Our “tour proper” had now started and a quick bus ride to Giza took all of us to back to the Old Kingdom. We were lucky to have the services of a very knowledgeable guide on board.
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| Early Morning Crowds at Giza |
A lingering early morning haze made the Pyramids all the more mysterious and their monumental size reduced the madding crowds to miniature. Somehow all you want to do is stare and gawp. I guess that’s partly what the Pharaohs wanted; not bad considering they didn’t have skyscrapers, massive gothic cathedrals or vast bridge superstructures as competition. We didn’t go inside Khufu but wandered around the base to get a feel for the incredible building blocks (2½ tons each) and wondered at the beauty of art rendered with only the simplest of tools. Each pyramid does not stand alone. Subsidiary pyramids, mortuary temples, a valley temple, storehouses, courtyards and a causeway make up the basic plan. Khufu even had his royal bark (ship) buried too. Add to the mix a surrounding burial ground littered with tombs. Only the Pyramid of Khafre has the remains of its limestone casing. One can only imagine how polished these lavish red and white tombs must have been. Not only a monument to a great king but also to imaginative man living in a country of red desert sands spliced through by a river of abundance which ensured man’s prosperity and development.
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| Companion Pair |
The Sphinx is a little less imposing and far gentler against the rigidity of the pyramids. Together they make a perfect couple. With its lion body and majestic human head, the Sphinx was the guardian of the Royal Necropolis of Giza. From our viewpoint on the causeway, we had a perfect outlook over the Sphinx Temple and Khafre’s valley temple, built it is thought, to appease gods of the solar cult.
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| Mummified Cat (Louvre Collection) See wiki link |
Having filled our minds with the mysteries and ingenuity of man, we chugged off to see some papyrus paintings. Yes, of course I bought one. At least it had a cat in it. Cats were a revered animal and some were even mummified. The cult of the cat has not died out entirely in Egypt and many furry friends have developed well-honed bargaining skills, becoming quite slick souk hawkers as I was soon to find out!
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| Tutankhamun's Death Mask |
A fantastic local lunch in downtown Giza set us up for an afternoon at the Egyptian Museum. Despite wanting to see everything, we made the best of our limited time by taking a ‘soldier’s five” tour with our guide. This meant cutting back to essentials, so we marched off to see Tutankhamun’s (1358–1353 BC) 3000 funerary objects and his amazing, amazing death mask. After lingering as long as I could, we moved on to see the exhibition of mummies, wondering if these former kings and nobles would have been pleased to know of their fate behind glass and being gawked at by millions. I also couldn't help but wonder about the skilled weavers who prepared cloth for the mumification process (amongst other things). That left us a little time to do a “mad mile”, to see as many exhibits as we could, before closing time. We were still pinching ourselves back at the hotel – just in time naturally, for the call to evening prayer. Lucky us…
