bit stealing game

Chapter 54 Millennium Mosque

At almost noon, the convoy stopped in the desert.

There is yellow sand on both sides, with an unobstructed view of the sun directly above. There is only one road that cuts through the desert and extends forcefully into the distance.

Except for 279 and the United Nations, there are no other cars on this highway, and even the wind is unwilling to pass by.

I was woken up by Lou Shiqi, and I realized that we were already in the middle of the desert. He and He Rongchuan had also just woken up. The three of us got out of the car and stretched ourselves. Xia Shangzhou came out of the cab of another car in high spirits.

, not tired from driving all morning. Laila got out of the car quietly and stood beside her.

Looking again, it turned out that we had already left the main road. There was only a barely visible dirt road ahead.

Xia Shangzhou told us that we are still about two or three kilometers away from our destination. In the direction she pointed, we can already see the outline of the village where the Temple of Set is located in the distance.

Meng Weiqing greeted the three of us and followed him into the car, and Li Yuan came up soon after. Ruiya, an expert named Luo, Teacher Bai and Laila followed the guide Mohammed into another car. Xia Shangzhou and others did not come together.

mean.

Arno also rearranged their personnel arrangements, and only three cars came, following us leisurely.

When the car drove up, I discovered that the dirt road I thought was actually paved with asphalt, but it was covered with sand and I couldn't see the true appearance. There were more hoof prints than ruts along the way.

It is actually very easy for tires to slip when pressed with fine sand, but we did not have this concern.

First, this aspect was taken into consideration and they all drove off-road vehicles; second, Meng Weiqing drove the car very steadily and calmly.

With a muffled bell ringing, a donkey cart passed by. The people sitting on the back of the cart looked at us curiously. When I raised my head and smiled at them, I frowned and moved away.

sight.

A few minutes later we arrived at the "village" on a donkey cart.

This is said to be the location of the Temple of Set, so the name is called the village. It is a literal translation from ancient Egyptian, and it was called a village in ancient times.

This makes me find it quite interesting.

The Nile River also has no name in ancient Egyptian, it is just called "river" - because the Nile River is a unique and vital river in Egypt. If this village has a similar status, it may not mean some "unique village"

Already.

The village is at the end of the road, but cars can no longer drive in. Because the road also happens to end at the entrance of the village, the infrastructure construction has not been able to penetrate deeply.

After entering the village, I was inevitably a little disappointed.

This village is really small and dilapidated. It seems to have been there thousands of years ago, but it has never been renovated. Although it has managed to survive through time, it has been bumped and bruised a lot. It is also remote enough, and it has not been renovated much.

The wars that have engulfed most of the earth for centuries have not affected it.

The slightly newer houses in the village are made of clay, wood and date palm leaves, which are the same as most private houses built in the desert. Although they are a bit ugly, they are warm in winter and cool in summer, which is very comfortable in this environment.

Be applicable.

Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor and other places also have modern buildings. But on this road in the Sahara Desert, let alone modernization, it feels like these people stayed centuries ago.

It's no wonder that Egypt's wild army can be stationed here. This soil is enough to nourish the power of disapproval.

Don’t worry about scarcity but inequality. This has always been the case, regardless of national boundaries.

This village is about the same size as Hassan's, but it feels very different.

The people here are more wary of us than curious. The first reaction of the children when they saw us was not to gather around us and take pictures, but to hide back home. When they were so scared, they looked out through the crack in the door again, as if they were looking at something strange.

The same thing as a living thing. Not to mention asking for selfies. This makes Li Yuan, who has always been favored, a little regretful.

Although the village has retained its past appearance, not many people have been retained. More people have left the village.

In fact, the whole of Egypt has nowhere to go. So although most of the people in the village are old people, women and children, there are still some young people wandering around.

We have been watched since we came in. It seems a bit strange to have more than twenty foreigners pouring into a small village that has little contact with the outside world at once.

Fortunately, those people under Karl didn't follow. Except for Bouswell, who looked a little bit creepy, everyone else in our group was at least sanctimonious. But even if Bouswell's skin was exposed from his hands to his face,

He has blue tattoos all over his face and a big beard, making him look like a Viking. But he has a good temper and does not look evil.

Both parties realized that their arrival was somewhat unexpected, and they also intended to take the initiative to show their goodwill.

The guide at the United Nations, Housny, was as round as a little seal. He introduced the people he had brought to the locals, saying that they were Americans who came to try new things. The Egyptians nodded. It seems that the whole world, including this corner, has no interest in the United States.

One thing everyone has in common is that they love to go anywhere.

I noticed that someone was looking towards us. Abdullah, the guide of 279, stepped forward and handed a document to the old man who should be the village chief. He said that these Chinese people were here to inspect underground mineral resources and prepare to invest.

Carry out cooperative development.

In fact, the degree of modernization in this village is low, mainly because there are not many people and the resources are not that abundant. And even if there are resources, they don't know how to use them. Now that the knowledgeable people are here, there are opportunities.

But the people here don’t seem to agree with the certificate given to us by Cairo. The expert surnamed Luo asked the translator to help him explain to the locals some ways to prevent soil salinization and rational use of water resources. He also talked about a lot of things such as

The thing about land plasticity.

It turns out that there is a lot of groundwater and even minerals around the village. As long as it is developed properly, not only can you farm, but you can also get rich. Expert Luo worked hard and talked about it, and the village chief and the people around him were able to join in the fun.

People nodded frequently and talked a lot.

Seeing that the villagers believed our words even more, the United Nations guide Abdullah said that if there were any ruins here, it could be turned into a tourist attraction. Not only for Americans, but also for all Westerners.

This one bite is guaranteed to make a lot of money. As he spoke, he quietly nuzzled at Arno and Jacqueline who were busy looking around. The appearance of the blond duo who looked like dollar bills made them wary at first.

The locals were quite excited.

After asking, there is indeed a historical site in this village, which has a history of at least a thousand years.

When I heard something, I guessed that this was the Temple of Set built by Thutmose III that we had seen on the mural rubbings of the Temple of Horus.

We followed the village chief and walked deeper into the village.

But as I got closer, I saw a mosque with quite high standards.

The first thing we see is the rectangular courtyard of a regular mosque. The original thickness of the courtyard wall has been peeled off by wind and sand, and only the knee-high section has fallen into reality. The slightly preserved wall has been put to reasonable use, and the villagers are using the ancient

The walls extend outward into rooms one after another.

Beyond the courtyard wall where the secular people rested, there was a courtyard filled with goods of all kinds. A path was left in the middle of the courtyard, leading to the domed chapel in the center surrounded by few remaining colonnades.

The chapel has not been used for other purposes, and the facade looks respectable. Although it is not well maintained, it is still there. Standing outside the arched door, you can see the intricate geometry inside.

Shape decoration. The ground is covered with a blanket of indistinguishable colors, which can stir up thousands of years of dust when you walk on it.

This mosque is indeed quite old. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is thousands of years old. But what we are looking for is a temple from the New Kingdom period of ancient Egypt 3,500 years ago. No matter how spectacular this mosque is, it is only a

Architecture from thousands of years ago.

Although we were a little disappointed and puzzled, we still pretended to be full of interest and started to visit under the guidance of the villagers. When we walked around to the back of the mosque, we all laughed.

It turns out that the back wall of this mosque was built on the basis of the original building here just like the houses at the main entrance. A brick wall belonging to ancient Egypt lay silently behind this later temple.

Sure enough, not far from this brick wall painted with gods and celebration scenes, stands a tall colonnade. Eight pairs of stone imitation papyrus columns form an oval square, and the capitals are lotuses that are about to bloom.

The remains of the stone slabs that should have been above the stone pillars were broken and scattered around, and most of them were missing.

There are two thick and towering mural walls outside the colonnade. The colors of the murals on the outer walls have long been peeled off by wind, sand and sun, and even the lines are not very visible. The inside of the wall is better. Although it is also faded, it can still be seen.

Get a rough idea.

The south wall depicts Thutmose III in priestly attire, led by the sky god Horus, before the god Amun. The space behind him and under his feet is filled with sacrificial chicken, duck, fish, wine and flowers.

On the north wall, Thutmose III wears the double crown of the Pharaoh, holds a scepter, and follows Anubis to Osiris, the god of the underworld. The rest of the scenes on this wall show the Pharaoh going around in battle, taking prisoners of war and

The loot was presented to Hades in exchange for rebirth.

The last scenes in the murals on the two walls are where the gods are taking Thutmose III. However, the wall that is supposed to depict the ending is missing, and is replaced by the vast desert to the west.

How could the story of Thutmose III as priest and pharaoh come to an abrupt end?

I have some doubts.

However, next to the temple surrounded by these two high walls and lotus stone pillars, there is a small, not very large temple surrounded by four lower and uneven walls.

It is dedicated to the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet. In ancient Egyptian legends, it was the breath of this lion-headed goddess that formed the desert.

Although they are all gods related to the desert, Set has not been seen so far. Shouldn't this be the Temple of Set?

Moreover, judging from the meaning of the murals, this small temple of Sekhmet was built by Ramses II more than a hundred years after Thutmose III. Why did these two pharaohs come to this desolate desert?

What about building temples?

Speaking of which, the Temple of Horus under our archaeological site is also under the Temple of Maat built by Ramses II. It would be too self-deceiving to say that there is no connection between the two. But I

For a while I couldn't figure out the reason.

Twenty meters south of the two temples, there are two rows of stones placed on the ground in an orderly manner. These stones with hieroglyphs and murals should have been part of the temple, and they were piled on top after they broke and fell.

Got here.

The villagers who led the way told us that these stone squares have been there since they were children.

Judging from the arrangement of the two rows of stones, they should be French masterpieces.

It is estimated that they found this place before they evacuated Egypt during World War II. However, more than half a century has passed, and no one knows the past of these waste stones.

I looked at the ruins of the temple in front of me.

Although the scale is not as large as that of Abu Simbel or Karnak Temple, it is still spectacular enough in a complete victory. Especially in the vast desert, one can imagine how difficult it is to build a temple. It can only be Tutmo

Only then could the two pharaohs, Rameses III and Ramesses II, have the strength to build a temple in the sea of ​​sand.

We were not able to see this monument at first because the ancient Egyptian building was much shorter than the mosque. It seems that before this desert was formed, this ancient Egyptian temple had already stood here. Then slowly with the wind and sand

It was covered up, which shortened the size of the later mosque.

I walked through the oval square with stone lotus columns, trying to follow the records of the murals to find the whereabouts of Thutmose III after his sacrifice.

When I walked to the missing west wall, I saw a statue of a god with a destroyed face lying upside down in the yellow sand in front of me.

Enter the Temple of Set tomorrow

(End of chapter)