Step Pyramid

Egyptian Museum and Sakkara

Our group was scheduled to have a private visit to the Egyptian Museum tonight but because a major demonstration was planned for this afternoon the visit was switched to this morning. The Museum is in

Tahrir Square

and we arrived early enough not to see anything out of the ordinary. The very visible mark of the revolution is the shell of the burnt out headquarters of Mubarak’s Democratic Party. It is a very large building next door to the museum and it has been completely destroyed. We left the Museum through a door on the Nile side rather than on

Tahrir Square

. Traffic was pretty bad and lots of flags everywhere but no sign of the demonstration.

The Museum was fantastic. Seeing all the Tutankhamen findings in one place is not an ordinary museum experience. I had seen the Tut exhibit in the 70s and the more recent travelling show, but seeing all the coffins (including the solid gold one) and all the cabinets and the gold mask is incomparable. The mummy room in the musuem has twenty plus mummies of Pharaohs outside their cases. Apparently around 700 BCE, an Egyptian priest fearing that the mummies would be destroyed by tomb robbers moved these mummies into a cave where they remained until found in modern times and moved to the museum.The faces are darkened and shrunken but recognizable. The other highlight for me was the Old Kingdom art. The Met’s OK collection is based around  Perneb’s tomb and some small statues. Boston’s MFA has a better collection but the Egyptian Museum has the Narmer Palette (which is on the first page of every Egyptian History book), incredible stone sculpture and beautiful wall paintings.

After the museum we drove to Sakkara. We visited Djoser’s Step Pyramid (around 2600 BCE) which predates the Great Pyramids on the Giza Plateau. It is under restoration and our group (exclusively) was able to enter the Pyramid and view the interior including looking down into the burial pit. We also visited a beautiful Old Kingdom tomb (the “Tomb of the Brothers”) and a New Kingdom tomb which, when found, brought to light the presence of New Kingdom burial in the Sakkara area.

One more great thrill at the end of the day. From a plateau near the Step Pyramid, I could see twenty pyramids in all directions. If the trip ended tomorrow, it will have been well worth the effort. Tomorrow, however, off to Memphis and the outdoor museum and then a flight to Aswan.

Mexico and Egypt

This post is  especially for Zack and Miriam.

Aside from the obvious similarities to the Mexican Pyramids (other way around of course),  there is one more thing. You remember all those guys hawking souvenirs, blankets and everything else in Mexico. Well, they magically appeared here and so have the mangy dogs that were all over the site.

Pyramids

Our group of twenty left the hotel (which  is literally in the shadow of the Pyramids) by bus at 8. We arrived at the Giza Plateau in a few minutes and, no surprise I guess, there were very few visitors. We stood in front of the Pyramid of Khufu ( the largest one) taking it in for quite a while. I had a similar feeling to that of seeing the Grand Canyon. I knew what to expect but it was still unexpected. The size, the age and the ability to get close made the experience almost overpowering. After a while, we went INTO  the pyramid. A passageway opened up about 1,000 years ago by tomb robbers gives access to the path used by the builders and then sealed from above. The first part—the part opened by the thieves-- is very low ceilinged and one must walk about 500 feet (maybe more) bent over in order not to bump one’s head. Bob Friedman or any tall person would be very uncomfortable. Once one reaches the original passageway one walks up an incline of at least 60 degrees but there are modern  steps with wooden slats to catch any person who starts to fall. This passageway leads to the burial chamber.

The burial chamber is not underground; it is about 2/3 of the way up the Pyramid. It is a dark austere room with no decoration completely faced with granite which was shipped down the Nile from Aswan 600 miles to the south. The rest of the pyramid is made of limestone. The original sarcophagus is still there after 4,600 years but nothing else. The room is harmoniously proportioned and feels like a good place to spend eternity.

I walked around the other two Pyramids on the Plateau; these have underground burial chambers and do not allow access.

Two other outstanding visits today: the Solar Boat Museum and the Sphinx.

The Solar Boat was only discovered in the mid Twentieth Century and is now re-assembled and housed in an I M Pei glass enclosure. It is reminiscent somehow of both the Louvre entrance and the Temple of Dendur at the Met (which Pei did not design). Personally, I was stunned by the size and beauty of the boat. The pit which held the boat is practically up against the side of the Pyramid and one gets a great view of the middle course of stones in the Pyramid.

Our group was given special access to the Sphinx. Visitors today can only view it from the banks of the trench in which it sits but we were able to go into the trench and actually touch the beast. Four  Thousand Six Hundred Years of facing the world. There is nothing like this anywhere.

In the afternoon, we visited the modest recently discovered tombs of some of the artisans who worked on the Pyramids. They were interesting but we were literally in the desert with major Hamsin winds blowing and it was uncomfortable and even painful.

Tomorrow we are scheduled to visit the Museum in the early morning before the big demonstration begins. I will be cautious. Afterwards we go to Saqqara for more Pyramids and Old Kingdom Tombs. I remember Dan and Karen Taylor telling me that after the Old Kingdom, the rest of Egypt was a little  bit of an anti-climax. I hope they are wrong.

(Karen, Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Coolidge are on the trip and she (Nancy, not sure?) says the Beacon Hill Times hasn’t been the same since you sold it.

 

Arrival in Cairo

I arrived in Cairo at 11PM on Sunday night and was met, as promised, by an AIA representative who,  walked me through the purchase of a visa ($US 15) and passport control. There was quite a long wait for luggage so we didn’t leave the airport until midnight. The ride to the hotel was a solid hour through continuous urban sprawl. The nicest part of the city seemed to be closest to the airport with modern apartment blocs and new and beautiful mosques. We travelled on one continuous road which went from excellent to not so good. Not a single traffic light so in the latter part of the drive, people need to run across the street and dodge speeding traffic.

I was surprised to see how much life there is on the streets after midnight. Markets were open and there was a great deal of apparent social activity (mostly male) going on all over town. The other surprise was the temperature: it was as cold as NY, not more than low 40s.

The Mena House Hotel is not in downtown Cairo but across the Nile at the foot of the Giza Plateau. When I awoke this morning, I was stunned to see the Pyramid right in front of me. Hard to describe. I am in a new wing of a famous 19^th Century hotel. The hotel appears to be  no more than 25% occupied.

Saturday night I slept four hours on the KLM flight to Amsterdam and Sunday night I wet to bed at 3 and was awakened at 6:30. I am “running on fumes,” but hope to get a decent rest tonight.

View from my terrace at 630 am

Name and language (Fun Facts)

The name "Egypt" is derived from "Copt," the ancient Christian community that continues in Egypt. The ancient Egyptian language is used by Copts in their liturgy and provides a guide to how Egyptian of the Pharaohs sounded.
The majority of the population refers to the country as MSR or MZR (no vowels in Arabic). Sound familiar?
Written on plane. Posted later.

Amsterdam Layover

AMSTERDAM  January 29, 2012, 1:30 pm

I am sitting comfortably in Schiphol KLM lounge in Amsterdam   during a five hour layover until my Cairo flight. Now that I have left, my anxiety level has decreased and I am really looking forward to seeing the sites that I have thought about for a long time.
I read Ahram On-Line as often as the NY Times. There is a "million man march" scheduled for Tuesday and our group is scheduled to visit the Egyptian Museum on Tuesday night. The Museum is on Tahrir Square,
 which has been the site of the massive protests while the march is to the National Assembly (not sure where that is, but probably nearby). I hope we get to the museum but I am sure the group (and I ) will be cautious. We have only 2 days in the Cairo area and the only visit to downtown is the one scheduled to the museum. Our hotel is in Giza at the foot of the Pyramids.

I have been skimming Herodotus’ account of his visit to Egypt. That was written about 500BCE. Herodotus didn’t exactly know it, but the pyramids were then 2000 years old. I am visiting 2500 years after that. Very exciting.

The KLM flight to Amsterdam was great. I slept 4/12 hours with help from Mr. Ambien. No alcohol, no coffee, no meal. I am a bit tired but fine. Cairo flight leaves here at 5:30 PM and gets to Cairo before midnight. I am supposed to be met by a representative who is to take me to the Mena House Hotel in Giza. I hope and expect that it will all work out smoothly as touring begins early tomorrow. The rest of the group was expected to be in Cairo before noon today and will be rested tomorrow. No time for jet lag for me!

Prelude

On January 24, as a birthday present to myself, and accompanied by Adele, I went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit for the second time. The exhibit is at the Discovery Center, a converted theater in Times Square.
The artifacts on exhibit have been provided by the Israel Antiquities Authority and comprise First Temple items as well as the more common Second Temple period pieces. The earliest items are from about 1,000 BCE, the time of the establishment of David's Kingship. There is a monumental lintel from a gateway and some altars from the North as well as small statuettes. The items on view are of great interest but I could not help mentally comparing the intrinsic "art" of the objects to artifacts from Egypt. In the year 1000 BC, the pyramids were already 1,500 years old. The year 1000 BCE was towards the end of the New Kingdom . Hundreds of years earlier truly sophisticated sculptures were created in the Amarna period and in and by  the tombs near Luxor.

First hand reports will follow in the coming days. I am all packed and ready to go on Saturday night.

Learning the ropes on blogging

Thanks to Lisa, I think I know how to post a blog.