Solar Boat & the Great Sphinx

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Paula Terrey

16 March 2000 (morning, continued)

The Solar Boat museum as seen from a distance.

After our tour of the Great Pyramid we skirt around on foot to the Solar Boat Museum.

According to my official Museum of Cheops booklet, published by the Ministry of Culture, Egyptian Antiquities Organization, the present structure, which opened in 1982 and was built directly over the pit where the boat parts were discovered, “…brought a good deal of controversy, and all of it on the same topic — how is it possible to build a modern construction in the shadow of the Great Pyramid itself, without looking totally out-of-place?”

Indeed. What to do, what to do?

The less than prepossessing Solar Boat Museum.

Again, according to the booklet, “The problem was solved by the architect designing the project with an outer shell of steel-reinforced concrete and all the façade of transparent glass, to make it complement its stern surroundings as well as to conceal its vast size and unusual shape.”

The result is, of course, an aesthetic disaster; a big-butt ostrich of a museum with its head in the sand, pretending no one can see it. It sets my teeth on edge just looking at it, but my annoyance is quickly overcome by my desire to visit the boat.

Inside, we put thick cloth booties over our shoes to help cut down on dust and then see the enormous cavity that housed the boat. The ancient Egyptians carved a hole in the native rock and roofed it with forty-one gigantic, rectangular limestone blocks. The blocks were mortared together and then concealed under a layer of beaten earth, then further obscured by a wall.

Other boat pits — long empty — were well-known on the plateau, but this one and another went undetected until 1954, when archaeologist Kamal el-Mallakh and his crew discovered them while clearing old dig dumps and wind-blown sand from around the southern side of the pyramid. It had been so perfectly sealed for those forty-five hundred years that the cedar smelled as pungent as the day it was tucked away.

Next, we examine a model of the boat and photos showing the reconstruction process. The challenge of puzzling out how the 1,223 pieces of the dismantled craft fit together fell mostly to one man: Ahmed Youssef Moustafa, Chief Restorer of the Department of Antiquities, who devoted fourteen years to the effort. Then we go upstairs and see the actual boat.

Khufu’s boat as viewed from the bow.

The cabin of Khufu’s boat, looking toward the stern.

There are two viewing levels in the museum, and from the lower level the boat looks like it’s floating in the air. The planks are surprisingly (to me) thick, and the bottom is quite flat. Bow and stern both rise in a steep curve and end in the form of a papyrus bud. It is stunningly beautiful.

The cabin of Khufu’s boat, looking toward the bow.

We go up to the second level, and from this vantage point can look down on the deck. The gangplank is quite wide — certainly wide enough to accommodate men carrying a coffin, if that was indeed its purpose. While some believe this was a sacred or “solar” barque, used only once to transport the king’s body in a funerary procession, Ahmed Youssef Moustafa believed wear on the timbers and other features showed the boat had been used many times. I’d like to think it was one of the king’s favorite yachts and a defiant thumb-of-the-nose at the “you can’t take it with you” mindset.

Monolithic simplicity of Khafre’s Valley Temple

After the Solar Boat Museum we get back on the bus and drive down to Khafre’s Valley Temple. Khafre succeeded his father Khufu, and his pyramid is the second largest on the plateau, rising to a height of 471 feet, just ten feet shy of the Great Pyramid. All of the Giza pyramids had both “Mortuary” and “Valley” temples linked by long causeways. The mortuary temples nestled against their respective pyramids, while the valley temples hugged the Nile. Khafre’s temple is the best preserved, built from colossal limestone blocks encased in granite.

We spend some time contemplating the gigantic blocks, then use the remains of Khafre’s causeway to march up to the Great Sphinx. The ol’ sphinx is free of scaffolding and looking good.

It is a fantastic day at Giza, with the pyramids in the distance and the paws of the sphinx resting in front of us. Never mind the brazen Pizza Hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken directly across the street.

Great Sphinx, Giza

The Great Pyramid

Posted on January 23, 2015 by Paula Terrey

16 March 2000 (morning, continued)

The author photographs a boat pit near the Great Pyramid

After buying our Great Pyramid tickets we wander, waiting for the first rush of tourists to hit it and clear out. It’s a hazy day and there’s a brisk wind from the north. There are so many deep pits in the rock around the pyramid, I feel like I’m walking on Swiss cheese.

Overwhelming scale of the Great Pyramid

The Great Pyramid is dated to 2551 BC and attributed to King Khufu, also known by the Greek version of his name, “Cheops.”

According to my guidebook, it has a base of over 13 acres, was originally 481 feet tall (the tippy top is now missing), and has over two million blocks of stone that weigh, on average, two-and-a-half tons each.

Ironically, the only known likeness of Khufu is a 3-inch-high ivory figurine found at Abydos, showing him dressed in a simple robe and the red crown, sitting on a throne with his right arm crossed over his chest, a flail in his hand.

Interior passages of the Great Pyramid

Like other Egyptian pyramids, the Great Pyramid was surrounded by the ritual structures needed to complete a first-rate funerary complex, including temples and a nice “members only” court cemetery out on the back forty. But it is the interior passages and chambers that have become a sort of giant, three-dimensional Rorschach test through the years. Most people view it as a tomb, but there are those who have seen it as a cosmic clock, Joseph’s granary, a resurrection machine, a code for unlocking biblical secrets, an astronomical observatory, and a massive hydraulic pump.

Massive stone beams above original entrance, Great Pyramid

To get inside the Great Pyramid we climb stone steps on the outside to a 9th century Arab explorer’s tunnel. The original entrance is exposed several courses above us and a little to the left. It is astonishing on its own, protected by enormous stone beams set in a stress-relieving peak.

Female guards at the entrance take tickets and check cameras (allowed, but a separate charge). After passing through the tunnel we come to a spot where, if we climb down a few steps, we can see the descending passageway that connects the original entrance to the subterranean chamber. We don’t go that way, however, but climb the ascending passage that leads to the Grand Gallery.

From the top of the ascending passage we can go straight (actually down slightly and then straight) to the “Queen’s Chamber” (a likely misnomer), or up through the Grand Gallery to the burial chamber. We go up first.

Looking up at the ceiling of the Grand Gallery

The Grand Gallery is a mystery within a mystery, and theories about its purpose run the gamut from it being a stone block storage area to it being part of a counterweight system for lifting the impossibly heavy granite burial chamber blocks. In many ways it’s no different from the corbelled chambers we saw in the Meidum and Red pyramids, but like everything else in this pyramid the scale overwhelms. The Gallery is well-lit, but even so the ceiling is in shadow and I feel like an ant in the elevator shaft of a skyscraper.

At the top of the Gallery we must stoop to get through a low, granite-lined passage to the burial chamber.

Burial chamber, Great Pyramid. Photo courtesy of Jon Bodsworth, Wikimedia Commons.

The burial chamber is as big as our house. Our house is admittedly smallish, but still… There is a ventilation fan rumbling in one of the “air shafts.” Its noise is intense and a bit unnerving. The sarcophagus rests at one end of the chamber — lidless, battered, and empty. It seems out-of-place, somehow — too small compared to the chamber and the pyramid itself. There is a recording thermo-hygrometer on a stand against the wall near the entrance and a security camera up in a corner, trained on the sarcophagus. Those who check the pyramid’s condition are also keeping an eye on cracks in the ceiling slabs and have placed strips that will alert to any signs of shifting.

“Movement detectors” on ceiling cracks in King’s chamber, Great Pyramid

Back out in the Grand Gallery, Bill points out to us, high above our heads, the opening that leads to the relieving chambers over the burial chamber. It would take a very long ladder to get up to it.

Niche at one end of the Queen’s chamber

At the bottom of the Grand Gallery we duck-walk through a passage to the Queen’s Chamber. The Queen’s Chamber was never finished and has an uneven floor. There is a niche at one end, although that word hardly does it justice because, like everything else in this pyramid, it’s big. It was burrowed into by treasure hunters and the hole they left behind is gated over. It was in the southern “air shaft” of this chamber that the robot camera discovered the “door” with copper pins.

After leaving the Queen’s Chamber, we go back to the area where steps lead down to the original descending passageway. The gate is still open, but one of the female camera police is shooing people away. She gets distracted for a moment, however, and in an impulsive moment of lawlessness I dash down and arrive at a spot where I can look back up to the original entrance and see sunlight shining around the edges of the steel door that covers it, and also some of the granite sealing plugs. I would love to go back and contemplate in detail all the things we’ve seen, but it’s starting to get crowded and so we must move along. We emerge to a fine view of the bus parking area.

Bus parking as seen from entrance of the Great Pyramid

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