At least you got to Abydos. In 1997 nobody was willing to take me – even the taxi drivers considered it too dangerous. As it turned out, Luxor was even more dangerous.
I know the current crisis has hit tourists but Egypt has been through it before and bounced back fairly quickly. What is different is that Cairo is worst affected. My guess this time is that Nile cruises will recover faster than Cairo tours but so far as I know Abydos is more accessible now than it was a decade ago.
When I took these photos in May 2010, they had even eliminated the need for convoys, so a taxi or minibus could to on its own schedule. I believe that is still the situation there. I did it once as part of the convoy in 2000 and we got to spend a whole 20 minutes in the temple then we were ordered out and it took another 2 hours to get the convoy organized to leave. I was not a happy camper! Let’s hope it is still as easy as I found it recently to get there.
I was offered a choice of the Ramses II temple at Abydos or Dendera on the last trip, so it appears to be open as well. I just wish I had gone there, but as I was leading people who had never been there before, I had to reluctantly take Dendera at the time.
Back in 2004 there was a Swiss-led project to assess the groundwater problem, which was considered to be highly dangerous to the site. They identified that the water came from local agricultural irrigation. There were a number of alternative solutions suggested but at the time none of the alternatives had been decided upon. In theory water was always supposed to flow into the site, to form a moat around the central platform of the main structure of the Osireion, but the Ancient Egyptians didn’t plan for modern complications, including fertilizers in the water.
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Great photo’s this is an area that ididn’t get to at Abydos
when i was in Egypt in 1991, but it an area I would still
love to explore.
At least you got to Abydos. In 1997 nobody was willing to take me – even the taxi drivers considered it too dangerous. As it turned out, Luxor was even more dangerous.
I know the current crisis has hit tourists but Egypt has been through it before and bounced back fairly quickly. What is different is that Cairo is worst affected. My guess this time is that Nile cruises will recover faster than Cairo tours but so far as I know Abydos is more accessible now than it was a decade ago.
When I took these photos in May 2010, they had even eliminated the need for convoys, so a taxi or minibus could to on its own schedule. I believe that is still the situation there. I did it once as part of the convoy in 2000 and we got to spend a whole 20 minutes in the temple then we were ordered out and it took another 2 hours to get the convoy organized to leave. I was not a happy camper! Let’s hope it is still as easy as I found it recently to get there.
I was offered a choice of the Ramses II temple at Abydos or Dendera on the last trip, so it appears to be open as well. I just wish I had gone there, but as I was leading people who had never been there before, I had to reluctantly take Dendera at the time.
Make that “go on its own schedule”!
Wow, that water table has really receded since the last time I was there!
Back in 2004 there was a Swiss-led project to assess the groundwater problem, which was considered to be highly dangerous to the site. They identified that the water came from local agricultural irrigation. There were a number of alternative solutions suggested but at the time none of the alternatives had been decided upon. In theory water was always supposed to flow into the site, to form a moat around the central platform of the main structure of the Osireion, but the Ancient Egyptians didn’t plan for modern complications, including fertilizers in the water.
Beautiful pictures. Thank you.