WATANI International
9 May 2010
Wonders of Karnak The Sound and Light of Thebes; with an introduction by Zahi Hawass; The American University in Cairo Press; Cairo 2009
“May the evening soothe and welcome you, O travellers from Upper Egypt. You will travel no further because you are come. Here, you are at the beginning of time,” reads the first passage of the Karnak Sound and Light script, printed in the Wonders of Karnak. The book is published by AUC Press with an introduction by Zahi Hawass, secretary -general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities.
First time
This edition of Wonders of Karnak starts with the Acknowledgments, where Essam Abdel-Hadi, chairman and managing director of the Misr Company for Sound, Light and Cinema, first recounts that the first edition of this book had appeared in 1975, celebrating the inauguration of the Sound and Light show at Luxor’s Karnak Temple. He then thanks all who contributed in the comprehensive overhaul of the equipment, sound and light effects, electronic controls and computer systems, which recently took place in celebration of the 36th anniversary of the show. “State-of-the-art technology has been used to create an all-new advanced sound recording,” writes Dr Abdel-Hadi, who also points out that, coincidentally, Karnak Temple is undergoing restoration. Abdel-Hadi explains that the Cairo Opera House supervised the musical recordings of the show and very graciously offered its studios and music recording sets, “the first time a Sound and Light show has been recorded at an Egyptian studio and by an Egyptian team.”
Unforgettable experience
Moving to the preface, Dr Hawass explains that the temples of Karnak are the only monuments in the world that can tell us about the respective periods of ancient Egyptian history. He adds that the magic and myth surrounding the place can be relived through the spectacle of the Sound and Light show, “an experience one can never forget.”
Dr Hawass dedicates the first section of the book to “Thebes and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs.” Visitors have travelled to Egypt from the world over, he writes, “to behold the sites of a great civilization that flourished when the world was still in its infancy.” The Sound and Light show, according to him, is a miracle of art and science, because it turns silent motionless monuments into a living experience.
Dr Hawass reminds that Sound and Light spectacles commenced in Versailles in 1952 before travelling to Egypt and “making the Sphinx talk” in 1961, the Saladin Citadel recount the story of Cairo in 1962, and Karnak chronicle the past of the ancient city of Thebes in 1972. “Sound, music and lighting effects harmonise to present a panorama in which civilisations, dead for thousands of years, are vividly reborn,” he writes.
The Sound and Light undeniably offers a priceless educational and cultural experience. Dr Hawass takes the reader on a journey exploring the history of Karnak and Luxor temples, digging into the mysteries of the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings, savouring the concepts of paradise depicted on the walls of the Tombs of the Nobles and finally ending the journey on the shores of the west bank.
Living pictures
The book is dominated by 60 enthralling photographs of superior quality, taken by Emad Allam and Sandro Vannini. They depict Luxor’s monuments and temples, and the Sound and Light show in Karnak. One photograph shows the Hypostyle Hall in all its majesty, while another—spread on two opposite pages—shows the ram-headed sphinxes. Different scenes of the Sacred Lake during the Sound and Light spectacle are depicted. The impressive lighting effects and contrasts are almost tangible in the pictures. An aerial view of the Karnak temple complex with all its minute details, with today’s Luxor and a view of the Nile in the background, spreads across another two pages. The temples of Luxor and Hatshepsut’s Deir al-Bahari come in commanding photogrophs, as well as the 18-metre tall west-bank Colossi of Memnon at dawn. The book also includes pictures of the burial chambers of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings; Deir al-Medina, and the Tombs of the Nobles.
Perfect souvenir
The third and final section of the book includes the script of the Sound and Light show, which is guaranteed to take the reader back on an enchanting, thrilling journey in time. The last words bear a gentle, tender message: “May these hieroglyphics come to life once more to bid farewell to you, new pilgrims to Upper Egypt, like a sudden flight of a myriad sacred birds, their spread wings sprinkling the droplets of the river like a benediction.”
The full-colour presentation serves as the ideal record and perfect souvenir of the Karnak Sound and Light show to those who have had the fortune to experience it. To those who did not have that fortune, it offers a unique, utterly pleasurable reading of a significant part of Egyptian history.