February 25, 2022

February 25, 2022

This morning we drove south of Cairo toward the ancient Egyptian capital of Memphis. Little of it remains because most of it was constructed from mud brick. Once we leave the dense apartment buildings that characterize modern Cairo, we see a fertile valley of palm trees with lots of bird life. This is a glimpse of what ancient Egypt, 'Kemet', the Black Land, must have been like. It was probably the closest thing to paradise on earth.

The dead from Memphis were buried in Saqqara outside the city, to the west, where the sun also died. We climb up the steep sides of the Nile valley to reach 'Deshret', the Red Land. We get our word ‘desert’ from it. And it truly is a desert. Nothing but sand; nothing, no cacti that characterize the Arizona desert.

This dry desert has preserved thousands of years of Egyptian burial practices. We start our exploration of the huge archeological complex of Saqqara at the pyramid of the 6th dynasty king, Teti 1, who died around 2300 BC. Like many kings of the Old Kingdom, he was buried in a small pyramid. Small is relative. It still is a huge tomb that took a lot of manpower to build. Much of the outer casing stones were stolen to build Cairo, so today it looks more like a pile of rubble. Aimee and I enter the pyramid and crawl down the long, cave-like shaft to reach the burial chamber containing the now-empty sarcophagus. Virtually every tomb was robbed in antiquity. The walls however are still inscribed with carved hieroglyphics. The ceiling is covered with stars. We can easily see the many cartouches with Teti’s name on it. It is a simple name with three letters, TTY. Hieroglyphs had no vowels. The sound of T was represented by a half-circle loaf of bread. Egyptian bread is still the same shape!

We then toured the next-door tomb of his Vizier, Mereruka. This is the guy that actually ran Egypt. His very elaborate tomb illustrates his real power. We spend well more than an hour exploring the 33 rooms of this huge tomb. All the walls are decorated with scenes from everyday life in ancient Egypt. They are fascinating, especially the river scenes of crocodiles eating hippos and tax cheats being dragged into court.

We then drove to the Pyramid of Djoser (3rd dynasty) that dominates the Saqqara necropolis. This is the first attempt at building a pyramid. Previously royal tombs were in flat squares called Mastabas. Imhotep, the architect of King Djoser, got the idea of stacking one mastaba on top of another. As a result we got his Step Pyramid. The burial complex was surrounded by a high wall with several temples. One temple is decorated with a long entrance colonnade. The stone columns are carved to resemble the papyrus bundles that the original palace columns would have been constructed of. This would establish a tradition that the Greeks would copy millennia later.

After building the Step Pyramid, Imhotep got the idea to fill in the gaps making smooth-sided pyramids. It took several missteps before they got one to last. We can see these experiments, the Bent Pyramid, and the Red Pyramid, several miles to the south in Dashur.

Our next stop was next door at a Carpet School. Egypt is trying to develop a market for Egyptian rugs and they are training new craftsmen. Rugs contain millions of knots so these workers have to tie very fast, so fast that it is difficult to see the technique. Afterwards several in our group purchase rugs to be sent home.

We then drove downriver to Giza, where we had lunch at the famous Mena House restaurant overlooking the Great Pyramid. It is named after the founding First Dynasty King. Ever on the lookout for new bird species, Aimee spotted a half dozen Hoopoes foraging for insects on the manicured lawns. These cool-looking crested birds must be the African counterpart to our Robins.

With our bellies full, we explored the pyramid complex at Giza. This was the period of the Old Kingdom (4th dynasty) when pyramid construction reached its apex. The three main pyramids are enormous. Minor pyramids for the royal family surround them. King Khufu’s Great Pyramid is constructed with 2.3 million enormous blocks of sandstone. Placing that many finished stones in a short period (twenty years) of time is mind-boggling.

I climbed inside the Great Pyramid to view the King’s burial chamber. It is a long claustrophobic hunched-back climb up a ramp, to reach the Grand Gallery, which is a long stairway with a corbelled ceiling to reach the pyramid center. Then we crawl under the portcullis, which used to be blocked by three granite slabs. They were destroyed years ago to loot the tomb. The burial chamber is completely empty except for a great sarcophagus. By the time I get back out I am sweating.

On the outside we drove to the north end for a viewpoint of the Giza complex. There Aimee and I mounted camels to ride around the pyramids. Surprisingly camels were not domesticated by the ancient Egyptians. As a result the surrounding desert was considered a dangerous environment. The desert not only protected them from foreigner invaders, it was also their prison. Fortunately a Garden of Eden prison.

In front of each pyramid is a Funerary temple with a long causeway down to a Valley temple near the Nile River. We toured the Valley Temple of King Khafre, son of Khufu. It is constructed almost entirely of fine granite stones. Remarkable that the Egyptians could have cut this hard rock with the simple tools they had. They were consummate stone craftsmen. Khafre's pyramid, the second largest, still has some of the fine casing stones at its peak.

Next door is the Great Sphinx. A sphinx is a crouching lion with a king’s head. This one is carved directly out of the cliff side. Much has changed since my visit years ago. Then we could stroll the complex unimpeded. Now Cairo is much larger and tourism greatly expanded. Today the Giza complex is surrounded by fencing, mobbed with tourists and vendors, and costly to enter.