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Published: November 16th 2008
The Egyptian museum deserves the title of the museum with the worlds best collection presented in the worst possible way. The items in the museum are stunning and extraordinary but somehow someone forgot to stop and all rooms are overflowing with exhibits. There are often four Sarcophagus stacked on top of each other and at one stage you have 30 of them in view. There really is too much of a good thing. You also better have paid lots of attention in history class as the labels on the exhibits must have been the work of an underpaid art history student or the janitor. Apart from all that the museum is fantastic. You certainly can get your overdose on amazing Egyptian exhibits here. The most famous of which are the treasures found in Tutankhamun's tomb. Judging from the original photos of the tombs it was more a couple of garages stuffed full of everything that could be found than a nicely laid out tomb. There were beds stacked on top of each other and every nook and cranny was filled. Apparently someone wanted to get rid of most of his stuff and leftovers from previous Pharaohs as well to forget about
them. Pretty lucky for us. Especially stunning is his Sarcophagus or better all 8 of them. They were stacked like Russian dolls and get better and more elaborate the closer you get to the mummy. Of fame are the well known death mask and the inner Sarcophagus which is made of pure gold and weights a whopping 110kg. All the gold is finely worked , engraved and precious stones worked into it. Truly amazing that they did all this 3300 years ago. Apart from the mummy and the stone sarcophagus everything can be found on display in the Egyptian museum. We were lucky to arrive in the room with the death mask before the bus loads of tourists arrived but after about 10 minutes we were surrounded by a mass of tourists but they moved on pretty quickly. Just as a hint. Don’t do a package tour to Egypt unless you have a photographic memory to have a good luck at everything after you were herded past.
The Egyptian desert is truly a great place to store anything. When they buried him all those years ago they put flowers and some other greenery into his tomb. This can now be
admired in the museum too. Think it has sustained more damage in the last 50 years than in the previous 3300 years before
One of the more interesting (in a weird kind of way) rooms is dedicated to the animal mummies. The Egyptians mummified anything that was once alive and that included cats, dogs, sheep, snakes, cows and even a 6 meter crocodile!
The rest of the museum contains many other treasures like a room full of miniature scenes of daily life. Think of a doll house and you get the picture (Just that this doll house doesn’t contain Barbie). There are scenes of people fishing and some are brewing beer (bless them). All this was found in a tomb of a high ranking official.
Cairo can just not be left without visiting which must be arguably the most famous monuments on this earth. The Pyramids of Giza are astonishing. The largest was built using 2.3 million blocks of stone each weighting around 2.5 tons. If I would be Bill Gates I would build the same thing again.
Endless power, the will to use it, dumb followers and lot of time. A perfect recipe for some great stuff.
The pyramids were apparently build by farmers during the Nile flood season as they didn't have anything better to do (the Pharaoh thought) and the Nile conveniently lapped up close to where the Pyramids are. Today the days of the Nile flood are over and the area which would have been covered by the Nile is now covered with houses. Most pictures of the Pyramids hide the truth which is that they are standing in the middle of the Cairo suburb Giza. They are literally surrounded by concrete and smog.
Unfortunately they are also surrounded by buses and the accompanying tourists. As to be expected the Pyramids are the main attraction in Cairo and there is a constant stream of them coming and going. Luckily they are always short on time and we wandered off the beaten track a bit and were alone a short stroll away. Well almost alone as even in the loneliest corner there is at least one guy trying to sell a camel ride with a cheerful "very cheap my friend", "Egyptian price for you" or "guess how much". Luckily they get the message after repeated “no thanks” from us. We are really getting good
at saying no thanks in many language. The joys of travelling.
One thing that amazes us all the time is why the tourist office which gets shiploads of money (AUD15 just for the entry plus AUD25 if you want to enter the pyramid plus...) every day from the thousands of tourists cannot hire a few guys to go around and collect the rubbish. Lets put it mildly but the Egyptians (and some tourists) don’t get the “don't litter” message yet and the main way of disposing rubbish is to drop it on the floor. I don't mind if that is done in Cairo but next to the main attraction in Egypt?
Anyway there wasn't that much around to distract from the sheer scale of the three pyramids (and some smaller ones)ز
The day after was dedicated to administrative tasks like updating this blog, getting tickets for the sleeper train to Aswan (love sleeper trains) and sending a parcel. Sending a parcel sounds like an easy task but isn't. I'm not talking about standing in a line during lunchtime in Sydney I'm talking about major hassle. The parcel needs to be thoroughly inspected (what for is a mystery) then 4
nearly identical papers need to be filled in, the parcel must be wrapped, then weighted, some senseless standing around, wondering who is responsible for what, some calculation and then finally handing over the money. Took us a good while to send a simple parcel but this time it went smooth at least we didn't have to run around in the post office looking for the next incompetent person. They all were sitting together 😉
On the last day (yes we spent another 4 days in Cairo) we went to the northern cemetery. No we didn't want to push over gravestones not partake in weird cults. We wanted to see the town they build in and around the graves. A few hundred years back there was an acute shortage of space so people decided to move in with the relatives ... the dead ones. The houses are literally build on top tombs and around grave stones. Apparently people here have a better relationship with the dead and LP claims that they come Fridays to picnic between the graves. Strange indeed to see gravestones pooping up in the courtyard of houses.
We also visited what must be the cleanest and
most pleasant place in Cairo if not Egypt. Al Azhar park. Before it was converted into a park it was a huge pile of rubbish. Now it contains well manicured lawn, nicely laid out gardens, trimmed trees, stunning views over Cairo (The best view over the concrete jungle you can get), trash cans and even a guy collecting trash from the floor. The latter is the most amazing part.
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