As you can see in the pics above and below, some of the original paint is still visible. In the pic above, you can just barely make out a person painted over the original styling on the column. In the third century AD, Roman emperor Constantine recognized the Christian religion and so the Egyptian pagan temples fell into disuse. Therefore, a Christian church were founded among some of the ruins - that's a painting of a saint you see on the column.
There is a great hypostyle hall that originally contained 134 columns in sixteen rows. The columns were massive, and once highly decorated.
You can see in the pic above that the coptic christians left their calling card of defacement.
In the pic above and below, check out the obelisks. One of these still standing was erected during the reign of the famous female pharaoh Hatshepsut. It's the tallest obelisk from the ancient world that's still upright.
This is what happens as you get older and travel... you see cool things and take pics, but forget the information you learned about the pic by the time you get home and download your amazing visual memories onto your computer.
Above is the ancient Egyptian equivalent of a spreadsheet. Over to the left you can see hieroglyphics that complete the "WHAT" column, and also across the top. To the right, you see tally marks that denote "HOW MUCH". The upside down U denotes 10, and the rest are singles. I can't recall the quantity for the squiggly thing. Below is something familiar. I remembered seeing it at the Kom Ombo temples. It represents defeated peoples/places - see the imagery of the hand tied behind the back at the elbow. The hieroglyphic writing inside the chest area of each figure tells the who. I seem to recall I took a pic of this one because it says Galilee. But don't quote me on that, ha-ha.
As the sun faded and the full moon rose, we had some amazing views. Especially when the exterior uplighting came on.
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