An Egyptian Odyssey

Featured

Posted on November 13, 2014 by Paula Terrey

Drawing by the fabulous and highly talented Leigh Toldi (see link in blogroll)

INTRODUCTION

We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. John Steinbeck

In March of 2000 I went to Egypt with my husband, Chaz Benedict. The trip was sponsored by the Ancient Egypt Studies Association in Portland, Oregon (a group that sadly no longer exists) and was organized and managed by Bill and Nancy Petty of the superb Museum Tours .

My goal was to both savor every moment and record as much as I could. I was an unabashed, wide-eyed American tourist. Everything was fascinating and my pen couldn’t move nearly fast enough to suit me. I recorded information as I heard and saw it but it is quite possible that some of my “facts” are inaccurate. Any errors or omissions are my responsibility. My readers are welcome to leave corrections and comments.

Thousands of Egyptians depend on tourism for their livelihood and Egypt is open for business. If you’ve been thinking of taking a trip, now is the time to do it. Egyptians are without a doubt some of the most talented, friendly, and helpful people on the planet and that remains true in spite of the recent political upheaval. We always felt safe and welcome. I went for the monuments but would gladly have stayed for the people.

And if you love Egypt like I do, then please consider joining The American Research Center in Egypt and affiliate with the Northern California Chapter. (It costs nothing extra and will give you access to our newsletter, The Cartouche.) ARCE is a private, nonprofit organization promoting research on Egyptian history and culture, knowledge about Egypt among the general public, and American-Egyptian cultural ties.

In loving memory of Charles “Chaz” Benedict, my husband and partner in adventure for twenty-five years. May you sail joyfully on the great waters forever.

May 28, 1958 — March 17, 2015

Chaz in King Tutankhamen’s tomb, March 17, 2000

KV35: Tomb of Amenhotep II

Posted on March 12, 2015 by Paula Terrey

17 March 2000 (morning, continued)

Amenhotep II, blessed by the goddess Hathor

Amenhotep II, assisted by the goddess Hathor

The trail from Deir el-Medina to the Valley of the Kings brings us out near KV35, the tomb of Amenhotep II. Bill would like us to see this one together and then we’ll explore on our own for a couple of hours before meeting up again to tour KV62, Tutankhamen’s tomb.

KV35 is important for a number of reasons, not the least because, like DB320, it housed a royal mummy cache. Discovered in 1898 by French Egyptologist Victor Loret, it had been heavily looted in antiquity, but was still knee-deep in broken funerary furnishings: a higgledy-piggledy puzzle of strange items whose complete form and function could only be guessed at until discovery of similar, unbroken items in Tutankhamen’s tomb over two decades later.

Plan of KV35, Tomb of Amenhotep II

We enter and walk down a very long and steep series of stairs and corridors. The tomb is an odd mix of finished and unfinished surfaces, with this first part being unfinished. When we finally arrive in the burial chamber, however, we’re rewarded with a magnificent “stick figure” illustration of the Amduat that explains, in 12-hour segments, what the deceased will encounter in the netherworld.

The 12th Hour of the Amduat. Public domain photo, Wikimedia Commons.

Winged cobra and cedarwood cow god from KV35. From “The Illustrated Guide to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo,” American University in Cairo Press.

Loret was a careful excavator. He superimposed a series of grids over the chambers as he cleared them and tied his finds to those grids in his notes. He also made sketches and took photographs. Unfortunately, he never published more than a general article about the tomb and no one else took up the task. Still, a few items are always mentioned in the accounts I’ve read: a winged wooden snake sculpture, a painted cedar cow head, and a large model boat that sported a rather gruesome mummy tossed carelessly on top.

And then there was Amenhotep himself. He was in his lidless sarcophagus, encased in an off-the-rack cartonnage mummy case and wrapped in linen supplied for him by the 21st dynasty priests who were in charge of tidying up the Valley of the Kings after extensive looting. These same priests rescued nine of his compatriots and stashed them in a side chamber. With this bonanza, many of the pharaohs not included in the Deir el-Bahari cache (DB320) were now accounted for, leaving the world with an astonishingly complete set of New Kingdom kings.

The three side-room mummies of KV35. Engraving from a photograph.

The mummies didn’t stop there, however, with three more — two women and a boy — on the floor of a side chamber, unwrapped and without any helpful jottings. They’ve inspired speculation ever since, especially the “Elder Lady,” a haughty beauty with flowing hair who is, most likely, Queen Tiye, wife of Amenhotep III.

Amenhotep, packed for shipment to Cairo before being ordered back to his tomb. Note the ancient wreath of flowers around his head.

Loret lovingly packed all the mummies for shipment to Cairo, but at the last-minute the Egyptian government ordered them returned to the tomb. In 1900 that decision was partly reversed, but the three unwrapped mummies stayed in the side chamber and Amenhotep was popped back into his sarcophagus and put on public display.

Then, as if the man hadn’t suffered enough, modern robbers broke into the tomb in late 1901 and ripped the bandages from around Amenhotep’s head and chest, presumably looking for jewelry and amulets and not realizing the wrappings were an ancient re-do and valuables were long gone. Luckily, the mummy was relatively undamaged and so he went back on display until 1931, when he finally made the trip to Cairo and joined the rest of the gang. The three side chamber mummies, however, stayed put.

As we gaze at the stone sarcophagus — it’s quite beautiful, made of red quartzite and with a rounded end like a cartouche — it’s hard to absorb that this space was once so mysterious and complex. Wooden planking covers the floor and the place is packed with people and shockingly hot and humid. These conditions cannot be good for the tomb and I’m seized with guilt for contributing my own sweat and respirations to the mix.

Red quartzite sarcophagus of Amenhotep II. Photo courtesy of Ignati, Wikimedia Commons.

Hike to Valley of the Kings

Posted on March 5, 2015 by Paula Terrey

17 March 2000 (morning)

After our tour of Deir el-Medina village, Bill and Nancy offer us an Egyptonerd’s dream: a chance to walk over the cliffs to the Valley of the Kings on the same trail used by the tomb builders.

Setting out on the trail from Deir el-Medina to Valley of the Kings

al-Gurn: the horn. A “pyramid” above the Valley of the Kings.

We start from the ruins on a steep ascent and it isn’t long before we’re high enough for breathtaking views, including al-Gurn — “the horn” — a pyramid-shaped mountain that dominates the skyline. Egyptologists have long speculated that the Valley of the Kings was selected because of its proximity to al-Gurn. I guess it’s possible, although since I’m an Old Kingdom kind of girl it doesn’t do much to increase my respect for New Kingdom royals. If you want a pyramid, be a man and go build one!

After the “Luxor Massacre” (slaying of 62 people at Deir el-Bahri) three years ago, the government stepped up security. They’re building new guard stations above us, endless white slashes of stairs leading up to them across the tawny slopes. It’s comforting, I suppose, to know eyes are watching from a safe distance. The Deir el-Bahri murderers killed four Egyptian guards before they could summon help, and it took 45 minutes for first responders to arrive on the scene.

I can hardly believe I’m walking in the footsteps of the ancients, although it shouldn’t be that difficult to imagine since we’re accompanied every step of the way by their descendants.

Bill introduces us to two young men who are great-grandsons of Ahmed el-Rassul, the infamous tomb robber who discovered the royal mummy cache, first revealed to the world in 1881. The fake scarabs, ushabtis, and whatnot that they’re selling are quite nice, and their family connection makes the items all the more intriguing, but it’s tricky to walk the edge of a sheer five hundred foot cliff and haggle at the same time, so I politely decline. Not that it stops them from continuing to try with others in our group. They persist to the point that Bill gets upset with them and puts a firm end to the whole business.

Probable entrance to a tomb

Then Bill tells us of a long-standing rumor that Ahmed el-Rassul had a private “stash,” but died before he could show the spot, so I spend the rest of the hike scouring the landscape with my eagle eyes, sure I’ll be the one to notice the hidden opening that thousands before me have missed. Even as I’m looking, Bill points out a “well” at the base of a cliff face that’s most likely the entrance to a tomb.

Above Hatshepsut’s temple

We pass above Deir el-Bahri and look down on Hatshepsut’s temple, which we’ll visit later today. The temple is in the midst of extensive reconstruction. We can see some behind-the-scenes staging, plus the huge storage areas off to the sides where the blocks are set out in neat rows, waiting to be restored to their proper place.

Then at last we approach the Valley of the Kings. From our high vantage point it looks exactly as it’s always described in books: stark and hot. There isn’t so much as a weed in evidence and the rock is blindingly white, tempered in only in a few places by a dusting of small black pebbles.

The descent into the valley is the hardest part of the trail. It’s extremely steep and there’s a lot of loose, slippery limestone debris underfoot, and no hand holds. We all make it safely, however, and then it sinks in: we are surrounded by royal tombs, and while the tidy retaining walls at their entrances and the paved paths connecting them counteract the romance to a certain degree, my brain is on fire with excitement as we make our way to Tomb 35, resting place of Amenhotep II.

Looking down into the Valley of the Kings

Dier el-Medina

Posted on February 27, 2015 by Paula Terrey

17 March 2000 (morning)

The rock and mud walls of Deir el-Medina

The rock and mud brick walls of Deir el-Medina

When we pull into the parking lot at the ancient village of Deir el Medina, we find we’re early enough to have the site mostly to ourselves.

Deir el-Medina dates to the beginning of the New Kingdom (18th Dynasty, roughly 1500 BC) and was a company town, home to the workers who cut and decorated the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. It offers a rare three-dimensional view of Egyptian life, even if that life wasn’t exactly typical. Restoration work has focused on capping and conserving walls, and as we get out of the bus it feels like we’ve stumbled across the remains of an enormous rock-built honeycomb.

Looking down on the village of Deir el-Medina

The ancient Egyptians were apparently no different from the rest of us and liked to avoid a long commute. Unless they were off on assignment — building pyramids; collecting gold, incense, and exotic animals in the mysterious land of Punt; conquering the enemies of Egypt and returning with a lovely pile of chopped-off hands to prove the body count — they mostly stuck close to their farms and the Nile. Unfortunately, most of those homes were built of mud brick and, durable though it is, it just doesn’t hold up well when subjected to occasional flooding.

Deir el-Medina, however, was far enough from water to leave at least the foundations relatively intact, even after 3500 years of exposure. It was excavated starting in the early 1900s (by men who made hash of it), and then seriously studied from the 1920s until the 1950s by French Egyptologist Bernard Bruyere and Czech Egyptologist Jaroslav Cerny .

Looking up at Deir el-Medina tombs

The Deir el-Medina artisans were literate, skilled, and highly organized. They left behind reams of records jotted on everything from papyrus to ostraca (bits of broken pottery, the archaic equivalent of scrap paper).

So we have their documents, their homes, and their graves (situated on a rise above the village), and among our group we have enough knowledgable scholars to gossip about the workers like we’re discussing old friends.

Fun though it will be to examine the ruins, Deir el-Medina is perhaps best known for its gorgeous tombs, so we make a beeline for them first. Even the courtyard chapels of the tombs in this necropolis were charming; many of them featured small pyramids, including the one we’ll visit first (TT1), which belonged to Sennedjem, “Servant in the Place of Truth” (but more practically, a mason) during the 19th Dynasty.

Sennedjem and his wife enjoy a game of Sennet. Photo courtesy of Mamienfr, Wikimedia Commons.

Sennedjem and his wife enjoy a game of Senet. Photo courtesy of Mamienfr, Wikimedia Commons.

Sennedjem’s tomb is pure eye-candy, abundant color and decoration in a space as cozy and inviting as any home for eternity could hope to be, including an elegant vaulted ceiling in the burial chamber. It was intact when it was discovered in 1886 and stuffed with funerary furniture, coffins, and mummies. It turned out to be a family sepulcher, with at least three generations of Sennedjem’s kin in residence. It’s really too much to absorb without a chance for long contemplation, so looking around I mostly feel dazed, but can at least capture a feeling for his happy afterlife as he and his wife enjoy a game of Senet.

Happy farmers at work in the fields of Iaru. Public domain photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Cheerful farmers at work in the fields of Aaru. Public domain photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

On another wall, cheerful farmers are at work in the fields of Aaru, while yet other scenes depict such interesting things as a knife-wielding cat slaying an enormous snake.

Knife-wielding cat in the tomb of Sennedjem. With many thanks for this image to Jon Hirst. Please see link to Osiris.net in the blog roll.

Knife-wielding cat in the tomb of Sennedjem. With many thanks for this image to Jon Hirst at Osiris.net

After admiring Sennedjem’s tomb, we shift to the tomb of Inherkhau, who was “Foreman of Crew” sometime in the 20^th Dynasty. It’s suffered some damage, but still features many beautiful scenes from The Book of Gates.

That’s all we have time for today, so we return to the stone foundations and mud brick walls of the village. My head is still so full of expansive afterlife images that it’s hard to transition to these modest dwellings. The houses are small and closely packed. Main Street is so narrow, Chaz can span it with his arms.

Dr. Kent Weeks

If you’d like to learn more about the village of Deir el-Medina and surrounding area, then I recommend starting with The Theban Mapping Project. For more than three decades, Dr. Kent Weeks has been the heroic force behind this mind-bending effort to, “… map and database every archaeological, geological, and ethnographic feature in Thebes.”

And if you’d like to explore the gorgeous Deir el-Medina tombs in detail, then I recommend Osirisnet.net, a website loaded with great information and photos.

Luxor: To the West Bank

Posted on February 20, 2015 by Paula Terrey

17 March 2000 (early morning)

Winter Palace garden, Luxor. Photo courtesy of Bonnie Ann Cain-Wood, Wikimedia Commons

The local Luxor muezzin issues his call to prayer at four this morning. Lovely to lie in bed and listen to it although, thanks to the miracle of modern amplification methods, the volume is ear-splitting. It doesn’t end with the muster — perhaps due to the Eid al-Aida festival? — and I’m able to enjoy it for nearly an hour. When it finally stops, a rooster crows in the distance. Then a crow caws, loudly, outside our window and, as the sun peeks over the horizon, hundreds of sparrows in the hotel garden burst out chirping. Chaz sleeps soundly through it all.

Today we’ll go to the worker’s village at Deir el-Medina, home to the men who built and decorated the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, then walk their ancient trail over the cliffs and explore royal resting places for two hours before having a catered lunch in the cafeteria. After that we’ll stop at Deir el-Bahari and Hatshepsut’s temple, return to the hotel for a couple of hours, visit the Luxor Museum when it opens at 5:00 pm, and top things off with an after-dark tour of Luxor temple.

Luxor waterfront. Photo courtesy of Marek Kocjan, Wikimedia Commons.

After breakfast, we leave the hotel and jay-walk across the Corniche — the traffic artery that runs parallel to the Nile — then go down a long ramp to water level (the Nile is many feet below the street) and board a boat called Rameses. The Rameses is white with a painted decoration of lotus blossoms in blue, green and red. We perch around the sides on bench seats, a striped canvas canopy over our heads, as the two-stroke outboard motor propels us toward the West Bank.

Sugar Cane train, Luxor Egypt. Photo courtesy of Marc Ryckaert, Wikimedia Commons.

Once on the West Bank, we board a bus and head for Deir el-Medina.

We’re surrounded by fields of sugarcane, rail tracks snaking through them. Farmers load the cane onto flatbed rail cars that have tall metal posts on the sides to hold the stalks in place.

Luxor West Bank: Qurna Village.

First stop is a checkpoint to buy our tickets. The Western cliffs are straight ahead and the village of Qurna is on a hill to our right. The houses are cream, umber, and blue, with shutters painted rust and bright green.

Qurna is famous because many of those innocent looking homes are built directly on top of ancient tombs. The mere sight of it is enough to send my mind down an exciting rabbit hole, chasing thoughts of DB320, the royal mummies cache, which was discovered and exploited by that infamous Qurna family, the el-Rassuls.

Maspero lounging at the entrance to DB320.

As the story goes, sometime in the 1860s — the exact date is unknown — Ahmed Abd el-Rassul stumbled upon a deep shaft hidden among the Theban cliffs. (Thebes was the ancient Greek name for Luxor.)

Items from DB320. With many thanks for this image to the Manchester Museum.

The tomb was stuffed with an eye-popping assortment of pharaohs, coffins, and burial equipment, all hidden (most likely) during the 22nd Dynasty, a good 350 years after the heyday of perhaps the tomb’s most famous denizen, Ramses II.

Most Egyptologists believe the tomb was originally intended for 21st Dynasty High Priest Pinedjem II and his family, and that earlier royals like Ramses II were crammed in after Pinedjem, when political instability and looting prompted Valley of the Kings caretakers to perform an overall tidying up/rescue mission.

Once found by the el-Rassuls, the tomb became their bank account as they carefully parceled artifacts onto the antiquities market. The authorities knew something was up, but it wasn’t until the mid 1870s that an official investigation was launched.

Ahmed Abd el-Rassul and a younger brother were arrested and tortured, to no avail. Ahmed was released but then apparently had a change of heart and, in 1881, confessed to Emile Brugsch, assistant to Antiquities Chief Gaston Maspero. (Maspero was unfortunately in Paris.) On July 6th, Brugsch was shown the tomb and stunned by what he saw in the light of his torch:

…and there, standing against the walls or lying on the floor, I found an even greater number of mummy cases of stupendous size and weight. Their gold coverings and their polished surfaces so plainly reflected my own excited visage that it seemed as though I was looking into the faces of my own ancestors.

Fearful of attack by the locals, Brugsch put a crew in motion around the clock to clear the tomb as quickly as possible and send it all packing to Cairo. The good news is that he recovered at least 40 mummies and their coffins, plus several thousand smaller objects. The bad news is that it was done with such haste that the chance to tease out a detailed history of the tomb was lost. As a result, the tomb and its contents have been a nice Egyptological chew-toy ever since.

If you’d like to know more about the Royal Mummy Cache (who wouldn’t?!) then you can do no better than to start with Al-Mummia (The Night of Counting the Years), an acclaimed 1969 Egyptian film that reenacts the entire thrilling discovery. Look for it on Youtube.

Update

Razed village of Qurna, July 2009. Photo courtesy of Remih, Wikimedia Commons.

The historic village of Qurna no longer exists. In 2005, the Egyptian government evicted the residents and moved them to new houses. The old buildings were bulldozed and the debris left in place.

Then in 2011, the disastrous drop in tourism that followed the Egyptian revolution threw most of the locals out of work. The American Research Center in Egypt stepped forward with a plan to provide employment through a detailed survey and clean-up. The Qurna Site Improvement Project, lead by Dr. John Shearman and Dr. Andrew Bednarski, employed more than six-hundred workmen for two years, including conservation training and a first-ever recording of ethnographic information about the inhabitants.

If you wish to support such caring efforts, then I urge you to join the American Research Center in Egypt and affiliate with the Northern California Chapter. It costs nothing extra and will give you access to The Cartouche newsletter.

Cairo To Luxor

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Paula Terrey

16 March 2000 (late afternoon)

Mena House Hotel. Courtesy of Paul Mannix, Wikimedia Commons.

After my walking tour of the Giza Plateau, I return to Mena House and track down Chaz. He’s by the pool with others from our group and eager to tell me about his own adventure. It turns out that while I was examining the requisite antiquities, he witnessed something he never, ever expected to see in Egypt: A tall, thin Mickey Mouse and a few other “something is a little off” characters, dancing on the grass to the delight of the hotel guest’s children.

“Mickey Mouse” and friends on the lawn at Mena House

Pierced metal lamps at Mena House cast a lacy pattern. Photo courtesy of joepyrek, Wikimedia Commons.

We go back to our room, collect our baggage, and then proceed to the main building to check out. I’m going to miss Mena House. The lobby smells like incense and pierced metal lamp shades cast lacy patterns on the polished marble walls and floors.

On the way to Cairo Airport, we pass the Giza Zoo and see goats and a flock of flamingos. The park is spacious and grassy, with light poles shaped like drooping flowers.

Old mansions hunker next to the highway, windows broken and shutters layered with dust. Some buildings are crumbling at the edges and visibly leaning, but there’s laundry hanging from the balconies.

We whiz by a horse track and basketball courts and then the Cairo Railway Station, which is built of light yellow stones and has keyhole windows with bright blue shutters. The rail yard is packed with passenger trains. Moustafa tells us it takes nine hours to go from Cairo to Luxor by train. In first class they serve at least two meals and have entertainment areas: It costs around $40 US. The third class train has no windows and costs about a dollar.

Al Nour Mosque in Cairo. With many thanks for this image to beautifulmosque.com

Moustafa points out (it’s hard to miss) the Al Nour Mosque, with its green copper domes and two outsized minarets. It was started by the people in the neighborhood, but they ran out of money and for a long time it sat unfinished. Apparently King Fahd of Saudi Arabia would pass by on his way to and from the airport, and asked why it was languishing. When he heard the locals were broke, he donated enough to wrap it up.

The next highway-dominating feature is a billboard photo of President Mubarak, looking dapper in a suit and tie. The Nile is gray-green in the late afternoon light.

At Cairo airport things are much calmer than when we arrived, since the Hadjis are all in Mecca by now. We board our plane and most of the group nods off, although I can’t imagine why when there is so much to think about. I’d like to peel the cabin wallpaper and take it home with me: It’s a cream background with a repeating design of a golden scarab topped with a sun disk, surrounded by feathers and sitting on an ankh.

Luxor airport has only one baggage carousel and there are more taxi drivers outside than personnel inside. The air is balmy and there isn’t much traffic. Already I sense the pace of things here is slower than in Cairo… unless you are with our group.

We check into the New Winter Palace, which is next to and shares grounds with the Old Winter Palace. Once again our bathroom is fit for a pharaoh, with a tub the size of a sarcophagus and marble everywhere. Because Egypt is a desert country, I expected the hotels to have those conservation-friendly Eastern Bloc shower heads that emit needles of water so sharp they take the skin off your back. But these faucets flow in such a luxurious stream, I can almost imagine I’m in an ancient villa with servants pouring the water over me from earthenware jugs.

Historic Winter Palace Hotel. Photo courtesy of H. Grobe, Wikimedia Commons, with changes to suit the look of this blog.

Giza Plateau Walking Tour

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Paula Terrey

16 March 2000 (afternoon)

Sphinx & Khafre’s Pyramid

After the Sphinx we return to Mena House for lunch in the main dining room and luck out with a table by the picture windows. From our vantage point the Great Pyramid is so dominating that it’s an odd juxtaposition to our humble (but delicious) chicken kabob in a pita bread pocket.

After lunch most of the group opts to relax by the pool or take naps, but five of us return to the Giza Plateau with Moustafa and spend two hours exploring the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure.

Map of the Giza Plateau. Courtesy of MesserWoland, Wikimedia Commons.

Khafre’s Pyramid

Khafre was one of Khufu’s sons and, at 471 feet, his pyramid falls only ten feet short of his father’s. It’s quite different in many ways, however, including simpler interior passages and a slightly steeper angle. It also sits a bit higher than the Great Pyramid and still retains some of its casing at the top. Khafre’s pyramid is closed for restoration today, so we won’t be able to go inside. The public can visit all three of the main Giza pyramids, but as part of a conservation effort only two are open at any given time.

Menkaure followed Khafre and ruled for about eighteen years. His pyramid is smaller than the other two at a mere 213 feet tall, but his mortuary complex is relatively well-preserved and his builders worked with stones so large it boggles, so there’s plenty to view and contemplate.

Giant stone blocks of Menkaure’s mortuary temple. The corner of his pyramid is behind them and Khafre’s pyramid is in the distance.

First stop is Menkaure’s mortuary temple, where the stone beams are as big as semi trucks. We examine them and the causeway that leads to his valley temple. Mud brick building ramps can still be seen in spots around the pyramid, since Menkaure died before his temple and pyramid were finished.

This pyramid is open, although the passages are a mob scene, crammed with Egyptian children enjoying their holiday. We climb down to a small chamber carved with a series of false doors, then crouch our way along a low passage to an antechamber, then go down again to the burial chamber. On our right, before we enter the burial chamber, there’s a room with several smaller rooms off of it, but we can’t go in because it’s gated.

Menkaure's burial chamber and his loss sarcophagus

Menkaure’s burial chamber and his lost sarcophagus

The burial chamber is tiny compared to Khufu’s but has an elegant vaulted ceiling. The place is wall-to-wall kids, but the attendant shoos them out and gives us a couple of minutes to ourselves, since we’re the only adults who’ve been willing to brave the decibel level.

Menkaure’s sarcophagus is missing, the object of a great tragedy. Unlike Khufu’s austere granite coffin, Menkaure’s sarcophagus featured carved decorative panels. English Egyptologist Richard William Howard Vyse pounced and packed it off to the British Museum in the fall of 1838, but the ship that was carrying it, the Beatrice, never arrived in Liverpool, lost during a storm.

Remains of a subsidiary pyramid

Back outside, we walk around the satellite/subsidiary pyramids. Menkaure has three, but Khafre has only one.

Moustafa then takes us to see a Ramses II pair statue discovered in the past couple of years, but still in the ground. Dr. Hawass hasn’t had a chance to publish it yet, so we can’t take photos, but it’s fun to see it anyway. It’s an interesting link between this OId Kingdom site and that ubiquitous New Kingdom pharaoh.

We walk around Khafre’s pyramid and observe the original granite casing of the lower courses. Menkaure’s pyramid also had a granite casing, although it was never completed. Moustafa tells us that a lazy official under Ramses II quarried Khafre’s casing until Ramses got wind of it and made him stop. Several of the granite blocks are still lying around, partially shaped into columns. We walk between the pyramid and a sheer wall of limestone bedrock, remains of a pyramid quarry. The marks made by the stone cutters are still evident, along with hieroglyphic graffiti dating to Ramses II.

Quarry near Khafre’s pyramid. Photo courtesy of JMCC1, Wikimedia Commons.

Dr. Mark Lehner

If you’d like to learn more about the Giza Plateau, you’ll find no better source than the Ancient Egypt Research Associates website. The soul of this terrific organization is Egyptologist Mark Lehner, a man who’s dedicated the better part of his life to unlocking the secrets of this breathtaking part of our shared human history.

Dr. Lehner is the force behind The Giza Mapping Project, an ambitious effort to account for every square centimeter of the plateau. In the process he’s advanced our understanding of the pyramid builders far beyond anything known before, including critical research on the infrastructure and organization that made it all possible.

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

Giza Plateau

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Paula Terrey

16 March 2000 (morning)

Our routine has been 6:30 wake-up call, 7:00 breakfast, and board the bus by 8:00, but today we must be on the bus by 7:30. We’ll tour the Giza Plateau as a group this morning, then come back to Mena House for lunch. After that there’s an optional walking tour.

The Great Pyramid as seen from Mena House grounds

The entrance to the Giza Plateau is just around the corner and up the hill from Mena House. Makes sense, given that the Great Pyramid has been looming over us these past few days. We’ll take the bus in spite of the short distance because we’ll want it later.

First stop is a security checkpoint. There’s a police station on our left and a tiny mosque to its right, a crescent moon topping its obelisk-shaped minaret. A greasy looking shop called the “Pyramids Bazaar” is next to the mosque, donkey stables behind it.

Guard House, Giza Plateau

After security we go up the hill and wait. When we get the okay to proceed another bus challenges us to a camel race, but our driver is both ruthless and invincible and we don’t miss our chance to be first in line for Great Pyramid tickets. To prevent scalping, visitors must buy tickets themselves, so Bill stands next to the booth and gives us our allotted pounds.

Guards at the base of the Great Pyramid

First impression of the Giza Plateau: it is immense. Human hands have modified every inch of rock under our feet and it’s an uneven minefield of potential twisted ankles.

Black basalt paving, Great Pyramid

Basalt paving stones are still in place on one side of the Great Pyramid and for a moment I’m able to capture what it must have looked like originally: brilliant angle of seamless white limestone set against a turquoise sky and surrounded by a smooth, black stone lake.

This is the start of Eid al-Adha and there are swarms of picnicking families on holiday. Moustafa tells us they don’t allow Egyptians into the Great Pyramid for the first three days of the feast because there wouldn’t be any tickets left for tourists.

Guards & Camels, Giza Plateau

Camel-riding guards are assembled and ready to head out on patrol. Their uniforms look unbearably hot: black woolen jackets with lots of gold braid looped over the shoulders, thick pants, heavy boots, and berets. The camels make a noise that sounds exactly like an accelerating motorcycle.

Red Pyramid

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Paula Terrey

15 March 2000 (afternoon, continued)

Red Pyramid as seen from the Bent Pyramid, Dashur

Next we go to the North Pyramid, also known as the Red Pyramid because of its rose-tinged limestone core blocks. Built from bottom to top at a consistent 43 degree angle, it is Egypt’s first “true” pyramid. The casing stones were looted in antiquity by Cairo builders, but remnants show they were smooth, white limestone.

Red Pyramid entrance

Scholars have long scratched their heads over the Red Pyramid because, like Meidum and the Bent Pyramid, it’s attributed to Sneferu, a man who apparently collected pyramids the way some people collect spoons.

Down into the Red Pyramid, Dashur

We can go inside the Red Pyramid: the entrance is about halfway up the sloping north face. We get to it via stairs, then descend through a steep, long, and beautifully even granite-lined passage to a place where things level out briefly before emerging into a splendid corbelled chamber.

Tidy burial chamber corbelling, Red Pyramid, Dashur

Built less than 60 years after Djoser’s Step Pyramid, the interior stone alignments and surfaces of the Red Pyramid reflect the remarkable advances in precision since even Meidum, where the entry passage was roughly cut in spite of being an “official” entrance and not a robber’s tunnel.

Red Pyramid burial chamber wall and hacked-away floor, Dashur

From the first corbelled chamber we go through a short corridor to a second corbelled space, then up a wooden staircase to a third corbelled room, presumably the burial chamber. Most of the floor is simply gone — quarried away by tomb robbers. The one good aspect of this tragedy is a chance to see some of the core blocks, so we stand on a wooden platform at one side and look down into the hole. The air is so thick and salty it’s like breathing brine.

Next stop is the “Nile School for Countryside Carpets.” A few children are sitting at looms in the downstairs weaving room, demonstrating how they knot the rugs, and one girl in particular is as cute and bright as a sparrow. She’s wearing a long skirt paired with a sweater, her dark, wavy hair braided in a tight pigtail down her back. Her thin little face breaks into a dazzling smile as she shows us what she can do, her fingers plucking the warp so fast they’re a blur.

Looking down at one end of our ridiculous rug.

Upstairs in the showroom they ply us with free Cokes and we somehow end up purchasing a 7 x 11 foot knotted camel-hair carpet in teal, red, pink, beige, blue, brown, yellow and at least half-a-dozen other colors that match nothing in our home. We’ll have it shipped.

On the ride back to Mena House we pass a volleyball game where, for lack of poles, men are cheerfully holding up the net for their friends. At various intersections, guards with rifles and machine guns leaning casually from the windows of limestone towers.

Tonight we’ll have dinner at the hotel, do a bit of laundry, and re-pack. Tomorrow will be a full day, starting with the Giza Plateau and ending with our flight to Luxor.