Bent Pyramid

Posted on January 1, 2015 by Paula Terrey

15 March 2000 (afternoon)

At Dashur we stop first at the Bent Pyramid which, like Meidum, belongs to Sneferu. It’s the third-largest pyramid in Egypt.

Dashur — the Bent Pyramid

The reason for the name is obvious. The builders reportedly began with a core at a slope of 60 degrees, then added a low perimeter reinforcement at 55 degrees, and then about halfway up changed the remainder to 43 degrees.

Approaching the Bent Pyramid

The upper and lower portions also have different styles. The lower blocks — both core and girdle — slope down and in as accretion layers, just like Djoser’s Step Pyramid, the pyramid of Sekhemkhet (Djoser’s successor), Meidum Pyramid, and a pyramid tentatively attributed to Khaba at Zawiyet el-Aryan. But once the angle changes the courses are set in horizontal layers for the first time.

Bent Pyramid Casing Stones

Another interesting feature: most of the casing stones are still in place and the missing ones are at top, not the bottom – just the opposite of what one might expect in a stone looting situation. The remaining casing stones give us a chance to imagine a fully finished pyramid in all its smooth, bright, limestone glory. It must have dazzled, although now the look is more like a thin layer of icing spread on an enormous scone.

Closer look at core blocks, the Bent Pyramid

The Bent Pyramid is unsafe and so we can’t go inside, but walk all the way around. (There’s a subsidiary pyramid to the south, too.)

Pyramids were built in stages and Bill, who’s an engineer, grabs a flake of limestone and kneels in the sand to illustrate. Scholars are still debating the reason for the angle change of this pyramid. Was it planned from the start or an innovation in response to subsidence problems?

The ancient Egyptians placed the Bent Pyramid directly on desert soil, not on rock. The interior chambers are shored up with cedar beams, apparently proving there were signs of instability even during construction. Most Egyptologists have thus concluded that stability issues were the reason for the change in angle — to lessen the weight of stone — but there are those who believe the angle may have been a deliberate choice arising from changing religious beliefs. The interior, which I now long to see more than ever, has two entrances (intended, not just robber’s tunnels) and three magnificent corbelled chambers.

If you’d like to read more about the Bent Pyramid and see some photos of the interior then I recommend this link: The Guardian’s Bent Pyramid

Exposed corner, Bent Pyramid

Mastabas at Meidum

Posted on December 25, 2014 by Paula Terrey

15 March 2000 (morning, continued)

The ruined exterior of Mastaba 17

Next we visit Mastaba #17, which is right next to Meidum pyramid. Its bulk is impressive, but because it was mostly built of mudbrick it’s lost its form. If it weren’t so rectangular and sitting alone in the middle of a perfectly flat plain it could pass as a weathered hill.

Sarcophagus of an unknown prince

We enter via an old robber’s tunnel but it’s tricky. First we must crawl through a narrow passage, then climb down a wooden ladder to an area where we can stand, then crawl again over a limestone block that was one of several used to seal the original burial chamber passage. The real entry has a curved wall and massive stone blocks line the burial chamber.

Ancient wooden mallet propping lid

The sarcophagus is as big as a teenage elephant and an ancient wooden mallet — perhaps left by tomb robbers? — is still in place, propping open the lid. We’re told that the rifled mummy of a prince, name unknown, was discovered inside.

Palace façade remains of Mastaba 16

“Meidum Geese,” Mastaba 16. Photo courtesy of Roland Unger, Wikimedia Commons. They are on display in the Egyptian Museum.

After Mastaba #17 we take a short drive to Mastaba #16, which belonged to Nefermaat, one of Sneferu’s sons. The famous “Meidum Geese” painting came from inside this tomb and the outside has a palace façade that’s still intact in places. This hints at exciting things to explore, but when we enter through a tunnel we find it’s dark and bat-nasty. These conditions are more romantic on paper than in person and we don’t make it far. Then it’s back on the bus for the drive to Dashur.

Tomorrow is the feast of Eid Al-Adha, commemorating Abraham’s near-miss sacrifice of his son, and preparations are underway. We see women in tropical-bright robes walking toward an irrigation ditch, massive aluminum pots on their heads, and I can’t help but wonder if they’ll use that water to cook.

A donkey so laden with clover we see only his nose and legs. Water wheels. Fields of onions, clover and wheat. Goats lounging on a pile of decayed mudbricks. Roaring diesel pumps. A cemetery surrounded by fields. A blue galabeya scarecrow with a plastic bag head. A tiny boy prodding a donkey. A butcher shop, cattle heads hanging from the awning. A cascade of purple morning glories. Cactus next to clover. Shimmering silver dust on palm fronds. Stick crates bursting with ripe tomatoes.

As we drive through a small town we see men building furniture by hand, long golden curls of wood falling from their planes and chisels. Other men are loading blocks of pure white limestone into the back of a pickup. Our driver toots his horn to warn our Mercedes bus is barreling down on them and a worker looks up, smiles, and waves as he leaps back, his face so coated with limestone dust he looks like a grinning ghost.

Meidum Pyramid from Mastaba 16

Meidum

Posted on December 18, 2014 by Paula Terrey

15 March 2000 (morning)

The “collapsed” pyramid at Meidum

Today we’ll see the pyramids at Meidum and Dashur. We get on the highway and head south, but stop at a security checkpoint ten minutes later. After the checkpoint we pass a factory with chemical drums stacked next to rusted-out corrugated iron buildings, everything coated in dust. Then we’re in the desert and there’s nothing but the road.

After a while we pass a military camp and Moustafa tells us military service is compulsory for men: one year for those with a college degree, two years for high school graduates, and three years for those with no education. The goal is to ensure recruits can read, write, and drive by the time they finish.

There are a few newly planted saplings along the median, otherwise nothing green, not even weeds. The desert is a uniform gold except for a an occasional crust of dark pebbles. It’s flat for long stretches, then breaks into wadis and mesas. A green streak shimmers in the distance and Moustafa tells us it’s an irrigated tree farm. After an hour of driving we come to another checkpoint and then our bus driver stops for directions. There are two shelters by the side of the road: one of small limestone blocks; the other of pampas grass bundles resting upright against a rough wooden skeleton. A blue Isuzu truck and farm tractor are parked nearby.

Scrambling up Meidum pyramid

Meidum is the “collapsed” pyramid attributed to Sneferu and when we arrive we’re the only tour group. We scramble up the rubble for fantastic views of the desert and cultivation, mud swallows flitting over our heads. They’ve built nests on the side of the pyramid where there’s a hollow of missing blocks.

View from Meidum Pyramid

The pyramid entrance is on the north, about even with the top of the lower sheer surface, and to get to it we must climb wooden stairs.

Cave-like tunnel into Meidum Pyramid

Once inside we go down a long, steep passage via an arrangement like the one in Teti’s pyramid: “steps” made from metal rails fastened to wooden planks. Eventually the passage levels into a room with more wooden stairs. We go up, turn, and enter a chamber that’s the temperature and humidity of a sauna.

Corbelled chamber, Meidum Pyramid

The ceiling of this burial chamber is the first known corbelled stone structure in history. There’s a rickety looking ladder leaning against one wall beneath an original cedar beam. The modern rebar reinforcement beneath the beam does not inspire confidence, but seems unnecessary anyway. Meidum Pyramid is roughly 4600 years old.

Closeup of original cedar beam, Meidum Pyramid

Meidum pyramid. Note the person at the base for scale.

Khan al-Khalili

Posted on December 11, 2014 by Paula Terrey

14 March 2000 (evening)

After the Egyptian Museum we get back on the bus and drive through Tahrir Square on our way to the Khan al-Khalili bazaar or souk. At the Khan al-Khalili we are free to wander for an hour and then we’ll meet at the Naguib Mahfouz Restaurant for dinner.

One of the many beautiful “gates” in the souk

Stacked cardboard boxes overflowing with plastic sandals, toy cars, hair ribbons, and baby clothes. Rug menders. Bolts of cloth. A man balancing a massive tray of bread on his head as he walks. Another man balancing beach balls held together by nets. Minarets poking above roof tops.

The narrow alleys of the souk smell like cat piss, cigarettes and perfume. Scrawny cats are everywhere: prowling, fighting, dashing underfoot. Budgies in cages chatter overhead. Merchants stand in the doors of their shops, urging us to examine their alabaster chess sets, “faience” scarabs, toy leather camels, silver jewelry, pyramid lamps, and bubbly jewel-colored blown glass vases.

The narrow alleys of the souk

Men sit at tiny tables in front of shops, drinking tea and smoking water pipes. We pass a brazier of glowing coals, a cart with smoky roasted sweet potatoes, and another cart, elaborately sculpted, with glass panels on the side displaying nuts and toasted melon seeds.

Carved door: Naguib Mahfouz Restaurant

The door of the Naguib Mahfouz Restaurant is honey-colored wood, carved in an intricate pattern. I try to determine if this is the coffee shop where Naguib Mahfouz does his writing, but no one seems to know. Long strings of blue and silver beads hang like a curtain in the window. The floor is a star pattern in marble. The vaulted ceiling is patterned with geometric shapes pressed deeply into the plaster and painted green, orange, brick, umber, and blue, creating a tapestry tent illusion. The walls are wood paneling accented with mashrabiya, mirrors, and prints of Old Cairo. Our table has an etched tin top.

Bill does the ordering. We have an appetizer of salty pickled carrots, baby onions, and hot peppers followed by pita bread and crackers with yogurt sauce, hummus, and tahini. Next comes Egyptian lentil soup and then a main course of eggplant, okra, and meat casseroles in curry and tomato sauces, spooned over plates of rice. We have no room for our bread pudding dessert but eat it anyway.

Mosques with minarets lit from below. Flashing neon lights. Streets packed with evening shoppers. The dome of the opera house, washed in light. Goats penned outside a shop. Rebar bristling from roofs like chin hairs in need of plucking. A truck smashed into a guard rail and abandoned.

Merchant and his souvenir shop

Back near our bus a thin, curly-headed girl, maybe five years old and wearing a pink flannel nightgown that’s been through too many washings, is selling packets of Kleenex. There’s a mosque nearby. Its doors are open and men are hurriedly kicking off their shoes and going inside to pray. The rear door of a public bus opens and people leap on, even though the bus is moving and already jammed to capacity.

On the way back to the hotel Moustafa tells us the average income for an Egyptian hotel worker is 2400 pounds per year. By contrast, farmers earn about 900 pounds per year — roughly $300 US. The “middle class” in Cairo have an income of about $10,000 US per year. Moustafa has completed a four-year course in Egyptology and Tourism. Bill employs four guides and they’ve all done the four-year course.

Evening shoppers in the Khan al-Khalili

Egyptian Museum

Posted on December 7, 2014 by Paula Terrey

14 March 2000 (afternoon)

Admission to the Egyptian Museum is twenty pounds, with an extra forty pounds to see the royal mummies. We’ll pay for that but there’s a steep fee for cameras too. We decide it’s not worth it for the quality we’d be able to achieve and leave them on the bus. The museum closes at 4:30.

The Egyptian Museum. Photo courtesy of Christophe Badoux, Wikimedia Commons.

A ten-foot iron bar fence with star and spear-shaped finials surrounds the museum garden. Garden renovations are underway. The grass is brown and dotted with piles of rubble and the papyrus fountain is boarded up. We pass through security (bag x-ray and metal detector) at the outer gate and step down from street level onto a path to the entrance.

The museum is built of salmon-colored limestone blocks and is overwhelmingly big, even from the outside. An arch and flanking columns of white stone, perhaps limestone, frame the entry. There’s a carved Hathor head at the top of the arch and two queens or goddesses on either side. Their flowing robes and shapely bodies are decidedly non-Egyptian, but their headgear is traditional. More decorative iron grille work covers the windows.

Once inside we pause for another set of x-ray machines and metal detectors. The museum smells like creosote, paint, and sawdust. There’s a Tourist Police office on the right and two small gift shops on the left. There’s no information counter, no coat or package check, no brochure or map. Birds come and go through broken window panes.

Overwhelming scale of the Egyptian Museum. Photo courtesy of Kristoferb, Wikimedia Commons.

Moustafa takes us on a highlights tour and then turns us loose for a couple of hours. The highlights exhaust us, however, and we need something to drink, so before exploring on our own we head for the museum café, which requires exiting the museum and going up a set of stairs.

We sit at a table overlooking the park. The café menu is a miniature wooden obelisk with drink prices and images of Nefertiti and Tut printed on the sides. We order the hibiscus tea called Karkady and they serve it hot. Not exactly what we had in mind since we were picturing the cold, sweet, red drink we were served upon our arrival at Mena House, but with plenty of sugar and a chance to cool off it’s still refreshing.

The Mugama’a. Photo courtesy of Vyacheslav Argenberg, Wikimedia Commons.

From our vantage point we can see Tahrir Square and, in the distance, the looming hulk of the Mugama’a, that infamous black hole of Egyptian bureaucracy. They must have finished the work on this side of the park because the grass below us is green and there are daisies mixed with agaves around the bases of the palms. The top of an obelisk marks the center of four converging granite pathways and statues of various gods — Horus, Sekhmet — are strategically placed on limestone pedestals.

Pectoral: Goddess Nut mounted on a gold plaque. Photo courtesy of Alice, Wikimedia Commons.

Back inside the museum, treasure lust draws us to King Tutankhamen’s jewelry. It’s in a special, vault-like room with yet another iron grille across the entrance and a guard at the door. The windows are closed and covered but the room smells of cooking oil and traffic fumes.

Next we visit the royal mummies. Guests are asked for silence but our fellow humans can’t resist the urge to comment and between the talkers and the shushers any hope of quiet contemplation is lost. The mummies are surprisingly small and delicate, like little dried birds. Rameses II is bald but there’s a fringe of wispy ginger-colored hair around the side of his head. Most of the mummies are lying on linen pads in hermetically sealed cases, not in coffins.

Our time is up and we’ve seen only a fraction of what we wanted to see. The closing bell is a persistent “brrrrrrrrring.” It follows us all the way out to the street.

Islamic Cairo

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Paula Terrey

14 March 2000 (morning, continued)

Muhammad Ali Mosque

Back on the bus, we drive to the Muhammad Ali Mosque, which is located within the Citadel, the massive stone-walled fortress built upon a hill near the limestone cliffs of Tura. (If my guide-book is correct, the hill upon which the Citadel sits is actually a spur detached from the surrounding Moqattam hills by quarrying.) As we drive we get another good view of an Islamic cemetery and further explanation of burial customs. The little house-like crypts on the graves are a specific Egyptian tradition: Arab cemeteries in other parts of the world have simple markers. Modern Egyptian families will take a picnic to the cemetery and spend the day, then break the dishes they used and leave them behind to keep the spirits from hitchhiking home.

Little boys walking arm in arm. A woman with a baby riding on her shoulder. Cloth banners with elaborate designs in red, blue and green in front of the oldest mosque in Cairo. A naked toddler in the doorway of his home, clutching a bundle of twigs. “Cairoland” amusement park.

The Muhammad Ali Mosque is encased in alabaster and is called, no surprise, “the Alabaster Mosque.” Directly across from it is the green-domed Al-Nasir Muhammad Mosque, built by the sultan who annexed the Sudan.

We enter the courtyard of the Alabaster Mosque and immediately remove our shoes. Moustafa shows us the correct way to carry them: soles together so the bottoms won’t touch the floor of the mosque when we set them down. We stop at the fountain where the faithful wash before prayers, then go inside and sit on the carpeted floor awhile before wandering around. Muhammad Ali is actually at rest here, in a sarcophagus behind a corner iron grille enclosure.

Cairo skyline from the Citadel

After exploring the mosque we step onto the terrace overlooking Cairo. Clouds from the north are mixing with smog below us but the view is terrific anyway. The buildings of Cairo are an almost uniform brown, but an occasional white or ochre structure stands out. Minarets punctuate the skyline and traffic snakes along the highway. In the distance, high-rise apartments crowd the banks of the Nile.

Goats in a yard as we look down from the Citadel

Al-Rifa’i Mosque as seen from the Citadel

Chattering school kids on a tour of the mosque approach us, wanting to practice their English. They say “hello” and I reply “salaam,” which sends them into gales of laughter.

On our way to the Egyptian Museum we pass an ancient aqueduct along the edge of the City of the Dead. Street level has crept up through the years so that only the top third or so of the arches is still visible, right at sidewalk level. In the caves formed by the arches mounds of flowers are stored under tarps, staying cool. Women sit on the ground in front of the flowers, bundling bunches. A man is washing his taxi next to a pile of rubble on the street.

We drive through part of Garden City – one way traffic here – and pass the American Embassy, which is the largest foreign embassy in Egypt. There are 30,000 United States diplomats living in Egypt, mostly in the Maadi district. We pass the British Embassy too. It has a wrought iron fence and guards at a gate with bars that raise and lower. The American University in Cairo is reportedly right behind the American Embassy but we can’t see it.

We park and eat lunch first. Some of our group opt for the Nile Hilton, which is just down the street, but Chaz and I head for a Shawarma stand cater-corner to the museum. Shawarma is made from chicken, beef, or lamb cooked on a gyros-type spit. They cut off bits of the pre-cooked meat, fry it on a griddle with diced tomatoes, onions, and parsley, and stuff it into pita bread. Delicious!

Coptic Cairo

Posted on November 30, 2014 by Paula Terrey

14 March 2000 (morning)

We start with breakfast in the Khan al-Khalili restaurant at Mena House and are on the bus by 8:00. The plan is to see Coptic and Islamic sites this morning, the Egyptian Museum this afternoon, and the Khan al-Khalili bazaar tonight.

It’s a hazy day. The median strip of the highway is sand and rubble and the Nile looks small and crowded, cruise boats stacked along its bank. There are fields on islands in the middle of the river.

Moustafa lectures as we go. The most expensive apartments in Cairo overlook the Nile. Maadi is the name of the American district. The Arabic word for Egypt is Misr. Of the 65 million people in Egypt, 15% are Christian. St. Mark brought the gospel to Egypt in A.D. 60.

We pass the Tura limestone quarries, source of the Fourth Dynasty pyramid casing stones. Hundreds of statues, garden ornaments, architectural ornaments, and bags of cement line the roadside in front of each establishment. Freshly worked limestone is as white as snow.

Our bus driver is a whiz. He somehow negotiates the narrow Old Cairo streets and we park near the “M” subway station. The subway is relatively new to Cairo and Moustafa tells us it’s helping ease the traffic nightmare. We’ll have to take his word for it.

Coptic Cairo: brickwork of the Roman fort

We walk through a door in the walls of the so-called “Babylon Fortress” (Roman) and down a narrow alley, irregular limestone cobbles under foot.

First stop is Ben Ezra Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in Egypt. There’s a sacred well next to the synagogue that’s thought to mark the spot where pharaoh’s wife/daughter plucked Moses from the Nile.

Columns in the synagogue are painted faux marble, the walls are lined with bookcases, and high overhead the windows are stained glass. The pulpit stands smack in the middle of the room. The oldest Torah in existence, written on sheepskin, was discovered in the upstairs library.

Next we retrace our steps a short distance to the Coptic church of St. Sergius. It’s famous because, among other things, one of the interior pillars has a carved cross decoration that dripped blood in 1967 and didn’t stop until prayers were said over it. A piece of protective plastic covers the dark stains and people have written notes, presumably prayers, on scraps of paper and tucked them around the edges.

There’s an underground crypt/sanctuary but it’s filled with water due to the general rise in the water table. Tradition holds that the church was built on the site where the holy family stayed while in exile. In keeping with this theme the church also has “escaping shafts,” used by the congregants during the Roman era for obvious reasons. The ceiling beams are deeply curved, like the inverted hull of a boat, to represent Noah’s ark. A flock of noisy sparrows lives up there.

The “Hanging Church” under restoration

The pulpit is marble and there’s lovely wooden marquetry everywhere, but the painting of Mary and Jesus at the front of the sanctuary is a modern work on velvet and the floor is covered with old carpet. We’re told an interesting bit of trivia: the word Coptic comes from the ancient Egyptian “House of Ptah” – “Ka-a-Ptah.”

Next we go to Al-Muallaka, the “Church of the Virgin” or “The Hanging Church,” so-called because it’s suspended between the towers of the old Roman fort. It’s under restoration so things are torn up, but there’s still plenty to see. Every surface is either painted, carved, or inlaid with mother of pearl. It, too, has an “ark” ceiling, an intricately carved marble pulpit, and escaping shafts.

“Ark” ceiling and icons in the Hanging Church

A bit of symbolism is pointed out to us: the pulpit is decorated on the side with a cross carved inside a circle.

Cross within an Egyptian “shen” sign?

The circle is the ancient Egyptian sign meaning “forever,” therefore the cross within the circle means, “the cross will live forever.” Another interesting tidbit: regular priests in the Coptic Church must be married, but the Coptic Pope cannot be married, so popes come up through the monastic ranks.

Altarpiece of the Hanging Church

Saqqara

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Paula Terrey

13 March 2000 (afternoon & evening)

We leave the Memphis open air museum and stop at the Saqqara Palm Club for a buffet lunch of chicken, rice, tahini, and several other dishes. After that it’s a short distance to the Step Pyramid.

Djoser’s 3rd Dynasty step pyramid, Saqqara

The French archaeologist Jean-Philippe Lauer (pronounced “Lew-aire”) devoted more than thirty years to reconstructing the enclosure wall and subsidiary structures of the pyramid complex. The guards at the enclosure entrance wear black woolen uniforms, boots, berets, and machine guns.

Djoser pyramid complex, entrance colonnade. The stone columns have been carved to resemble bundled reeds.

We circumnavigate the pyramid and stop to examine the serdab, where the famous statue of Djoser was discovered in situ. It’s now one of the crown jewels of the Egyptian Museum, but a passable replica is in place here. We go by the entrance to the substructure and I’m itching to take a peek but it’s not open to the public.

It’s impossible to feel lonely at the Step Pyramid. We’re accompanied every step of the way by donkey boys shouting, “Taxi! Egyptian Cadillac! Taxi! Egyptian Cadillac!”

After the Step Pyramid we walk to the tomb of the “two brothers,” royal manicurists Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep. Then we walk past the 5th Dynasty pyramid of Unas and down his causeway. The causeway covering has been partially reconstructed. There are stars on the ceiling and some of the blue paint still shows.

Next we visit the 6th Dynasty Pyramid of Teti. This is the second pyramid to have “pyramid texts” (Unas was first) and we can go inside. Access to the burial chamber is via a quasi ladder/staircase made from metal rails fastened to boards that cover the steeply sloping surface of the passage. Teti’s sarcophagus is still in place (minus Teti of course) and it’s HUGE, much taller than I am and even taller than Chaz at 6’8″. A corner of the lid is gone, presumably the work of tomb robbers.

From there we go to the tomb of Mereruka. Mereruka was Vizier (Prime Minister) under Teti and a statue of him is still in situ. Then it’s the tomb of Ptahhotep with its raised relief scenes of daily life: acrobats, winemaking, a lion attacking a cow, and a gazelle nursing.

The highway between Saqqara and Giza is two lanes. It’s up on a levy so we look down from our bus onto fields, plant nurseries, and canals. People from Cairo have summer homes out here; one house has a huge satellite dish on top.

“Thirst is an ancient feeling”

A billboard with the slogan, “Drink Coca Cola – Thirst is an Ancient Feeling.” A Volkswagen bug packed with sheep. Donkeys braying. Little kids running. Narrow paths among the palms and weeds. Mud brick huts with thatched roofs. A house smothered in a painted design of vines and leaves. Crude wooden ladders to roof tops. Green shutters. Blue shutters. Thick orange dust on my boots.

It’s late afternoon when we return to the hotel and Chaz wants to rest. I’m too wound up so decide to walk to one of the papyrus “museums.” Getting there, however, proves to be easier said than done. There are no traffic lights and no crosswalks. The papyrus museum I selected from the bus is closed but a helpful gentleman suggests another place across the street and demonstrates the correct method for dealing with the murderous traffic. Simply step into the path of speeding cars and trucks, hold up your hand, smile, and hope they’ll stop for you.

Hand-painted papyri for sale at the “Sobek Papyrus Institute”

The Sobek Papyrus Institute has a colorful tent-like awning and a basement gallery. When I walk in I wonder if they’re really open because the lights are out but they promptly turn them on for me. It turns out this is typical – it saves on electricity.

Back at Mena House I retrieve Chaz. We go to dinner at a hotel restaurant called The Greenery and call it a night by 8:30.

Memphis

Posted on November 23, 2014 by Paula Terrey

13 March 2000 (morning)

Zahi Hawass signing books after his lecture

Our first day of touring starts with an unexpected diversion: a lecture by Zahi Hawass, director of the Giza Plateau. Dr. Hawass talks about the “tombs of the golden mummies” at Bahariya Oasis and then discusses pyramids. There are 107 pyramids in Egypt and apparently nine known capstones dating to dynasties 4-6. One ancient written source says capstones were encased in gold or electrum.

Because of the lecture we change our plans for the day. Instead of heading for the Giza Plateau (something best done first thing in the morning) we will go to Memphis. However we also have permission from Dr. Hawass to stop at the Giza Worker’s Cemetery, so we will do that first.

Apartments five stories tall, rugs and laundry hanging from the windows. A man in a dark blue galabeya, embroidery at the throat, turban on his head, sitting in front of a drug store smoking a water pipe. Two camels lying in an alley, chewing hay. A woman sweeping the street with a broom made of twigs. Wooden push carts heaped with clover. Japanese tourists climbing onto camels. Salami hanging in the door of a market. Bags of potato chips overflowing from boxes onto the sidewalk.

The Worker’s Cemetery at Giza is an active archaeological site so no close-up photos are allowed. Temporary wooden steps have been scaled over large dunes to allow easier access to the tombs. The higher the tomb, the greater the status of the tomb owner. The highest tombs in the cemetery belonged to supervisors and are made of stone, with stone stelae. The lower tombs are mud brick and many have a distinctive “beehive” shape.

The worker’s cemetery at Giza, an active archaeological site.

As we get back on the bus a group of girls wearing the tan, belted coats of their school uniform wave to us, tangles in their hair and big smiles on their faces. We leave Giza at 11:00 and pass at least a half-dozen papyrus “museums,” “institutes,” and “schools.”

A butcher shop, raw meat carcasses hanging from the doorway. Rooftops piled with loose bricks and trash. A canal footbridge made from a raft of metal drums. People camping under a bridge. A donkey cart loaded with oranges. Gardens between houses. Women washing clothes and rugs on the bank of an irrigation canal.

Moustafa lectures as we travel. The many houses we see with rebar sticking from the roofs and piles of cement and sand in the yards are waiting for the addition of another room or floor. If a home is unfinished then the owner doesn’t pay taxes. This has created a sort of nation-wide Winchester Mystery House syndrome, where nobody’s home is ever done. There’s also an Islamic law against usury, so rather than taking out a mortgage Egyptians save and pay for their homes with cash and expand when they can afford it.

The farther we go the more farmland we see until we are surrounded completely by fields dotted with mud brick villages. Every yard has a domed pigeon cote with stick perches. Cotton is grown in the Delta. Luxor and Aswan grow sugarcane. Everyone grows clover for animal feed. The clover is waist high, tender, and such a brilliant green it hurts to look at it. The road runs next to an irrigation canal lined with trees drooping with egrets.

The greatly ruined pyramids of Abusir are in the distance and Saqqara is on our right. There are several carpet schools in this area. Moustafa tells us the local farmers have an average of nine to eleven kids. They want large families so they will have more help in the fields but some of the kids go to school – carpet school – instead.

A wooden handcart loaded with pita bread. Drying dates. A man standing in a doorway, ironing a pair of jeans. A canal covered with green scum. Rubble mixed with desert sand. Bits of scrubby grass. Barking dogs. Goats.

“Alabaster Sphinx” of Memphis

The village of Mit Rahina is the site of ancient Memphis. We arrive at 11:30 and enter the fenced enclosure of the open air museum. Moustafa lectures as we examine the alabaster sphinx and then have a friendly debate regarding another statute and whether it should be attributed to Hatshepsut or Tuthmosis III.

There is a shelter over the colossus of Rameses II that allows for viewing at ground level and from above. Rameses is on his back. His arms are as big as redwood tree trunks yet the muscles are perfectly defined.

Rameses II Colossus

New York to Cairo

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Paula Terrey

12 March 2000

The Great Pyramid from Mena House. The tower on the right is part of the hotel.

We are over the Mediterranean as I write this and the next land we see, forty-five minutes from now, will be Egypt. We’re late but it couldn’t be helped. Air Traffic Control put us in a holding pattern as we approached JFK. A fifteen minute delay became half-an-hour, then stretched to two hours with no explanation.

Because we were so late they wouldn’t let us leave the plane in New York. We stood and chatted with the woman behind us, whose name is Huda. She’s originally from the Sudan and was raised Muslim but now she lives in Santa Barbara and is a Native American Sundancer.

Chaz has had yet another mid-air pen disaster. There’s a splotch of ink on his passport control card and the tips of two fingers are black, but considering all the henna around here he looks quite fashionable.

At 7:10 pm we arrive at Cairo International Airport. The airport –- or at least this terminal of the airport –- isn’t nearly as large as I expected but there’s no doubt we’re in the right place. The ceiling panels are aluminum but the floor is granite and the square pillars are encased in alabaster. The Hadj is just starting so the place is packed with well wishers from the countryside, seeing their loved ones off on their great religious adventure.

Twelve of us are assembled and waiting for the Museum Tours representative, Khaled, to shepherd us onward. Khaled has thinning wavy hair, boundless energy, and a cell phone glued to his ear.

Once outside the airport we board a bus/van hybrid and are introduced to Moustafa, our guide for the duration of the trip. Moustafa is young, exuberant, friendly, and speaks English with a clear accent. He will be perfect.

The ride from the airport to our hotel is a blur of sights: cars and motorcycles driving without lights (why do they do that?!), trucks piled high with bulging sacks of grain, and cattle on the way to the butcher.

We pass a replica statue of Rameses II and then the City of the Dead, an Islamic cemetery that’s home to thousands of squatters. It’s sprawling and spooky, walled off from the main road but we can see down the narrow streets as we pass. Cooking fires flicker in front of darkened tomb doorways. Moustafa tells us the government can’t force people already living there to leave, however they offer interest-free loans and help getting apartments. There are 65 million people in Egypt, 18 million in Cairo.

At 8:30 pm we arrive at Mena House, an astonishing island of tranquility. We’re in room 163, ground level of the newest section of the hotel. Our room is furnished with two comfortable chairs, a low table, several lamps, an old-fashioned wardrobe, and an up-to-date looking television. The beds and windows are draped with tapestry-like material and the bathroom has a marble counter and floor. The tag on our room key is thick, heavy brass.