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!

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.