On our first morning in Egypt we stood in the shadow of the Sphinx, next to its great paws, listening to the city of Cairo gradually awakening as the sun rose. We felt we were uniquely privileged: tourists are just not permitted into the Sphinx enclosure but can only gaze down on it. For our trip to begin in this way was indeed a good omen.
    The day before, awaiting us on our arrival at Cairo airport, was Mohamed Nazmy, owner of Quest Tours, a highly efficient Giza-based company which was to conduct us throughout Egypt. At a counter reserved specially for us, we were issued with Egyptian visas, a personal service which was to be the mark of our tour. Our English Tour company, HPB Travel of Bury St Edmunds, had certainly delivered us into the right hands. ‘Welcome home’, said Mohamed to each of us as we received our documents.
    Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt, came to talk to us at our hotel: he spoke amusingly, and with a passionate love of Egypt and its past. He deplored the myths which have been invented about the past but explained that there was no lack of mysteries and adventure yet to come - he estimated that 70% of Ancient Egypt still lies buried beneath the sands.
    We were later to discover just how many treasures have not yet been found. On an exterior wall of the temple of Denderah is a carved record of the fifteen royal crowns and eight royal head-dresses used by the Pharaohs: none of these crowns or head-dresses have yet been excavated. Neither have the other symbols of royalty, the flails, the staffs and the royal thrones. Somewhere in Egypt they must still exist, awaiting discovery down some shaft beneath a rocky cliff or in some secret underground repository now long covered by blown sand.
    For many years Dr. Hawass was Director of the Giza Plateau and still maintains his office there. He knows many of its secrets: he has found four passages inside the Sphinx; he has found shafts and tunnels beneath the Plateau and suspects that there might yet be another chamber hidden inside the Great Pyramid. The latest plan is to produce a map of all these underground features’.
    Following Dr. Hawass’ talk we had the luxury of an evening tour in the Cairo Museum, for the occasion closed to the public, but kept open for us. We saw some prime exhibits including the treasures of Tutankhamun, and realised, with something of a shock, that his tomb was one of the smallest in the Valley of the Kings. What else must have once been there? We were shown that all the statues of the King or the gods are normally depicted as stepping off with their left foot, and learned that the left foot represented life – thus the statues were stepping into life, an important lesson for Freemasons. This was nowhere more important than in ancient Egypt, where images were first imbued with life and thereafter sustained through daily rituals. This animation of the temple images is one of the keys to understanding the world-view of the ancient Egyptians since, by this process, they believed that they ensured the constant presence of divinity in their temples, the continuation of the lifeforce.
    These were gods which were close by, not far removed in some celestial region. Mohamed, and his leading Egyptologist, Emil Shaker, are interested in the meaning and spirit of Egypt, both that of the ancient land and that of the present country. They further realise that this meaning is apprehended not just intellectually but also by the heart. For this reason they worked hard to place us in situations where we might feel – and feel deeply – the heart of the land.
    Allowing this experiential approach is no easy task. Anyone who has visited Egypt on a normal tour will know the agony of standing in a spectacular site with hundreds of others milling about, or of being crammed into a small Holy of Holies in a major Temple with bemused groups and struggling guides passing through in an endless stream. It is impossible to feel anything of the depth of spirit of these sites under such conditions. Mohamed is well aware of this and arranged for exclusive access to as many sites as possible. Since he apparently knows just about everyone, he can usually arrange for the sites to be specially opened. This exclusive access we felt as a great privilege: for example, we were given three hours inside the Great Pyramid at a time set aside in the day just for us. We had time to explore all the chambers and then, at a prearranged time, we gathered in the King’s Chamber and the lights in the Pyramid were extinguished for three-quarters of an hour. Emil lit two small candles; we sat in silent reflection. To experience this was unique – it transcended many feelings and other experiences of the day.

Sailing the Nile

After three days in Cairo we flew to Aswan and joined a luxurious Nile cruise-ship. Having seen the Pyramids of Giza, Dahshur and Saqqara, we were now preparing to begin a journey to understand the ancient Temples, the best surviving of which border the Nile in Upper Egypt.
    In approaching these Temples, we felt that we were approaching the seat, the heart of something deeply spiritual and life-enhancing. In ancient times these Temples were the site of daily but private rituals by initiates. The public were rarely admitted into the precincts, and never beyond the outer court. Each morning the most important observance was performed: before dawn the priests would rise and perform a great ritual in front of the Holy of Holies in order to awaken the God of the Temple. We felt a desire to begin our trip in attempting to recapture perhaps a glimmer of this feeling. The next morning we rose before dawn and travelled to the island of Philae with its Temple of Isis. In the footsteps as it were of those ancient priests, many centuries before, we walked slowly in the lightening darkness towards the Holy of Holies. We entered it and, in a time of silence, sought to feel the ancient residues which swirled about us. Afterwards we walked quietly over to the eastern side of the island, not far from the enigmatic Kiosk of Trajan with its rough and smooth ashlars, and there sat and watched the sun rise over Lake Nasser. We left just as the first tourist boats were arriving. Later that day we sailed to the healing temple of Kom Ombo and then on to Edfu, site of the great temple of Horus, the best preserved in Egypt and supposedly on the site where Horus defeated Seth, symbolic of light defeating darkness. That night we clattered in a long convoy of horsedrawn carriages through the darkened streets to visit the temple, another priceless site which had been specially opened for our group. We walked in, past the great entrance pylons, directly through the temple courts until we reached the Holy of Holies: at night, a very special place indeed.
    The next day we visited Esna and saw its remarkable astrological ceiling, after which we sailed on to Luxor, where we stopped for a few days to visit the vast Temples of Luxor, Medinat Habu and Karnak, with its stone forest of columns and its chapel of Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess who represents the mastery of aggression within the self, the only chapel left intact from Pharaonic times. Many members of our group found it compelling, suffused with a soft presence, and were reluctant to leave.
    On our way to the Valley of the Kings we visited the ancient village of Deir el Medina, whose inhabitants’ ancestors were those who built the tombs – and later robbed them. They now work as guardians of the tombs and carve souvenirs out of local stone which they sell. Every shop visit in Egypt begins with a demonstration and sales pitch; often with such amateur dramatics that alone justify the foray into commerce.
    ‘I have three types of alabaster’, began the owner holding up three pieces of stone and pointing with his foot at a very wobbly hand drill evidently dating from Pharaonic times.
    ‘But that’s not alabaster’, protested Emil looking more closely at one of the pieces.
    ‘I have two types of alabaster...’
    The Valley of the Kings’ tombs very often seem a crowded scrum but we were able to visit the tomb of Merenptah (Beloved of Ptah) in silence and, for a while down under the cliff in this deep shaft, to feel the thickened, tangible darkness when all the lights were turned off. Other tourists were prevented from entering until we had finished. Of course, how many would have appreciated the sudden darkness so deep beneath the ragged cliff is another matter.
    The last two days of our tour took us first to the Temple of Hathor at Denderah with its strange crypt lined by enigmatic and unique images and then to Abydos, to the Temple of Seti and the strange Osireion – traditionally the birthplace of Osiris – which seems to be a very ancient construction, far older than the adjacent temple. And so it was that we left Egypt musing upon yet another mystery: what if it were older? What would that mean?

Our tour was arranged by HPB Travel, Bury St Edmunds, telephone 01638 674 744. In Egypt we were conducted by Quest Travel of Giza, telephone (202) 386 8000, email quest@link.com.eg.