The Icons
It's all about the pyramids. Isn't it? Really. The pyramids, sphinx and, oh my god, Tutankhamen. King Tut. Teenage heart throb, died at 19. So lovely, so golden. And it's all here. The whole story and all the wonderful goodies. All laid out in this gloriously old fashioned, dusty museum from the turn of the last century, which is about when he was discovered. He's upstairs in a glassed-off window suite with a lot of his tomb furniture set out in the hall approaching. As soon as you enter the great hall of the museum the draw is palpable. Right past the ol' Ramses colossus and straight up the stairs. There's time for the alien Akenaten later. Past the huge, garage sized sarcophagus boxes, once nested like russian dolls. I loved the detail of the heavy metal hauling rings on the corners.
And the coptic shrine a highlight with its four, delicate, adoring golden goddesses protecting each elevation, hands outstretched, facing inward. Inside was once an alabaster refrigerator containing four alabaster mini sarcophagi containing his lovingly mummified guts. Ear your heart out, Donald Trump.
The nesting coffins a ridiculously over-the-top execution of golden workmanship. Crazy beautiful, that Nubian gold so soft and smooth.
It might have been 10 GB pounds to get in, I don't remember, and whatever cost and difficulty to get there; but it leaves a big, big impression. It tells a big story of human devotion, human effort, and human weakness. Weakness in the mortality of the half deity, and weakness in the mob psychology of the adoring followers.
Back on the street we look across the glittering Nile, wide, drifting, graced with the odd felucca sail. Don't look too close, there's plastic pollution all over our planet and this is no exception. Before the old Museum stretches a new development project under construction to open the public space like a Paris jardin de la ville. Too bad about the garish Ritz-Carlton that grabbed the waterfront first, but the intention is clear. Right there is El Tahrir Square, which is actually a big, congested round-a-bout. If you type Cairo into google maps it will drop you on the obelisk of El Tahrir Square which commemorates the revolution (I've forgotten which one). I'm pretty sure a lot of rough neighborhood was cleared away for all this grandness, I know because our apartment is just there off the square.
But we really came here to see the pyramids. And they are in Giza, roughly
14km away from our pin drop on El Tahrir Square. Too far to walk. Perfect for Uber. My tip for this part of the trip is to make sure your Uber driver is taking you to the Giza Necropolis, not Giza. We went to Giza and it was an eye opener. First, an elevated flying freeway took us, at great speed, on a tour of the most frightening maze of vacant, unfinished, 20 storey apartment blocks you'll ever witness. As far as the eye could see. How a society could afford to construct such useless, costly structures... I don't know. And all of them the same: reinforced concrete skeletons infilled with mudbricks, soaring to great heights, all with dead, empty eye sockets of windowless holes. Never occupied, perhaps like the empty tower blocks being built on the south shore of the Thames. A sudden off ramp onto the ground and we find ourselves on narrow dirt tracks, dodging goats, and wandering aimlessly through the canyons as the driver looks for the pin drop of Giza. "No, No. Pyramids. Pyramids." He does't speak english but he understands. We are out of there.
The pyramids are located on a high plateau of land rising suddenly above low housing squalor of suburban Giza. Opportunistic guest houses saturate the approaches but, luckily, the plateau remains relatively unscathed. It is the very edge of the desert and it is our first step off the relatively green, congested Nile valley. From here it is open, vast, dry dust. Sort of like the sea, but lifeless. To walk out that way too far would be pretty stupid. Of course the forms are obvious. There they are. Nothing is hiding them. As you approach from the ticket office, one lies behind the other. They are small mountains surrounded by remarkable pavings that are staggeringly old. There are a few scattered blocks lying about which have been sloughed off, but most of the original limestone blocks that formed the smooth skin have been recycled by ancient builders. You sort of wonder if you stood there long enough you might be crushed by the next eroding block the size of a mid sized car.
A short walk and then you realize that there must have been hundreds of these pyramids all over the place. It's a cemetery. But there are three big ones. And then there's the sphinx. It sits apart, below and somewhat dwarfed by the pyramid of Kahfre. The site has scale and majesty in keeping with it's age.
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| The Golden Mask |
The nesting coffins a ridiculously over-the-top execution of golden workmanship. Crazy beautiful, that Nubian gold so soft and smooth.
It might have been 10 GB pounds to get in, I don't remember, and whatever cost and difficulty to get there; but it leaves a big, big impression. It tells a big story of human devotion, human effort, and human weakness. Weakness in the mortality of the half deity, and weakness in the mob psychology of the adoring followers.
Back on the street we look across the glittering Nile, wide, drifting, graced with the odd felucca sail. Don't look too close, there's plastic pollution all over our planet and this is no exception. Before the old Museum stretches a new development project under construction to open the public space like a Paris jardin de la ville. Too bad about the garish Ritz-Carlton that grabbed the waterfront first, but the intention is clear. Right there is El Tahrir Square, which is actually a big, congested round-a-bout. If you type Cairo into google maps it will drop you on the obelisk of El Tahrir Square which commemorates the revolution (I've forgotten which one). I'm pretty sure a lot of rough neighborhood was cleared away for all this grandness, I know because our apartment is just there off the square.
But we really came here to see the pyramids. And they are in Giza, roughly
14km away from our pin drop on El Tahrir Square. Too far to walk. Perfect for Uber. My tip for this part of the trip is to make sure your Uber driver is taking you to the Giza Necropolis, not Giza. We went to Giza and it was an eye opener. First, an elevated flying freeway took us, at great speed, on a tour of the most frightening maze of vacant, unfinished, 20 storey apartment blocks you'll ever witness. As far as the eye could see. How a society could afford to construct such useless, costly structures... I don't know. And all of them the same: reinforced concrete skeletons infilled with mudbricks, soaring to great heights, all with dead, empty eye sockets of windowless holes. Never occupied, perhaps like the empty tower blocks being built on the south shore of the Thames. A sudden off ramp onto the ground and we find ourselves on narrow dirt tracks, dodging goats, and wandering aimlessly through the canyons as the driver looks for the pin drop of Giza. "No, No. Pyramids. Pyramids." He does't speak english but he understands. We are out of there.
The pyramids are located on a high plateau of land rising suddenly above low housing squalor of suburban Giza. Opportunistic guest houses saturate the approaches but, luckily, the plateau remains relatively unscathed. It is the very edge of the desert and it is our first step off the relatively green, congested Nile valley. From here it is open, vast, dry dust. Sort of like the sea, but lifeless. To walk out that way too far would be pretty stupid. Of course the forms are obvious. There they are. Nothing is hiding them. As you approach from the ticket office, one lies behind the other. They are small mountains surrounded by remarkable pavings that are staggeringly old. There are a few scattered blocks lying about which have been sloughed off, but most of the original limestone blocks that formed the smooth skin have been recycled by ancient builders. You sort of wonder if you stood there long enough you might be crushed by the next eroding block the size of a mid sized car.
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