Friday, April 21, 2006

Egypt's other wonders

A brief travel piece about Abu Simbel: "Mankind spread beyond Africa some 30,000 years ago, the anthropologists tell us, but a significant number stayed along the banks of the Nile River. What they accomplished 4,500 years ago is even more notable when you consider that they had just made the transition from a hunter-gatherer culture. Visiting what they left behind is a trip back in time like no other. Our trip to Egypt began in Cairo, but we were soon on a plane headed to what turned out to be my favorite site on our trip -- the temples at Abu Simbel, 700 miles south of Cairo near the Sudanese border. Abu Simbel was not rediscovered by modern man until the 19th century. Although the temples were built right on the bank of the Nile, like so many other monuments, Abu Simbel had become buried beneath the sands."

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