Living the Dream...in Egypt

Monday, September 29, 2008
Cairo, Giza, Egypt

Yeah that's right, I am hanging out with a pyramid.

Well today was an absolute dream come true. I am sure we all have one place we want to visit or one thing we want to do or one thing we want to see before we die. That one thing for me was visiting Egypt and seeing the Great Pyramid of Giza. When I landed in Cairo on Saturday I was half way to the dream. Today I completed it.

This appears to be a bus stop or some sort of gathering point in Cairo. Lots of people, lots of those little vans, lots of everything.

Let me go back to the start of the day. We had a nice early wake up call, 7am.. Ok that is not that early but earlier than a few other days. We had breakfast at the hotel and then we were off to stop number one. We met a great Egyptologist, Helo, who spent the day with us and had more information than I could even think about retaining or even writing down. She was our tour guide for the day. Our first stop was at The Egyptian Museum. How amazing this place is I cannot explain….pictures could not explain, which is good since I could not take pictures inside. If fact they will not even let you keep your camera with you. You have to check it at the door….so I simply left it on the bus. Anyway, Helo took us through the building and pointed out the most important stuff to us. The building itself is a monument so it cannot be altered. It was built in 1901 so it is not air conditioned. It was extremely hot inside but so worth it. They are preparing to build a new museum closer to the pyramids (that will be air conditioned) but who knows when that will happen. Every artifact in the building is original except for one. We cannot take pictures because the flash can damage everything and man are there some amazing things. Statues and tombs and chariots and of course mummies. Lot and lots of mummies. It was great.

The one quick shot of the museum that I got as we were driving by.

I learned a few things (well lots of things but here are a few I actually remember).
- Luxor was the original capital of Egypt but Alexander the Great moved it to Alexandria. It was eventually moved to Cairo.
- Most Egyptians live on only 6% of the land which is along the Nile River. The rest is desert.
- Egypt’s average yearly rain fall is only about 2.5 inches.
- When tombs and temples and artifacts etc. are found they can determine how old they are and what pharoh they belonged to by the cartouche. A cartouche is an oval that the pharaoh’s name would be written inside. It is an oval because there is no beginning and no end and symbolizes eternal life.
- Only pharaohs wear the striped hood so all the movies showing servants or guards wearing them are inaccurate.
- Most Egyptians felt that the after life was longer than life so that is why they prepared so much for the after life.
- When you see statues you can tell if it was a representation of their life or death by looking at the beard. Straight beard means alive, curved beard means death.
- In the past it was the women who proposed marriage to the man by presenting them with a lotus flower. It was then up to the man to accept.
- Arabic is not the original Egyptian language. Arabic was brought to Egypt with the arrival of Arabs and the religion of Islam. The original language was lost for 12 centuries. In 1822 the hieroglyphic alphabet was deciphered and original language rediscovered.
- Nefertiti, although one of the most famous Queens, never actually ruled. She was only ever a wife of a pharaoh.

One of the most extensive collections is from the Tomb of King Tutankhamen (King Tut). Some of you may have seen his name around because there is a traveling exhibit with pieces from this collection. The stuff found with him was amazing. I cannot imagine being the one to discover it. His stuff takes up almost an entire floor of the museum. There were statues and jewellery and all kinds of amazing things including the 5 sycofikis he was found in. Imagine one of those little Russian dolls, opening one layer to find a smaller one inside. He was found inside a casket made of 110kg of solid gold. It was really cool, as was his death mask.

We also learned how you can tell Egyptian mummies apart from Greek or Roman mummies. The difference was in the way they marked their dead’s faces. Greeks and Romans used a death portrait which was a picture of the person’s face painted on the rags. The Egyptians used a death mask to represent the person.

Our next stop was at……..The Pyramids. I had been able to see them from the airplane on the way in and from the roof of the hotel but really that just increased my excitement. It was almost overwhelming when we first pulled up to it and were actually standing next to the Great Pyramid of Giza. Thanks to Helo we were also able to get some information about the pyramids. Of course the first thing…..aliens did not make the pyramids…..and neither did slaves. Kings were considered gods and it was an honour to share in the making of these great temples. Kings had them built on this high plateau so that all could see the temple of the gods. Giza required around 2.3 million blocks to complete. Each block weighs about 2.5 tons. These pyramids have no foundation so required a very strong spot to be built on in order to support the weight. The Great Pyramid of Giza is the largest and took about 20 years to build.

The second pyramid is slightly smaller, although in many pictures it will appear larger as it is built on a higher plateau. This was the pyramid that I was allowed to enter. There is a very small stair way leading down. You cannot stand and only one person can fit at a time. Elizabeth had some trouble at first but then eventually made it in. You then stand up in a slightly higher room and walk a little ways before walking up a similar walk way to a tomb room. This pyramid has several tomb rooms but we can only enter one. I did find it a little hard to breath but not sure if it was the heat, the walk, the heavy air or just the realization that I was walking into the belly of a pyramid. UNBELIEAVABLE is all I can say. Of course I did take a few pictures while we were there.

I did the whole trying to move the pyramid thing.

And the stepping over the rope that says "keep out" to get a picture of me actually touching the Great Pyramid before the tourist police come over to kick me out.

And I of course did the ever favourite....

From there we headed up to an area where you could see all three pyramids, along with many of the smaller pyramids that would have been built for the wives. I got some great pictures from there.

Me with all three of the Giza Pyramids.

Just hanging out.

From there we headed to see one of Cairo’s most famous sites…The Sphinx.

The sphinx is the patron god of the graveyard and although you will see them all over the place, this is the most famous one for several reasons. Number one is of course its size. He truly is an amazing site. The second is because no one is sure how old he is or when or for whom we was built. There is no cartouche to be found so we can only guess. And yes I say he because the Sphinx is male….although I am sure I have always thought he was female. There is…or was a temple at the site but it has been mostly destroyed. I have been told that many people believe that the nose of the sphinx was destroyed by Napoleon’s men who used it for target practice but this is in fact not true. There are many documents that have been found depicting the noseless Sphinx long before Napoleon arrived on Egyptian soil. He really is outstanding though.

By this time I think I was very much ready for lunch. On the move since 0730 and only at 1530 (3:30pm) were we stopping for lunch. Still sitting here tonight I am amazed by what I saw today. Lunch was pretty decent. Seems that they feed us pretty good food. We have been told to avoid things like lettuce (because they are washed in water) and pasta because it is rinsed in water. We were also offered a local dish....not so sure it was a hit with any of us but we at least tried.

After lunch and before heading back to the hotel we still had one more stop. This was at the Ani Papyrus which was a store/museum that sold pictures painted on paper made in the original way. It is believed that it was the Chinese that made the first paper but it was in fact the Egyptians (or that is what they tell me….I am sure the Chinese would say something different). The paper was made out the stems of a plant that was chosen because the flower it produces looks like the sun (which the Egyptians worship) and the stem looks like a mini pyramid. The outer layer is stripped off, the inner portion is flattened with a hammer and then cut into thin strips which are soaked in water for 6 days. This reduces the amount of sugar to 10%. The strips are then laid out on a cotton pad across each other and placed in a press for another 6 days. The strips form together due to the sugar and form a very strong paper. The process is really neat. Too bad we are not here long enough to make some paper.

From there we headed back to the hotel. It was a bit of an adventure. There was a lot of traffic and the bus doesn’t seem to be able to make left turns so instead makes giant U-turns but we did eventually make it back to the hotel…..which is where I am now. The plan….to board an overnight train to Aswan and start a new day there. However, plans seem to be changing and no one is quite sure what is going on. I guess I can update tomorrow.

A final look at the end of an amazing day.

Julie