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.