The Book of the Dead
In 2025
Egypt is not one trip so much as a stack of them. I had been here before — a Nile cruise in the mid-2000s, temples and tombs seen through a borrowed video camera and memory more than files — but in late 2025 I came back with proper kit and the same appetite for scale. The title is not a gimmick: the Book of the Dead is the name we give to the spells and illustrations that equipped the deceased for the underworld, and much of what still stands along the river is that same preoccupation made architecture — how to cross, how to be judged, how to endure.
This page is the spine of that return. Cairo first, then south by water and road through Luxor, Edfu, Kom Ombo, and Aswan, with a long day to Abu Simbel at the edge of the map. Each city and temple below links to its own write-up — the full text, galleries, and EXIF where I have it. Start here for the route; drill down for the detail.
Egypt
Cairo
Cairo does not ease you in — noise, scale, and traffic arrive all at once. Give it a day and the chaos reads as a system; then the pyramids, the museum, and the city’s older quarters show through.
Luxor
Thebes in all but name: Karnak, the Temple of Luxor, the west bank tombs, and Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple — the east bank for the living, the west for the dead, still legible after three thousand years.
Edfu
The Temple of Horus is among the best-preserved monuments in Egypt — colossal sandstone, hieroglyphs still telling their stories, and protected corners where blue and yellow paint survives.
Kom Ombo
A bend in the Nile and a temple doubled for Sobek and Horus the Elder — two sanctuaries, two hierarchies, mirrored down the same axis. Midday heat, empty courts, and crocodile mummies in the museum nearby.
Aswan
Southern Egypt’s gateway: granite narrows, Nubian colour on the riverbank, Philae and the High Dam, and a pace that feels more African than the north.
Abu Simbel
Ramesses II’s colossi at the country’s southern edge — cut into the cliff, dismantled and reassembled above Lake Nasser, and still aligned so sunlight reaches the sanctuary twice a year.