photo by Larry Luxner
Foto Friday – Cuba
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Author Archives: yalla2013
NAME THAT CITY & COUNTRY
This 2nd-century Roman theater is carved into a hillside in the middle of a lively national capital. Known as Philadelphia when the theater was built, the city was a member of the Decapolis, a group of 10 culturally-similar cities in the eastern Roman Empire. The theater seats 6,000 and is still used for concerts and other performances.
Can you name that city and country?
See below for answers.
Deir el-Medina, Egypt
Deir el-Medina – Valley of the Kings workers village on the west bank of the Nile, near Luxor
Deir el-Medina (also known as Valley of the Artisans) is the remains of a village near the Valley of the Kings, where the workers lived – architects, craftsmen and laborers – who designed and built the tombs that would usher their pharaohs to the world beyond.
This was extremely important work; a proper tomb helped ensure the pharaoh’s passage to the afterlife, as important for the people he left behind, his subjects, as it was for him. Although pharaohs were understood to be mortal men (and a very few women), they were believed to be a channel for divine power. Their actions directly affected whether Egypt was blessed or cursed by the gods. If pharaohs successfully entered the afterlife, they became fully divine and continued to represent their people as the sun god Ra and/or the god of the dead, Osiris.
Tomb builders and craftsmen worked in the oven-like insides of mountains by the light of small oil lamps. They carved long corridors and rooms out of solid rock with copper chisels. Rock walls were covered in plaster to make a smooth surface for the tomb paintings. Paints were made mostly from minerals. Blues and greens signified status because they were more expensive to produce.
The Egyptian Royal Cubit was the measurement used by the architects and engineers. It was approximately 52 centimeters, based on the length of the forearm from the elbow to the end of the middle finger. The cubit was subdivided into 7 palms, which were further subdivided into 4 fingers.
Egyptian Royal Cubit rod from the Louvre in Paris
We know a lot about the architect and foreman of Deir el-Medina during the reigns of Amenhotep II, Tutmose IV and Amenhotep II in the 14th century BCE. His name was Kha and his wife was Meryt. Their exquisite little funerary chapel in the village is beautifully painted with scenes of their everyday life as a kind of prayer for what they hoped to carry into the afterlife. Even better, in 1906 their tomb was discovered in the nearby hills, INTACT. It’s one of the very few Ancient Egyptian tombs discovered that was not robbed of its contents many centuries ago. Kha and Meryt were quite well to do, probably noble, and they packed beautifully crafted objects to serve them in eternity. The contents of the tomb are in the Egyptian Museum in Turin Italy.
small statue of Kha from his tomb, Egyptian Museum of Turin, Italy
objects from the tomb of Kha and Meryt, Egyptian Museum of Turin, Italy
objects from the tomb of Kha and Meryt, Egyptian Museum of Turin, Italy
Deir el-Medina makes a good contrast to the grandeur of the Valley of the Kings. Clear footprints of the homes and the very human scale of the place, as well as the scenes of everyday life in tomb paintings give a good sense of how average Egyptians lived 3,500 years ago. A number of jewel-like little tombs have been discovered and are open to visitors. Admission tickets generally allow entrance to 3 tombs, which ones will rotate. Extra admission may be required for some tombs and chapels.
wall painting from the tomb of Inerkhau, Deir el-Medina, Egypt
wall painting from the tomb of Pashedu, Deir el-Medina, Egypt
wall painting from the tomb of Sennedjeu, Deir el-Medina, Egypt
Temple of Hathor from the Ptolemaic period, more than 1,000 years after Kha and Meryt lived in Deir el-Medina
The path used by the workers to travel to work each day is still very usable and takes roughly an hour to walk.
Click here to see our tours to Egypt. Deir el-Medina can be added to fully private programs. Touring from Nile cruises may not include the site.
Foto Friday – Morocco
Fez tannery
Fez city walls
Fez
Meknes
lamps in the Marrakech medina
NAME THAT COUNTRY
Ait Ben Haddou, in the foothills of the High Atlas Mountains, is one of many old Berber fortified towns or kasrs in the south of our mystery country, a good example of the earthen architecture of the region. The large houses within the kasr are known in Arabic as kasbahs and small houses are ksour. You might recognize Ait Ben Haddou from these films (among many others): Gladiator, The Mummy, Kingdom of Heaven, Lawrence of Arabia, Alexander, Prince of Persia. Game of Thrones too!
Can you name that country?
See below for answers.
Kom el Shoqafa – the catacombs of Alexandria, Egypt
Kom el Shoqafa catacombs, Alexandria, Egypt
The Kom el Shoqafa catacombs of Alexandria were lost to the world for many centuries until discovered accidentally in 1900. The oft-cited tale of their discovery, that a donkey fell through the ceiling from the road above, may or may not be true.
The catacombs were carved from the bedrock in the 2nd century CE and used for about 200 years. They consist of three levels, with a central shaft. A funerary temple likely also stood on the surface over the tunnel entrance. A staircase winds around the shaft, which may have been used to lower bodies of the deceased to their final resting place. On the first level below the surface, there is a banquet hall, the Triclinium, where families of the deceased would feast at the time of burial and on periodic visits thereafter. The name of the catacombs, Kom el Shoqafa, translates to pile of shards, which refers to the large amounts of broken pottery found at the site. The pottery containing food for the funerary and memorial feasts was broken and left behind because it was considered tainted by the place of death. The 2nd and 3rd levels hold burial niches and chambers, including the so-called Hall of Caracalla, which contains the mass burial of Christians slaughtered by the Roman emperor Caracalla. The 3rd level is currently inaccessible due to flooding.
Kom el Shoqafa was built at a time of convergence of three cultures – Egyptian, Greek and Roman; and the unique, hybrid style of architecture and art within the necropolis may be its most interesting feature. Egyptian-style sarcophagi have been found, as well as niches for the remains of those who followed the Greek and Roman tradition of cremation.
We recommend visiting Kom el Shoqafa with a licensed guide.
Foto Friday – Jordan
Qasr Kharana
Qasr Amra fresco
Roman theater of Amman
Petra
NAME THAT COUNTRY
This is Jaffa, also known as Yafo. It’s one of the world’s oldest ports, a major commercial hub in the Mediterranean as early as the Bronze Age, at least. Just behind the headland, and peaking around the end, is a thoroughly modern city, where settlement began less than 150 years ago.
Christians know Jaffa as the place where Peter raised Tabitha from the dead and where a vision on the roof of Simon the Tanner’s house compelled him to preach to Gentiles, as well as Jews. Jonah set out from Jaffa port on his fishy adventure, as told in the Biblical Book of Jonah and in the Koran.
Can you name that country?
See below for answers.
Foto Friday – Ya’lla Groups
inside the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi
tea on the Nile
walking the Via Dolorosa in the Old City of Jerusalem
in the Royal Opera House of Muscat, Oman
riding through the streets of Trinidad de Cuba
NAME THAT COUNTRY
Pensive Athena, 5th-century BCE relief sculpture from the acropolis in the name-sake city-state of this goddess of wisdom, justice, civilization, the arts and warfare, among other things. The Acropolis Museum holds hundreds of artefacts from over a thousand years of history beginning around the 7th century BCE, when urban centers began to form around the country. About 1/2 of the sculptures from the Parthenon are on display, including 165 feet of the frieze.
Can you name that country?
See below for answers.
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