Pyramids

Our day today began the way every trip to Egypt should begin – with the pyramids. There’s an old saying in Egypt, “Everyone fears time; time fears the pyramids.” The Great Pyramid was built as an eternal resting place for the mummified body of Pharaoh Khufu (called Cheops by the Greeks) in about 2500 B.C. The pyramid is made of over 3 million stone blocks weighing an average of 2.5 tons. Building the pyramids was considered a great honor, so it is unlikely that the pyramids were built by slaves. Recent excavation of a workers’ village near the pyramids supports the theory that they were not slaves. There is evidence that they ate a relatively rich diet of beef, fish, bread and beer. They were too well-fed and well-housed to be slaves.

For 100 Egyptian pounds, we could go inside the pyramid to the burial chamber. However, we were told that we should not enter the pyramid if subject to claustrophobia. For Abby and me, wisdom overcame valor, and we stayed outside. Instead, we sharpened our skills at dealing with pushy Egyptian vendors.

From the Great Pyramid, we went to the “panoramic” site, where a nice panoramic photo can be taken of the pyramids. Road Scholar, our tour group, had arranged for each of the nine of us to have a camel ride. Seven of the nine of us mounted camels and rode into the desert to have our pictures taken on camel back in front of the pyramids. The camel ride was fun, although it did take several hours for the smell of camel to dissipate from our clothes.

We then went to the Solar Boat Museum, which is immediately behind the Great Pyramid. The Solar Boat was found in a pit, and they are preserved within the museum – both the pit and the boat. The solar boat was buried with the Pharaoh. Its purpose was to ferry him across the sky in the afterlife, accompanying the sun god – Amun Re – in his journey across the sky from east to west. Unfortunately, the pit was cut out of the rock of the Giza plateau, and was several meters too short for the boat. After the pharaoh’s death, the boat was taken apart and buried in pieces in the pit that was too short for the intact boat. The ancient Egyptians knew a lot, but they apparently had not heard the modern carpenter’s expression, “Measure twice, cut once.” The boat was excavated in 1954 and now has been reassembled, on display in its own museum right next to the Great Pyramid.

From the Solar Boat Museum our bus took us to the base of the Giza Plateau to see the Sphinx, part of the funerary complex of Khafre, the Pharaoh who built the second largest pyramid on the plateau. “Sphinx” is a Greek word that refers to an image of a creature comprised of two different animals, in this case, the body of a lion and the head of a man, Khafre. The combined body is meant to indicate a combination of strength and wisdom.

We were surprised at the scale of the Sphinx; it is much smaller than the pyramids. It is also heavily weathered and restored in places with limestone blocks. We learned that it is unlikely that the Sphinx’s nose was shot off by Napoleon’s soldiers, as is commonly believed. Napoleon loved Egyptology and would have prohibited such an activity. It is much more likely that previous Muslim occupiers of Egypt, who did not approve of graven images, took liberties with the Egyptian icon.

We boarded the bus to return to the hotel in time for a 4:30 lecture by a dean and Egyptologist from Cairo University, Dr. Abdel-Halim Nur Eldin, who is mentioned in Fodor’s guidebook. A member of our group tried to engage Dr. Eldin in a debate about some of the unanswered questions of Egyptology, but he would have none of it, so we boarded the bus and headed for the sound and light show at the Sphinx. The sound and light show was a dramatized history of early Egypt, with lights and lasers illuminating the pyramids and the Sphinx. During the show, we saw two shooting stars streak to the southwest, which we took as an auspicious sign for an exciting and educational tour of Egypt.