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