Nubian Museum

We spent our last day in Aswan taking in some Nubian culture. The first visit was the only Nubian Museum in Egypt as well as the newest museum in Aswan. This is the recently completed and completely modern Nubian Museum. It showed how Nubian culture goes back thousands of years before even the Pyramids but since the ancient Nubians didn't have a written language we really don't know that much about them.

There were some amazing Nubian artifacts as well as Egyptian artifacts from Nubian areas during the periods of rule or influence by the Egyptians. When the Upper Dam was built in the 1960's the Nubians were affected dramatically. Most of their lands were flooded and not only ancient monuments but also active villages needed to be re-located. There were several exhibits showing how the various temples were saved from the rising waters of Lake Nasser. Lily noticed they had pictures of the Temple of Dendur which we saw on our recent visit to The Met in New York.

Just across the street there happened to be the 12th Aswan International Sculpture Symposium. This is where sculptors from all over the world come to Aswan and create original art. The artists choose a chunk of Granite and then have 6 weeks to complete their work. It was cool to visit since several artists where working on their works that day. This symposium took place between January 27, 2007 and March 17, 2007.

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Nubian Village

The Nubian Museum was pretty cool so the Nubian Village should be too, right? Not quite.

We took a water taxi ride down to near the lower dam to a Nubian Village on the west bank of the Nile. On the way there we stopped to walk through the Botanic Gardens which weren't that interesting. Once we got to the village we were told not to talk to anyone and we just followed our guide to a house where we learned a little (VERY little) about Nubian culture and held baby Crocodiles. Then Lily and Melanie got henna tattoos. After that we ran back to the boat and went back. We all thought we were going to see more than the inside of one person's house. A bit of a disappointment.

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