, an outlet through the range, five miles or so from the river and the enclosure. It was through this natural gateway, which the ancient Egyptians called “the Mouth of the Wilderness,” that the caravans passed in early days into the great desert; and once through this doorway they were immediately shut off from the green Nile valley and all its busy life. There is a great isolated rock which stands in the bay; and in its shadow the miners and soldiers were wont to offer their last prayers to the gods of Egypt, often inscribing their names upon the smooth surface of the stone. Here one reads of priests, scribes, caravan-conductors, soldiers, superintendents of the gold mines, and all manner of officials, who were making the desert journey, or who had come to see its starting-point.

In Dynasty XVIII. Amonhotep III. (B.C. 1400) erected a graceful little temple here, to which one may walk or ride out from El Kab over the level, gravel-covered surface of the desert, and may stand amazed at the freshness of the colouring of the paintings on its wall. Another little shrine was built, close by, a century and a half later; and in Ptolemaic times a third temple was constructed. Thus one is surrounded by shrines as one sets out over the hills away from this land of shrines: it is as though the gods were loath to leave one, and in solemn company came out to speed the traveller on his way.

The road which the gold miners trod passed through the hills, and then turned off towards the south-east; and presently it met the road which started from Edfu, or rather from Contra Apollinopolis Magna, which, as has been said, is ten miles distant from El Kab. Edfu was also a city of great antiquity, and was famous as the place where at the dawn of Egyptian history the Hawk-tribes overthrew the worshippers of Set, the god who afterwards degenerated into Satan. The great temple which now stands there, and which is the delight of thousands of visitors each winter, was built upon the ruins of earlier temples where the hawk of Edfu had been worshipped since the beginning of things. The record of a tax levied on Edfu in the reign of Thothmes III. (B.C. 1500) shows that it was mainly paid in solid gold, instead of in kind; and one thus sees that the precious metal was coming into the country at that time along the Wady Abâd route, as indeed it was along all the great routes. Edfu was the main starting-point for the mines in the days when Sety I. built his temple, if one may judge from the fact that the hawk-god of that city is one of the chief deities worshipped in the shrine, while the vulture-goddess of El Kab has only a secondary place there; and in Roman times the Edfu road was perhaps the only one in general use.

This was the route which was selected for our journey; and after spending the night at El Kab, we rode next morning along the east bank of the river to a point at the mouth of the Wady Abâd, opposite the picturesque town of Edfu, where the pylons shoot up to the blue sky and dominate the cluster of brown houses and green trees. A morning swim in the river, and a trot of somewhat over two hours, was sufficient exercise for the first day; and the afternoon was spent in camp, while the camelmen collected the food for the journey and led their beasts down to the river to drink.