The Blue Lotus

We are off to enjoy an ancient Egyptian style meal prepared just for us at the Blue Lotus guesthouse. We are to be served the same foods depicted on the wall reliefs we saw in Saqqara inscribed 4,500 years ago.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Below is a picture of Bak and his infant daughter. They greeted us as we arrived at the Blue Lotus. Bak and his wife run the guesthouse mostly for visiting archaeologists working in the area. They rent a room and Bak's wife cooks for them. Our group was very lucky to have such an outstanding cook and host.

This is Bak's wife and daughter. I do not remember either of their names. Bak's wife is an incredible hostess, cook and bakes wonderful bread (more about that later). The baby is wearing kohl around her eyes. I was told that it helps to keep the flys away and makes eyelashes grow long and thick. It certainly makes her look exotic.

We spent some time, before lunch was served, getting acquainted with Bak and relaxing in his back yard. One thing Bak has been doing for several years is growing the real (and rare) blue lotus. The blue lotus is a symbol of modern Egypt and the government has to issue a special permit to grow this rare plant. Bak has several growing in his back yard. Here are some photos and a photo of some of the flowers dried and mounted on papyrus.

This is a shot of the pond in the backyard where the Blue Lotus are cultivated.

A close-up of a lotus blooming.

Lunch was outstanding and we all thoroughly enjoyed the food. My personal opinion was that it was the best meal I had the whole time I was in Egypt.

The room through the arched doorway is the kitchen. Bak's wife (and her sisters) had been cooking for hours before we arrived. Everything was fresh and tasted wonderful.

After lunch Bak took us on a tour of the surrounding farmland. We got a close-up look at things we had only seen in from the window of our bus. Bak is also a farmer and was able to answer many of our questions. Yes, that is the step pyramid you can see in the background.

A young farmer continuing a family tradition of tending to the land.

Generations through the millennia.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

Like on small farms everywhere in the world, everyone helps.



When we returned from our walk to Bak's house; we passed an outdoor beehive-shaped oven in the backyard. It looked just like the ovens we had seen painted on the walls of the tombs. As we stood around talking about it, Bak's wife came out, fired up the oven and baked some flat bread as we watched. She had baked all the bread we were served at lunch in this very oven. I got some pictures of her showing us how she bakes the family bread every day. What a great experience. I think she was a little overwhelmed with our enthusiasm over what she thought of as an ordinary event. She and her husband were so welcoming and hospitable. What could have been just an ordinary lunch was turned into a truly memorable event.

Palm fronds for fuel.

You can see the flat bread inside the oven. She would shift the bread to different areas of oven as it baked to take advantage of the different temperatures.

This is Bak's wife, her baby daughter and her sister (the same one that helped to cook our lunch). It takes more than one woman to run a household in rural Egypt.

This is a pretty good shot of the backyard and of us watching the bread baking.

We visited the 'Egyptian Perfume Palace' in Cairo that evening. I bought four different scents all are essential flower oils. Flower of Sakkara, Lotus Flower, Narcissus and Rose. All the bottles were wrapped and packaged so well that they all survived the trip in my suitcase without any leaks.

After the perfume shop we met up with the rest of the group that had chosen to spend their time sitting in a restaurant looking out at the great pyramid. You sure can't top that view. Below is a photo of Ehab and Ruth, they are the people that made our tour extra special. I can't thank them enough. Ruth and Ehab, I think I told you before we said goodbye, but this Egypt trip exceeded all my expectations and I had very high expectations.

It was a long day and we leave for Middle Egypt in the morning.

The Red Land and the Black Land

"Concerning Egypt I will now speak at length, because nowhere are there so many marvellous things, nor in the whole world beside are there to be seen so many things of unspeakable greatness."

Herodotus the Greek, Fifth century BCE.

Herodotus, the Greek, was not the first tourist that came to Egypt and marveled; he was just the one we know about because his writing have survived from the Fifth century BCE. When he visited, Egypt was already over 2,000 years old. A Pharaoh stilled ruled, the pyramids were still covered in polished white limestone and the old religion was a part of everyday life.



The more things change, the more they stay the same.


These are maps of ancient/old Egypt. The names are a mixture of Egyptian, Greek and Arabic.


This one shows Northern Egypt also called Lower Egypt.





This is Middle Egypt.




This is Southern Egypt, also called Upper Egypt.







When talking about the land of Egypt; you talk about the Nile River, the Red Land and the Black Land. Egypt has always been defined by the Nile River. From the very first beginnings of Egyptian pre-history it is always about the river. The river flooded annually (until the Aswan damn was built in the 1960s). This made it possible for the people along the river bank to grow crops along most of its length. Wherever the water touched, became The Black Land. Wherever the water didn't reach, stayed The Red Land.


Our group left Giza and headed South into the rural areas to see the Sun temples and the pyramids at Abu Sir. There are over 200 pyramids in Egypt and most of them are not on the Giza plateau (just the largest ones).



This picture was taken in Northern Egypt (also called Lower Egypt). I was standing a short walk into the desert, looking back towards the Nile. This gives you a good idea of the separation of the Red and Black lands. A very graphic example of: water = fertile soil, no water = desert. The dividing line is not fuzzy. Where the water stops nothing grows. The fuzzy sky is the result of air pollution from Cairo.




Below is looking away from the river. Just rocks and sand (I did mention that Egypt has LOTS of sand didn't I?) as far as the eye can see.




This is one field that we walked through on our way to the Sun Temple at Abu Gurab. These are date palms. The date palm is a very important part of rural life; they eat the fruit and use the rest of the tree for fuel, and building material. Because the date palms are so tall and don't shade the ground too much, other crops are planted under them; no waste of fertile ground that way.

This man and his ancestors have been farming this same land for THOUSANDS of years. It is likely that this donkey and his ancestors have helped those farmers for all that time. The crops have changed somewhat, there is more variety and the river doesn't flood anymore, but the people still plant, harvest and continue as they have for uncounted generations.

This picture shows a small village surrounded by fields. The buildings in the village are all crammed together to take up the least amount of space to save as much land as possible for planting. The soil is fertile and Egyptian farmers can get up to three crops a years from their fields. Most of the work is done by hand with animal help. Few farmers and/or villages can afford to own and operate tractors.


Below is a picture of a water wheel. The fields are all connected to the river via canals (some of which are thousands of years old). The water wheel (turned by donkey power) is the cheapest (and oldest) method of lifting the water from the canal into the fields for irrigation. This wheel is modern and is made of metal. Old idea, new materials.


This farmer is harvesting his crop. The walls of ancient tombs show pictures of farming tools that look just like the one he is holding. If it works, why change it. You can see the village in the background.


This is a shot of a barn. It is more of a three-walled animal shelter than the American barn style. The animals just need shelter from the sun for most of the year so this works best.




Here are some farm animals. These are not cows, these are water buffalo. They are used to pull plows, I think they are milked also.


Don't you just love this face (I like water buffalo much better than camels).



The farm animals are not pets, but they are considered part of the family and are treated well and given really good care. The animals in the city on the other hand live a very hard and precarious existence.



This gentleman, explaining about the site, is the archaeologist in charge of the AbuSir and Sahure sites. There is lots of reconstruction work going on. The black flagstones we are standing on were the original floor for the sun temple next to the pyramids.



These are the pyramids at AbuSir. As you can see, they are not in as good a condition as the ones on the Giza plateau. There are local villages within walking distance and the residents discovered many generations ago that the limestone casing stones for the pyramids produces a very high-quality lime if it is burnt. Almost all the casing stones have been reduced to fertilizer, cement or whitewash.

We had special permission from the Department of Antiquities so we were able to go inside these pyramids. They are in an area protected by the military. This is the entrance to the one we went in. Below is another shot from the inside.

Here is Jessamy with her headlamp. A very 'handy' type of light, as it leaves your hands free.

You are looking up at another room inside the pyramid in this shot. I didn't climb up to take a look because the air was stuffy and smelled like bat urine. I decided I would rather go back outside for some fresh air. (Jessamy climbed up the ladder to look and she said that there was nothing interesting to see, just bare rock walls.)

This is the alabaster alter of the sun temple.

You can see the pyramid right behind the ruins of the sun temple.

We made a stop to see the few remains of the ancient capital city of the Old Kingdom, Memphis. In ancient Egypt Memphis was call Ineb-hedjf which means White Wall. In the Middle Kingdom it was called Ankh-tawny, That-which-binds-the-two-lands (probably referring to Upper and Lower Egypt). Memphis was the adminstrative and religious center for the Old Kingdom and Ptah (pronounced P Tah) was the chief god.

The ancient Egyptians built their temples, pyramids and monuments of stone but their houses were all built of mud bricks. No one in Egypt lived in a house of stone, from Pharaoh to the humblest peasant.

Below is one stone memorial from ancient Memphis. This is an alabaster sphinx about 26 feet long. It is believed to represent the pharaoh Amenhotep III, about 1375 BCE.

This amazing sculpture is a fallen colussus of Ramesses II. When standing it was 43 feet tall. Ramessess II ruled Egypt for about 67 years. That was plenty of time to have many children (over 100) and have carved many, many, many statues of himself. Ramessess II lived life on a very grand scale. His monuments are all large as are most of his statues. He left evidence of his rule all up and down the Nile.

With the discovery of a valley of the kings tomb, built for just those of his sons that died before he died, we know that he outlived at least 16 of his sons. It was his 13th son, Merenptah, that succeeded him as pharaoh. Records from various sources list the names of at least 52 sons of Ramessess II.

We will see much more of this 'larger than life' pharaoh as we travel farther south.

This is a close up of the head of the Ramessess II collussus. The statue was felled by an earthquake.


The day is only half over, but this is enough for now. I will continue later.

The most amazing musuem in the world

After all the excitement of the pyramids we spent a day visiting the Cairo Egyptian Museum of Antiquities and the Khan El Khalili Bazaar. No one is allowed to take pictures inside the museum and all video cameras have to be checked before entering.

I, of course, bought the largest museum book I could find full of the most pictures. It was a good thing I bought it as I was leaving because it weights 10 pounds (yes, I did put it on the scale).

We all gathered in front of the museum building (built about 1890) while we waited for Ehab to get our tickets. There are lovely fountains full of lotus flowers all across the front of the building (I thought I had taken photos, but I can't find them anywhere.).

Then the big moment came, Ehab ushered us into the museum. I was on instant sensory overload and stayed that way the entire time. How to describe what it was like for me to be standing in front of things I had only dreamed of seeing in person. Everywhere I looked there was another statue or piece of Egyptian history that I had only read about and seen in books or on TV. I kept turning this way and that, trying to see everything at once. Ehab was telling us about what we were looking at and I wanted to listen and I wanted to run over to see what was across the aisle too. It was exhilarating and exhausting and frustrating.

The frustrating part was the museum itself. There is not near enough room in the building to house all the items the government has excavated. Most of what is on display was placed there in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Not much has changed since then. A great many of the items displayed have nothing to identify what they are and those that have labels are type-written and the paper is so old they are yellow and cracked with age. All the labels I saw were in English which was great for me but must have been frustrating for non-English speakers. I was told that there are warehouses full of more artifacts and that the basement of the museum is stuffed full of boxes and crates that have no labels and are so old no one knows what they contain anymore. A new museum is being built out by the pyramids and should be open about 2010. I was told the museum employees joke about excavating their own basement and discovering new treasures.

We wandered through over four thousand years of Egyptian history in four hours. I stared awe struck at scuptures perfectly carved in the very hardest of stones by master artists. I read an article by an American artist that had been carving in marble and stone for over 20 years. He talked about how difficult it was to carve hard stone like granite with modern tools of steel and other very hard metals. He marveled that the stone carvers of ancient Egypt could carve so perfectly with only copper and stone tools. He mentioned that these artists would carve even the parts of the statues that would not normally be seen just as detailed and perfectly as the the more publicly-seen parts. I was able to examine up-close-and-personal many of these statues and they were all perfect. Most showed the highest level of artistic talent and skill. Some were absolutely breathtaking.

We, of course, spent some time looking at the King Tut exhibit. We saw the gold face mask, gold coffin cover and gold jewelery. It was all impressive. The gold face mask was smaller than it looks in pictures and the colors were brighter. The jewelery was interesting in that there was a lot of it and some looked surprizingly modern. Another thing to make note of is that while the ancient Egyptians valued gold highly, they valued silver even more. Silver was very rare in Egpyt. They had gold mines in the Egyptian desert, silver had to be imported.

One fun thing Ehab pointed out was a display of King Tut's personal items; one of which was his underwear. It was made of linen and ragged with time. It is those kind of things that bring a sense of the humanity of history for me. Though Tut was worshipped as a god, he still wanted to have clean underware in the after life.

After over-dosing on antiquities I staggered out of the museum (remember I was now carrying my 10 pound picture book) we had a late lunch and were off to see the Khan El Khalili Bazaar (generally referred to as 'the Khan'). I dropped off my book at the bus before we headed into the Khan.

The Khan has been around as long as Cairo. It is still crowded with narrow alley-ways and all the stores smashed next to each other. It is still a community of vendors/storekeepers whose families have done business for generations in the same place. One thing that has changed over the centuries is that most of the customers are tourists now, not locals.

The single most important thing to remember when shopping in the Khan (or anywhere in Egypt for that matter) is that you HAVE to BARGAIN with the seller. Any seller wants to bargain, you are not expected to pay the asking price. If you pay the asking price I am told you have deprived the seller of the enjoyment of bargaining.

When we were in Egypt, the Egyptian pound was worth about 17 cents American money. Sometimes I felt a little guilty about paying so little for things I purchased, but our tour leader kept reminding us that the seller would not sell anything for a price he would lose money over.

The Khan is noisy, crowded, full of exotic smells and lots of voices in lots of different languages. It was rather intimidating at first. All the sellers are very agressive and will sometimes gang up on poor naive American tourists. Lucky for me we had our resident security guard (Mahmoud is with the secret service and carries a very large automatic pistol) to keep them at bay. Mahmoud is also about 6' 2" tall and took his job of guarding us very seriously.

Below is a photo of myself, Mahmoud, Rodger, Sarah Louise and Charles. Rodger and Sarah Louise are from Melbourne, Austrialia and Charles is from Florida, USA.



A few hours before we arrived in the Khan, some water pipes had broken and some of the alley ways were flooded. The store owners were prepared (this had happened before it seems) and laid down wood boards so shoppers could cross the water without getting wet feet. The water didn't seem to slow the shoppers down.




We shopped till we dropped and then headed to the cafe to wait for the bus to come and pick us up. While we waited several street vendors stopped by to sell us various 'stuff'. One was this woman selling beaded head coverings. Several of us bought one from her. The baby slept the entire time.



We headed back to the hotel. This is a shot of the registration desk at our hotel. This statue is a full size replica of the guards found in King Tut's tomb (no real gold on this one though).



Tomorrow we visit the sun temples at Abu Gurab and the pyramids at Abu Sir. We are to have ancient Egyptian style lunch at the guest house of an Egyptian family that our tour guide, Ruth, knows.

I must mention the traffic in Cairo

A couple of words come to mind when I think of the traffic in Cairo, demented and insane. I will expand on that theme.

First story: We arrived at the Cairo airport about 10:30pm on a Friday. We were met by a representative from the tour and had no difficulties with any paperwork or inspections. Our representative took charge of everything and we trailed along behind him doing exactly what he said to do and we were outside in the desert air of Egypt in about 15 minutes after we picked up our luggage. Then the fun began. We climbed onto the hotel airport shuttle and took off. It felt like at least 2 or 3 of the 4 wheels were on the road at the same time most of the time. We learned that there are two speeds for motorized vehicles in Egypt, bat-out-of-hell and stopped.

Because it was late at night, there weren't many other vehicles sharing the road so our driver took what looked like a couple of short-cuts. One was the wrong way down a one way street and the other I am slightly confused about but it involved weaving between orange cones. All this done at breakneck speed. We were slightly disconcerted but then we hadn't driven in Athens traffic yet.

We met up with four more people from our tour at the hotel the next morning and most of the rest of the tour arrived from the airport in the afternoon. We climbed on board our bus and were off to see Cairo. The city population is 17 million. 17 million people all crowded into a city one thousand years old. Cairo was a large city before the automobile and very few streets are built to accomodate the automobile. We passed many streets (?) lanes (?) alleys (?) that were only wide enough for animals, pedestrians, scooters and motorcyles.

Automobiles share the road with: other cars, buses (big and small), motorcycles, scooters, donkeys (with and without carts), horses, camels and pedestrians. At first I was horrified, there are no stoplights, few stop signs, no one uses turn signals, everyone is constantly changing lanes (instead of using a turn signal they honk their horn when passing) and very few headlights at night. I did see a couple of traffic cops at very large intersections and the drivers were very good about paying attention. All policemen, including traffic cops, carry weapons (including the kind with bullets) so that may be a motivation to cooperate.

Pedestrians have to be quite agile and really pay attention. Nerves of steel would also help. I think that the scooter and motorcycle drivers don't have any nerves. I watched them weave in and out of lanes of traffic, up onto the sidewalks (did I mention agile pedestrians) sometimes carrying heavy loads or several people on one scooter.

I did not personally witness any accidents. I did see some close calls and one miracle. I also saw lots of scrape marks and dents on the sides of cars we passed. The current attitude seemed to be that everyone drives like that, so just join in. My personal recommendation to any American traveling in Egypt, don't rent a car unless it comes with an Egyptian driver.

Oh yes, the miracle. Here is the situation: we are traveling in downtown Cairo in our bus. We are on a main street that is 3 lanes wide in each direction. We are on the inside lane where there is raised curb area (for pedestrians safety I suppose) that separates the east bound lanes from the west bound lanes. I am sitting next to a window looking at the traffic going the opposite direction. A young man steps off the curb into our lane, he trips and falls flat on the street directly in front of our great big bus. Gasp!! The miracle is that our bus driver was not looking to the side and changing lanes, he was looking in front, saw the man fall and managed to stop the bus with inches to spare. The fallen pedestrian was laying in the street literally nose to tire tread. The young man staggered to his feet, waved at the driver and limped off. The look on this face as he passed said, "I can't believe I am still alive". (Footnote) No one crashed into the back of our bus when we slammed to a stop.

The drivers in Cairo may be demented and/or crazy but they sure can handle a vehicle.

Boats and a Sphinx

Below is an excavated model of pharaoh's 'Solar' boat. Like the full size boats it is constructed of cedar wood (you may have heard of the 'Cedars of Lebanon'). These boats, small and large, are remnants of that long ago forest remembered only in legend.

This is not an exact replica of the full size boat that was found in the 1950's, but it gives you an idea of the shape. This model is about 6 feet long. As you can see this from the shape, this is a boat for sailing on a river.

The real boats are about 140 feet long.



When this boat was found, it had been disassembled and put in a stone storage pit. It took years for a team to reassemble it (at first they didn't know it was a boat). There are no metal parts, only wooden planks, wood pegs and rope. The boat is held together by weaving the rope through holes in the wood planks and tightening it. When the boat is put into the water, the wood swells, the rope shrinks and there are no leaks. There is evidence that this boat was actually used on the river, as various parts show normal wear. This shot is looking from the middle of boat towards the bow (front). The cabin would have been used by the pharaoh to keep out of the sun and would be filled with cushions, rugs and all the comforts of home or palace.



You can see the gangplank on the left in this shot. The gangplank was one place that showed normal wear on the end that rested on the dock. You also get a better look at the oars and decking.



This is the stern (back) of the boat. Isn't it graceful. Egyptians used double oars to steer their boats instead of a rudder.



This is the bow.



Not in too bad of shape for being 4,500 years old. Unlike the cedar forest, this survived for us to marvel at.



This shot of the under side gives you an idea of the size of the planks. You cannot see, because the thickness of the planks conceals the holes, but the rope is threaded through one plank to another. I have read that originally a single (very long) rope was used to tie the entire hull together.



Here she is and the angle of the sun is all wrong. I don't know why the Sphinx is generally referred to as she when the head is supposed to be the head of a man.



This stela is placed between the paws of the Sphinx and tells the story of Tutmoses IV and the Sphinx. The story goes: As a young man (one prince among many) he was out hunting in the desert. He came upon the head of the Sphinx sticking out of the ground (the entire body was buried in the sand) and sat down to rest in the shade of the head. He fell asleep and had a dream. In his dream the Sphinx told him that if he freed the Sphinx from its prison of sand he would become Pharaoh. Prince Tutmoses immediately set a crew of workers to clear away all the sand from around the Sphinx and the rest, as they say, is history (written of course in stone).



It is easy to see in this picture that the head is one kind of rock and the body is another kind. The head is a hard stone and the body is limestone, much softer. The pretty new stones covering the front legs and paws are another attempt to stop the deterioration. The broken nose has not been found. Some pieces of the broken beard were found and shipped off to the British Museum. The face still has some traces of red paint.



A close up shot of the walls surrounding the Sphinx enclosure. Geologists, that see pictures like this, say this type of stone erosion is due to water (lots of water falling from the sky) not wind. Egyptologists disagree because the last time there was large amounts of rain falling on the giza plateau was 10,000 years ago. That is many more years than the 4,500 years they claim is the age of the Sphinx. Neither discipline will admit they might be wrong so the dispute continues.


More later.
Kate