Abu Simbel

Ramesses II marked the southern end of his empire in Nubia with a temple engineered so precisely that a shaft of morning sunlight penetrated its deepest recesses only twice a year: on his birthday and his coronation day.

Lake Nasser would have swallowed it and many other Nubian monuments if UNESCO and other countries hadn't funded their elevation and relocation.

The Ramesses II temple, originally carved into the western bank of the Nile, now sits 200 feet higher than it did for more than 3000 years.  If not for the obviously artificial hill behind it, you might never guess that mostly Egyptian laborers carved the temple into numbered pieces and then reassembled them like a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle.  

Baboons line the top frieze perhaps because they greet dawn with raucous good cheer.

Falcons guard the entrance.  Sand buried them, like the rest of the temple, for centuries before its rediscovery in the early 19th century by a Swiss explorer.

Photos aren't allowed inside but a guard will let you hold his ankh for a tip.

Ramesses II honored Nefertari, his favorite wife, with a smaller temple next door.  Here, she's chiseled to personify Hathor, the mother of all gods.  Atypically, she's the same size as her husband.

Muhammad, our guide, was the only supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood that we encountered.  

I left wishing we had seen the temple caressed by the morning sun.  If direct sun could do this for my skin, imagine how golden the temples might have looked!

Karnak The Magnificent

I always thought Carnac the Magnificent was just a silly character that Johnny Carson did on "The Tonight Show" with Ed McMahon.  Our arrival in Luxor, once known as Thebes and the capital of the ancient world, changed that ignorant notion.  The late afternoon sun bathed Karnak Temple, one of the world's largest religious sites.  Many pharaohs added their own stamps over hundreds of years.

During construction, Egyptians worked their way up by elevating themselves on temporary mud walls.  And like most Egyptian temples, Karnak was built from the inside out.  That's why this eroded mud wall remains behind the entrance. 

A  sacred lake, deep inside the Precinct of Mut, an early earth and creation deity,  first marked the spot.  You'd worship water too if you lived in a desert.

More than 100 columns supported the missing roof of the enormous Hypostyle Hall.  Built on a north/south axis like all Egyptian temples, it reflects the centrality of the Nile in ancient culture. 

Colorful paintings, protected from the relentless Saharan sun, remain along with deep carvings.

Obelisks and smaller temples, too.

Dozens of sphinxes vie with statues of Ramesses II for camera love. 

 If the pharoah's feet are wrapped, he's dead. 

Left-food forward, his heart still beats.  And I'm not being sexist.  Few women ruled ancient Egypt. Cleopatra came much later, during Roman times.