Ancient Egypt: Land of the Pharaohs!

Part A: Pyramids and Egyptian Museum

Travelogue 25

 

Today the traveler on the Nile enters a wonderland at whose gates rise the colossal pyramids of which he has had visions perhaps from earliest childhood.

James Henry Breasted

 

[I am presenting this travelogue in two parts. Part A here deals with the great Pyramids of Giza, the raison d’etre for my trip to Egypt, the Egyptian Museum and Alexandria.  The future Part B will deal with the Nile Basin of Ancient Egypt.]

 

Yes, I had visions of entering the wonderland and looking through its gates at the colossal pyramids from the very moment I had heard about it from my distinguished scholar-teacher* in my high school history class.  He had introduced them with as much aplomb as a peacock unfurling its feathers.  But, at that time, the vision was as much of a mirage as any in the Egyptian deserts.  Indeed, I hadn’t even thought about until one day, in early 2016, the unthinkable idea presented itself as a travel agency’s large attractive banner advertisement hung and swaying across the street close to a beautiful park near my home. I decided it was meant for me more than anyone else and went straight to my good friend and senior colleague Dr C Seshadri’s (whom I shall refer to simply as CS in the rest of this long article, and the next one) home and excitedly proposed a joint response.  Himself a keen student of history, he jumped at the idea, and within the hour I had made a confirmed booking for the two of us in the trip a couple of months away, and – here was the catch – subject to an adequate number of takers for the offer.

[*This was the late Prof M P L Sastry, founder Principal of the Gandhinagar High School, Bangalore where I was a student circa 1952, and later the founder-director-mentor of the MES Group of Institutions in Bangalore.]

The travel agency’s caveat was that since Egypt had not fully recovered from the aftereffects of its bloody 2011 political revolution, and its reverberations, tourism had not returned to anywhere near its customary pace.  Luckily, there was no dearth of other brave hearts for the travel agency to go ahead with its comprehensive eight-day tour of much of ancient Egypt, with the prospect of ‘entering the wonderland and looking through its gates’ on the very first day, though not as a ‘traveler down the Nile’.

Before continuing further, let me spell out my own caveat.  The study of the history of ancient Egypt, its people, their lifestyles, belief systems, monuments, buildings, construction techniques that produced such enduring edifices outlasting the civilization itself, the work ethos, its rulers, including the mighty pharaohs and their opulence, their magical style of art and architecture, the hieroglyphics, archaeology, etc., are all part of the highly scientific discipline of Egyptology, being pursued in the Western world for over two centuries now.  I am just a bystander, and an admirer, and nothing more.  My interest is mainly that of a wide-eyed tourist, with a penchant for photography. I have no pretenses to understanding the discipline, even superficially.  My descriptions, comments and remarks will have to be judged with these limitations in mind.  However, CS is vastly more proficient with the discipline and I have naturally benefitted from my association with him.

Arrival

Our group of about 20 left Bangalore and arrived at Cairo airport via Doha on the morning of 29 Mar 2016 and expected help from the local associates of the travel agency to get our visas (on arrival) and transportation to our hotel.  We entered an utterly chaotic arrivals hall with no help in sight and no airport official to guide us.  After a considerable wait, with our bleary-eyed visions beginning to become befuddled, a burly figure showed up saying that he was our local guide, collected all our passports, entered the required information on the visa application forms all by himself at lightning speed, pulled out a visa stamp from somewhere, stamped the passports with the speed seen only in post offices back home, and shoved us out and into a superbly comfortable air-conditioned luxury bus. Fortunately for us, the airport chaos was the only forgettable experience of the entire tour.

  

Driving through parts of Cairo city, our first stop was for lunch at a north Indian style restaurant that appeared to be managed by an Indian family and served a thoroughly homely lunch in an equally homely environment.  I regretted having eaten a much less gratifying meal served up in the flight from Doha and not being able to do full justice to what I found on my table in that friendly place.

The Pyramids of Giza

We were now heading towards Giza and its iconic pyramids.  On the way I got my first sight of the fabulous Nile, Africa’s longest river that was also as much a part of the ancient Egyptian ethos as the pyramids. Soon we were driving alongside part of the river’s eastern side through busy Cairo. We didn’t have to wait too long for our first view of one of the three famous pyramids. The first sighting of a major tourist attraction in any country, be it from air, land or sea, is always an unforgettable experience, and I had my share of this.  But sighting a pyramid as we drove towards Giza was not just memorable, it was electrifying! As we reached the outskirts of Giza and its wonders, I had made the transition from a lingering dream to a compelling reality.

 

Here is a picture showing parts of the river and the surrounding city on that hazy afternoon: 

Our accommodation for the next three nights was in a high-end hotel within close view of the pyramids and all the edifices in the large desert area, known collectively as the Giza Necropolis. The following picture shows the Great Pyramid of Khufu, the largest of the three, from the hotel complex on a hazy afternoon: 

Massive amounts of tourist literature about the pyramids and other ancient Egyptian legacies are available, both on and offline.  The prospective tourist may be hard put to make a judicious selection.  Here are two websites which I found helpful and worth mentioning in this regard:

https://www.pyramid-of-giza.com/pyramids-of-giza-facts/

https://www.earthtrekkers.com/10-days-in-egypt-itinerary-cairo-aswan-luxor-abu-simbel/

Here is a picture of our hotel, with CS in the foreground, taken the next morning in sunny weather: 

After a quick check-in at the rather sparsely occupied hotel, we proceeded straight to the main gate of the pyramid complex, from where a spectacular view of the colossal pyramid of Khufu greeted us, standing tall and majestic, from behind the puny, thinly populated, ticket counter.  Here it is, our entry into the wonderland, from close quarters:

We mingled with a few small children and hurried up the pathway to the pyramid, past a large plaque showing a detailed map of the complex.  I captured the picture below, highlighting the plaque as much as the great pyramid behind it.  The reader can zoom in on the plaque for a blown-up view of the map.

The following two pictures give an idea of how gigantic the pyramid in front of us truly was.  In the first one, quite a number of people are seen to have climbed up part of the way, below a huge opening dug into the brickwork.  The second picture shows CS next to one of the huge blocks of stone used in the lower layers of the pyramid. He had chosen to stand next to something comparable to his height! There were some that could have easily dwarfed him!

Later that afternoon a few in our group, including CS, walked some distance and back through a narrow passageway, dug into the lower layers of one of the smaller pyramids after paying for the privilege at the wooden entry ramp, as can be seen in the picture below.  I was not part of this group because of a stiff neck, quite literally!  I don’t think they made any new discoveries that would further enrich Egyptology!

Later that evening, we were taken through the eastern entrance to the site of the famous, but severely weather-beaten, Sphinx, with the pyramid of Khafre just hidden (far) behind it in the picture below:

Going up the road on the right, we could get an unobstructed view of the other two tall pyramids, of Khafre and Menkaure, in the picture below. See how tall they stand out gainst the foreground of two tiny buses.

Sound and Light Show

After dinner, and somewhat late into the night, we were taken to a spectacular sound and light show, with some superb narration and projection of relevant visuals. Unfortunately for me, and apparently a few others too, it had become very chilly, and I was not adequately protected against the cold.  Much against my will, I decided to come out of the show about half way through and take shelter in a nearby curios shop and wait for the end of the show and arrival of our group bus. Though we couldn’t understand a word of what we said, I stuck up a conversation with the jolly shopkeeper while also listening to the distant audio narration.  Below is a picture I took before the show had begun. It is the fuller version of the one I have used as a curtain raiser for this article. 

The Enduring Wonder of the World

I am strongly holding back on any lengthy description of even the hard facts that ensure an eternal place in history for the Pyramids as the greatest wonder of the world. Nonetheless, the following snippets are perhaps pertinent:

• Not only are the Pyramids one of the historic seven wonders of the ancient world, they are also the only ones still surviving, despite all the vandalism and ravages of time inflicted on them down the ages. 
• Napoleon Bonaparte had said, “From the heights of these Pyramids, forty centuries look down on us.” He is rather guilty of a slight understatement, because the great Pyramid of Khufu dates back to 2,580 BCE.
• Ancient Egyptian civilization is believed to have started around 3,150 BCE when King Menes unified upper and lower Egypt and established a capital city at what became known later as Memphis.
• The Great Pyramid of Giza consists of an estimated 2.3 million blocks of stone, not all of them as large as the one CS is seen standing next to!
• It is estimated that twenty to thirty thousand people struggled about twenty years to build the great Pyramid alone.
• Contrary to popular belief, there is no credible evidence that the pyramids were built with slave labour.
• When a popularity poll for a list of New 7 Wonders of the World was being mooted in 2000, and an automatic inclusion of the Pyramids proposed, there were angry reactions to the very idea of comparing the ancient Pyramids to anything that followed! A diplomatic compromise resulted in an ‘honorary status’ for them, outside the list of seven. 
• [The popularity poll threw up the following seven as the new wonders: The Taj Mahal in India, the Great Wall of China, Machu Pichu in Peru, Petra in Jordan, the Colosseum in Rome, Italy, the Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the Pyramid of Chichen Itza in Mexico.  Incidentally, though I disagree with this list, I have been able to visit all but the last one of these.  I hope to make up for the shortfall sometime next year.]
• In a normal year (certainly not 2016, I suppose!), about 14 million people visit the Pyramids, making them one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world.

Egyptian Museum

The next morning, we were driven back to Cairo, and to one of the largest museums of its kind in the world. The Egyptian Museum houses the biggest collection of Egyptian antiquities in the world, with over 120,000 items, obviously not all of them on display at any one time. It is also the largest museum in Africa.  I had seen many museums with a dedicated wing for Egyptology, notably the Louvre in Paris and the British Museum in London, but this took pride of place as something unique, for obvious reasons.

Incidentally, museums with notable collections of a wide variety of ancient Egyptian artifacts, including full blown mummies of both humans and animals, are widespread all over the Western world.  The original source of such collections could only have been the land of ancient Egypt on either side of river Nile. While much of these exhibits could have been acquired through legal channels, there is evidence that great many of them found illegal routes out of Egypt, literally stolen from where they once belonged or ought to belong.

The museum is located in a building built in 1901 at Tahrir Square, the flash point for numerous political revolutions and turmoil in modern Egyptian history. During the latest revolution, in 2011, the museum was broken into, and two mummies were destroyed. Several artifacts were also found to have been damaged and around 50 objects were stolen. Since then, 25 objects have been recovered and partially restored.  Here is a picture of part of the historic building housing the museum, with a number of our fellow tourists from Bangalore relaxing before starting on the visit:

Captured below is a deceptively peaceful picture of a small part of the iconic Tahrir Square just in front of the Museum, dominated by the presence of a famous hotel which may not always have enjoyed its fame, any more than the museum always felt comfortable with its location.  This landmark of Cairo has recently undergone extensive remodelling, including erection of an ancient obelisk as its centrepiece.  Tahrir Square is to Cairo and Egypt what Bastille stands for Paris and France!

We were ushered in through a side entrance to the museum (see picture below), with a thoroughly professional English-speaking guide welcoming us, explaining how the tour was organized for us, and handing to each one of us an earphone which would keep us in audio touch with his commentaries even when we were not physically close to him.

 

Here is a view of the interior of the museum:

It was a selective, well-organized and expertly conducted tour, lasting till well past lunch time, and we didn’t miss much that was worth seeing, especially the all-important Tutankhamun section highlighted by the attractive poster shown below. This section housed some of the most valuable relics and artifacts associated with the tragic boy king, known in popular culture for his hugely opulent wealth, found during the 1922 discovery of his tomb, the only such tomb to have been found in near-intact condition.  One of the greatest archaeological discoveries of all time, it was the achievement of British Egyptologist Howard Carter, in the Valley of the Kings, situated well away from the pyramids, which we also visited later.

Here is the Golden Mummy Mask richly decorated with images of different amulets, each with its own symbolic significance: 

Here is the funerary gold mask of Tutankhamun, excavated by Howard Carter in 1925 after being buried for over three thousand years in the Valley of the Kings. This death mask is one of the best-known works of art in the world and a prominent symbol of ancient Egypt. Decorated with semi-precious stones, it weighs 11 kg.  The mask had to be restored in 1925 after its plaited beard had come off accidentally.

Here is a sarcophagus with its mummy, embellished with some intricate gold inlay art work:

I end this visit to the great Egyptian Museum with the following two views of the interior from among the scores of pictures in my collection:

We spent the rest of the day visiting some city sights of an overpopulated Cairo, but had to be satisfied with only a distant view of one of its ancient Islamic structures, the Citadel.

After dinner that night, one of our knowledgeable colleagues persuaded our local tourist guide to take us to visit one of the great sights of the city, the 600-year-old Khan El-Khalili Bazaar, overflowing with souvenir shops in narrow streets, bursting with people at every turn, and with walking space the hardest commodity to find. CS and I were interested only in the walking and watching part, not in buying anything, let alone the bargaining, without which the act of buying made no sense at all in such places.  After a short escapade, I was quite content to be the first to get back to the comfort of our bus. It was quite a long time before it filled up and started the ride back to the hotel.  The next day was very special, a long return trip to the historic city of Alexandria. 

Alexandria

One of the most ancient cities in the world, Alexandria is a Mediterranean port city, about 220 km northwest of Cairo.  A long, full-day return trip to this cradle of Hellenistic civilization was part of our conducted tour of Egypt.  We left our hotel in Cairo early morning on 31 Mar 16 by another one of those superb air-conditioned buses that were a feature of our trip everywhere in Egypt.  Equally superb was the road to Alexandria and the two-hundred-minute journey was a cinch.  The bus halted briefly at the scenic roadside restaurant shown in the picture below:

Our local guide, for this trip as well as for our local visits on the previous day in Cairo, was a scholarly figure with a demeanor and professional competence well above and beyond what is normally associated with even trained guides in such roles.  He also appeared to be a rather lonely and resigned type, with a philosophical detachment and a refined conversational skill, all of which appealed to both CS and me as something special.  At dinner time on the previous evening, at the iconic Ramses-Hilton Hotel, we had engaged in a casual conversation with him, delving into various issues connected with the situation in Egypt following the revolution of 2011.  It was a highly educative experience for us.  One sad thing that emerged was the struggle he was going through just to earn a decent living, because of the impact of the revolution on tourism in what was, in normal times, a valuable source of national income.

Alexandria was once home to a lighthouse that was one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World, as well as a unique library, a storehouse of ancient knowledge, whose virtues I got to admire from Carl Sagan’s account of it in his celebrated COSMOS video series. Sadly, both are now extinct. The old library has however been replaced by a new one, the ultramodern Bibliotheca Alexandrina.  The city also has some notable Greco-Roman landmarks which was where we first headed. Here is a picture of Pompey’s Pillar, a Roman triumphal column left standing beside the ruins of the temple of Serapis:

Our next visit was to the fabled Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa, considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages. For whatever reason, photography was forbidden in this region.  Unfortunately, despite having spent a considerable amount of time there, it is a pity my memory of it is too clouded for a description of my own, except the act of stepping gingerly down a very narrow circular opening at ground level quite deep into a subterranean passage.

Our next stop was at a recently excavated amphitheater, a work still in progress in a populated locality of the city.  Here is a picture of it, with uncharacteristic green foliage in the foreground:

After a long drive along the coastal road from where I got my first ever view of the great blue Mediterranean Sea, we alighted at the famous 15^th century defensive fortress known as the Citadel of Qaitbay, a striking landmark of the city.  Below is a picture I captured from some distance.  There was no time to go inside the abandoned fortress.  

On our return journey from the citadel, and after a dreadful lunch at a good-looking hotel, we passed by the great new library of Alexandria, apparently at its original location, only to be told that the bus wouldn’t stop there. I hastily took a picture of what is apparently the roof of this ultramodern building.  It looked too attractive for me not to present it here (see below):

After a long journey along the Mediterranean coast, we reached our final destination in the city, the eye-catching Montaza Palace (see picture below), with its extensive seaside gardens and beaches, a great place for a picnic any other time. We were told that it had become a presidential palace after the overthrow of the last king of Egypt. Here is a picture of it against the backdrop of a great all-blue sky:

After a long interlude at the inviting beaches close to the Montaza Palace, it was time for our return journey to Cairo. The next morning, we were to leave Cairo for good and board a flight for Aswan.  

The visits to Aswan, Philae, Kom Ombo, Luxor, Karnak, Abu Simbel and the rest of ancient Egypt along the rivel Nile form the next part of this travelogue, ‘looking back over forty centuries’, to mimic a phrase from Napoleon. 

I sign off with a much-treasured late evening picture of myself against the background of the Pyramid of Khafre far behind me in a partly blue sky, in the harsh desert of the Giza Necropolis, with not another soul in our vicinity!