Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Egypt, day 4: Esna

The last stop on our day trip was to the Temple of Khnum in Esna. I was really excited to see this temple because apparently there are astrological motifs on the ceiling. Unfortunately it was a bit of a let down compared to the other things we had seen that day. Perhaps if we had started with this temple we would have been more impressed, but it just didn't compare to the others. It was quite small and simple (relatively speaking), and utterly in shambles, with bird droppings covering almost the entire inside.


The main facade


The temple sits on the original ground level of Esna and so we had to climb down to reach it


The astrological ceiling. Scorpio is easy to spot in the center but the rest is difficult to see.


We saw evidence of restoration efforts, but who knows at what rate they are progressing




Michael gives a sense of scale

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