BACK ‘in the saddle’ this week, having been transported back over 5000 years during the past couple of weeks travelling the Nile from Luxor down to Aswan.
The sheer scale, precision and creativity of the temples and tombs built by the ancient Egyptians underpins todays engineering and architectural practices in a quite astounding manner. Seeing the tools of the trade, made from scratch, and utilised to create magnificent edifices anything up to 3000 BC really stretches the mind.
Today, cad-cam and computer modelling are widely used to make sure the machines work and buildings remain safe and stable – back then it was ingenuity, nowse and a considerable amount of trial and error.
However, you could only imagine the cost in human life there must have been in creating these magnificent edifices. Digging out of the rocks more than 60 huge tombs in the Valley of the Kings, sometimes 100 metres long and deep with perfect ante-rooms and chambers, in extreme heat and using only hand-tools – and with not a Caterpillar or JCB in sight.
The contrast between the desert and mountains and the strips of rich, agricultural land on the banks of the Nile, often only a few hundred metres wide, vividly illustrate the Egyptian version of precision agriculture, where every square metre is vital.
Tourists are starting to return to the region after the 2011 Eqyptian revolution, but the economy which relies so heavily on tourism has been devasted. There were reckoned to be over 350 Nile boats in use, today only about 15 are running. Along the banks of the Nile are rows of boats laid up, often rusting and unlikely to return the service anytime soon.
So having just got back yesterday late, I am catching up with trade ‘performance and politics’ - thanks to Steve for entertainingly keeping my seat warm for the past couple of weeks.
He is off today to a stag weekend which includes taking in the Leicester Tigers game against Quins tonight – which he claims might be classed as working, checking out the Stihl sponsorship deal at Welford Road. Mind you, there will probably be some beer involved, so I’m not banking on a detailed and coherent report!
