Did you know the Egyptians did heart surgery and knee replacements?
By Eileen Ogintz
ABU SIMBAL, Egypt — Talk about the power of play! A young boy named Simbal was playing in the sand at this Egyptian desert village not far from the Nile River when he felt something strange.
He kept digging and uncovered some carved baboons and hieroglyphics, Ancient Egyptian drawings that told stories. The boy raced home and told his dad. Word quickly reached the Swiss who quickly made their way to the site 90 miles North of the Equator near the border of Sudan. That was in 1840.
What the boy had stumbled on was a magnificent ancient temple built by King Ramses II around 1300 BC; He built a smaller adjacent temple for his favorite of his four wives, Nefertari which he dedicated to the goddess Hathor. Magnificent as these edifices were, Ramses II was said to have never seen them in person — because he saw renditions and didn’t like they way he looked.
He loved his wife a lot, our Abercrombie & Kent Guide and Egyptologist Essam Zeid told us, but noted at Nefertari’s temple, there was a gigantic statue of Ramses II next to a much smaller one of her,” Zeid laughed. Does Ramses’ narcissism remind you of anyone you may know?
Our group of 17 sailing on Abercrombie & Kent’s boat the SunBoat IV on the Nile River, flew to see these magnificent temples early this morning—about 2oo miles south of Assam—and then flew Assam in the afternoon.
This temple is now known as Abu Simbal which translates to mean the father of Simbal. It is a top attraction in Egypt, not only because of the magnificent scenes carved into the walls and the giant statues, some more than 90 feet high, but the fact that in the 1960s, these temples were moved to prevent them from being sunk under the water of the huge Lake Nassar(220 miles long!) , created by the construction of the Lake Nassar High Dam.
Fifty-one Nations through UNESCO and including the United States contributed millions for the project. Jacqueline Kennedy, a keen admirer of Ancient Egypt, was instrumental in getting the Kennedy Administration to contribute, according to the book by Lynne Olson, Empress of the Nile, a biography of Christiane Desroche-Noblecourt ., an early French Archeologist who worked against the clock to save this and several others from being submerged in the new Lake Nasser. They included the Temple of Dendur, which in return for the United States money was sent to the US and is now in a wing built for it at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. (Jacqueline Kennedy had lobbied unsuccessfully for the Temple to be placed in Washington, DC)
The story of how the temples were moved is as amazing as the temples themselves. The statues and walls were cut into some 30,000 pieces, Zeid told us, their roofs supported by iron scaffolds and lifted by cranes where they were reassembled on this high plateau near the temples’ original location like a giant puzzle. It took four years to accomplish.
That’s why today travelers can come from around the world to marvel at what Ramses II built. Fun fact: He had 110 children.
Ramses II built this temple for himself and to be adored by the gods Amun and Ra. Besides the giant statues outside and lining the corridor of the main door, there are exquisitely preserved carvings on the walls including a throne decorated by the symbol of the union which shows Hapi the god of the Nile tie the lotus flower of the south and the papyrus of the north. There are carvings showing Ramses II and his wife Nefertari burn incense and present offerings to the gods including to the sacred boat of Amun Others are dominated by war scenes with Ramses II in a chariot followed by six of his sons attacking a Syrian fortress while the soldiers beg for mercy. Another depicts him ordering his army generals to beat Hittite spies.
Our group was mesmerized. “The stories on the walls were really dramatic,” observed the 17-year-old NYC teen who is on this trip with her family. “I think you can tell a lot about their personalities from seeing them.”
In fact, Ramses II wanted to distinguish himself from other kings, Zeid said. He did so by showing himself in a chariot and practicing archery.
The much smaller temple of Nefertari includes a rock cut that depicts their 12 sons and daughters as well as the giant statue of Ramos II and the much, much smaller one of his wife. Inside the great hall are six square pillars with the face of the goddess. We see Nefertari before the goddess offering flowers and in other images, Ramses II offering flowers to the god Horus.
Lake Nasser, incidentally, now is one of the largest lakes in the world famous for fishing and for irrigating some 700,000 acres where organic fruits and vegetables as well as dates are successfully grown. The lake can provide enough water for the entire country of Egypt for 20 years, Zeid said.
We are just glad that Archeologist Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt and others worked so hard to save these treasures.
Everywhere we go, there is so much to learn. Who knew crocodiles could help women get pregnant? At the Greek-Roman temple dedicated to Horus, the sun God, and Sobek, the crocodile god, we learned that women struggling with infertility in ancient times would come to Kom Ombo to make offerings because the Nile Crocodile was considered the most fertile animal (so many eggs!) This is also believed to be the site of the first maternity hospital as there are fabulous carvings of women on a birthing stool, of a baby being born and of women nursing. The first Caesarian Section was believed to have been formed here (later named after the Roman emperor of the same name).
There is even a museum of mummified crocodiles, some still in their mummy wrappings. “They worshipped the spirit of the animal,” explained our guide, Essam Zaid.
“That was really cool,” declared one of the two teens in our group after seeing the museum.
We also see visual proof of how advanced the Ancient Egyptians were as physicians—according to the carvings on the wall. There are directions for prescriptions, tools used in surgeries and more. They had developed techniques for open heart surgery and knee replacements, even root canals, Zaid said.
Let’s not forget Cleopatra. We see her being showered to purify her for being queen (reminiscent of baptism) and being crowned by goddesses. “You think she was beautiful, but she wasn’t,” Zaid said.
We had to navigate crowds at every turn. This is a small temple and the crowds were intense, making it difficult to move at some points. That is a small price to pay for such a window into Ancient Egypt.