Ancient Times

thatlittleegyptologist:

Since Beni Hassan was so popular yesterday and I did mention Amarna and its masses of steps I thought I’d bring you pictures. 

Amarna was pretty awesome despite the fact that when I visited I was a) ill, b) functioning on 2 hours sleep having had the alarm sound at 4am and c) we’d been on the coach for approximately 8 hours by the time we got there. 

It was SO hot. And I’m not talking “oh its a hot country of course it’s going to be hot” heat I’m talking “afsgkilsdjfdfbvcx!!” type heat (possibly around 50c which wasn’t the hottest we had on the trip. According to Richard it was 57c when we were at Deir el Medina). Fortunately for us there was also strong gusts of wind which cooled us down and inevitably dried us off yuck 

The tombs were pretty awesome. Sadly not a lot left of Akhenaten’s (water damage) but the tunnels in there were immense! The North tombs (see above) were tricky to climb to, pretty awesome and resulted in a group of 18-23 year old women running for their lives when a poisonous snake came out of it’s burrow. Luckily the guard shot it. Not so lucky for the snake. 

The best tomb there in my opinion is Ay’s. The columns in there were superb and we had free run of it (as we did most temples until we got to Edfu. Oh dear god Edfu. But that’s another story). By this point we were well on our guard for snakes so shrieks were heard every time someone thought there was rustling. 

Overall opinion of Amarna: Pretty tombs…..mostly sand. 

(via rudjedet)