Secrets of the Nile: You don’t have to be Poirot to unlock – and enjoy – the mysteries of ancient Egypt
Death on the Nile On cinema release from Friday 11 February
ED GRENBY - 3 February 2022
The romance of the desert has the power to seduce,” whispers Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot in Death on the Nile. And it’s hard to disagree (although he goes on to ask, “Have you ever loved so much, been so possessed by jealousy, that you might kill?”, which complicates things a bit). There is something darkly bewitching about the great river and ancient sites that sit alongside it, from Aswan to Luxor to the Valley of the Kings.
Indeed, Branagh’s new film (he directs, as well as stars) leans heavily on the drama of the region’s tombs, temples and pyramids for its brooding atmosphere – even if some of it was re-created at Longcross Studios in Surrey. Agatha Christie, at any rate – on whose 1937 novel the movie is based – certainly experienced the real thing, being inspired to write after her trip down the Nile on the SS Sudan. Amazingly, the decorous old wooden paddle-steamer still plies the river (steam-ship-sudan.com), but there are plenty of other options: more than 100 boats offer Nile cruises, usually over four or five nights, and bookended with a stay in Cairo for the Pyramids and Sphinx. Take one this year and you’ll have those honeypot sites largely to yourself, as Egypt’s visitor numbers are only slowly picking up. (That semi-solitude is a privilege beyond price, as it can be hard to feel the epic grandeur of antiquity among the clicks and beeps and burps and Babel of several thousand fellow tourists and their cameras, phones and fizzy drinks.) A bit of exclusivity is entirely appropriate, anyway, because much of what the modern visitor sees was meant for the eyes of no one but the dead and the divine.
At the Valley of the Kings, for instance (where Tutankhamun lies, along with 61 of his royal relatives found so far, and countless dozens still undisturbed in their burial chambers), craftsmen were blindfolded for their journey to work, lest a mere mortal might work out the valley’s secret location. And then, after decades of painstaking digging and decoration, using chains of mirrors to light their work, and goggles made of fish-skin to protect their eyes, when every surface of a tomb’s 100-metre length was covered in the most delicately painted pictograms and hieroglyphs, and the caverns were full of gold and the cold gleam of treasure… the entrances were sealed, buried and forgotten, their magnificence to be enjoyed by the dead king alone. The Valley of the Kings (forgive me, Tut) is on the Nile’s west bank – the sunset side, the side of death – just across the water from Luxor, site of ancient Thebes.
The eastern side, meanwhile, stands for sunrise and the source of life; and even now, the journey between the two feels like crossing from one world to another. With a honkingly bustling city on the east bank, and nothing but fields on the west – their unwavering fertile green pierced by dazzling sunflowers and scarecrows in equally bright jellaba robes – it’s like travelling 3,000 years in the space of a few hundred metres. Outside the towns, on unpeopled banks, cows seem to wade in slow motion, echoing passengers’ own on-board indolence. The boat floats treacle-slow, and not much alters from on mile to the next: everything that same vivid green for 200 metres on either side of the river, then an arid yellow for what looks like thousands of kilometres beyond.
The only change is on Friday, when Islamic sabbath means the cows are replaced by boys, naked and playful in the sparkling shallows. At the timeless temples of Edfu, Karnak and Philae, hieroglyphs tell stories of intrigue much more baroque than the multiple murders of Death on the Nile: of a god tricked by his brothers into a sarcophagus, or hacked into 14 pieces for the love of his sister-wife, or brought back to life by the beating of a goddess’s wings. What they wanted you to feel, the pharaohs and their priests and architects, was awe. And while the power has waned over the millennia, there is still wonder woven in the walls.
At Abu Simbel (a key location for the film), you can see a frieze of the man Ramesses II worshipping the god Ramesses II. “That’s one for the therapist,” joke the guides… but visitors’ laughter dies to uneasy quiet as they penetrate further into the gloom of the chambered temple, to the central statues gilded twice a year as the sun shone in through three celestially aligned doorways. And to the statue of Amun-Ra, god of darkness, sitting next to them, but upon whom the sun has not shone once in three and a half thousand years. Outside, standing toe-high to the four colossal figures of Ramesses, you simply gaze in silence. Now that’s drama. ED GRENBY
The romance of the desert has the power to seduce,” whispers Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot in Death on the Nile. And it’s hard to disagree (although he goes on to ask, “Have you ever loved so much, been so possessed by jealousy, that you might kill?”, which complicates things a bit). There is something darkly bewitching about the great river and ancient sites that sit alongside it, from Aswan to Luxor to the Valley of the Kings.
Indeed, Branagh’s new film (he directs, as well as stars) leans heavily on the drama of the region’s tombs, temples and pyramids for its brooding atmosphere – even if some of it was re-created at Longcross Studios in Surrey. Agatha Christie, at any rate – on whose 1937 novel the movie is based – certainly experienced the real thing, being inspired to write after her trip down the Nile on the SS Sudan. Amazingly, the decorous old wooden paddle-steamer still plies the river (steam-ship-sudan.com), but there are plenty of other options: more than 100 boats offer Nile cruises, usually over four or five nights, and bookended with a stay in Cairo for the Pyramids and Sphinx. Take one this year and you’ll have those honeypot sites largely to yourself, as Egypt’s visitor numbers are only slowly picking up. (That semi-solitude is a privilege beyond price, as it can be hard to feel the epic grandeur of antiquity among the clicks and beeps and burps and Babel of several thousand fellow tourists and their cameras, phones and fizzy drinks.) A bit of exclusivity is entirely appropriate, anyway, because much of what the modern visitor sees was meant for the eyes of no one but the dead and the divine.
At the Valley of the Kings, for instance (where Tutankhamun lies, along with 61 of his royal relatives found so far, and countless dozens still undisturbed in their burial chambers), craftsmen were blindfolded for their journey to work, lest a mere mortal might work out the valley’s secret location. And then, after decades of painstaking digging and decoration, using chains of mirrors to light their work, and goggles made of fish-skin to protect their eyes, when every surface of a tomb’s 100-metre length was covered in the most delicately painted pictograms and hieroglyphs, and the caverns were full of gold and the cold gleam of treasure… the entrances were sealed, buried and forgotten, their magnificence to be enjoyed by the dead king alone. The Valley of the Kings (forgive me, Tut) is on the Nile’s west bank – the sunset side, the side of death – just across the water from Luxor, site of ancient Thebes.
The eastern side, meanwhile, stands for sunrise and the source of life; and even now, the journey between the two feels like crossing from one world to another. With a honkingly bustling city on the east bank, and nothing but fields on the west – their unwavering fertile green pierced by dazzling sunflowers and scarecrows in equally bright jellaba robes – it’s like travelling 3,000 years in the space of a few hundred metres. Outside the towns, on unpeopled banks, cows seem to wade in slow motion, echoing passengers’ own on-board indolence. The boat floats treacle-slow, and not much alters from on mile to the next: everything that same vivid green for 200 metres on either side of the river, then an arid yellow for what looks like thousands of kilometres beyond.
The only change is on Friday, when Islamic sabbath means the cows are replaced by boys, naked and playful in the sparkling shallows. At the timeless temples of Edfu, Karnak and Philae, hieroglyphs tell stories of intrigue much more baroque than the multiple murders of Death on the Nile: of a god tricked by his brothers into a sarcophagus, or hacked into 14 pieces for the love of his sister-wife, or brought back to life by the beating of a goddess’s wings. What they wanted you to feel, the pharaohs and their priests and architects, was awe. And while the power has waned over the millennia, there is still wonder woven in the walls.
At Abu Simbel (a key location for the film), you can see a frieze of the man Ramesses II worshipping the god Ramesses II. “That’s one for the therapist,” joke the guides… but visitors’ laughter dies to uneasy quiet as they penetrate further into the gloom of the chambered temple, to the central statues gilded twice a year as the sun shone in through three celestially aligned doorways. And to the statue of Amun-Ra, god of darkness, sitting next to them, but upon whom the sun has not shone once in three and a half thousand years. Outside, standing toe-high to the four colossal figures of Ramesses, you simply gaze in silence. Now that’s drama. ED GRENBY