Pyramids a plenty...

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We were met in the lobby by our tour guide for the day at 8am. She was a lovely local girl, lets call her R as her name is too hard to spell, that arrived early killing my expectation that the Egyptians had a time of their own, like the Spanish. Our driver was waiting outside and Dan and I were their 2 clients for the day.

R shared so much of her knowledge about the city she called home and about the ancient history that was to become very real to us. We drove through rural townships, which appeared to be quite poor. We saw plantations of date palms, which were to be ready to harvest in July. Apparently, the dates are still collected by people climbing up each tree to collect the red and yellow fruits before they are dried. We saw people with their donkeys, or walking their buffalo on the road. We were pulled over by the tourist police a few times for them to record how many tourists were in the mini bus and what our nationality was. I am not sure what kind of protection or service this actually provides, but it seemed to give many men jobs with a good looking white uniform.

Our first stop was at Memphis at the Mit Rahina Museum to see the massive statue of Ramses II and other statues and artifacts found in the region, all mostly attributed to Ramses II. R told us about how the gods were created, which led to our understnding some of the drawings on the tomb lid that we saw and that is common in most Ancient Egyptian drawings.

In the beginning the world was just an ocean. Then a hill appeared. From the hill a god created himself creating the sun in the sky. The god had created himself from himself. He then created a female god, who was the ocean. Together they had children, the earth and the sky gods. Those children married each other and had 4 children - 2 boys and 2 girls. Each boy god married a girl god. One couple had a child boy. The male god without child was jealous and decided that he wanted to become the only ruling (male) god. He decided to kill his brother by pushing him into a tomb and then chopping him up into 14 pieces, before scattering his remains in the Nile, for the pieces to be dispersed around the world. Ancient Egyptians believed that the body needs to be buried in 1 piece for them to be able to pass into the afterlife, so it was a very deliberate act to chop the brother into pieces so that he coud never make it into the afterlife.

The wife of the murdered brother was very upset and wanted to collect all the pieces to bury him all in one place. She couldn't leave her child by himself whilst she did this, so she enlisted the help of a cow, from whom the child could drink the milk and stay with whilst she was away. This cow is represented as a god in its own right and were worshipped due to this story. There are many images of a cow god visible in statues and paintings.

With the help of her sister, the wife of the mean god, they spread their wings and flew around the world finding all the pieces before burying him. So there are many images of 2 women with their arms spread wide with wings on ancient egyptian burial paintings and carvings, as the 2 women are the protectors of the dead.

The boy grew up and wanted to take revenge for his father's death. The older evil male god had a spear and poked the younger god in the eye. This is where the evil eye comes from. The eye of the younger god reformed to be whole again, so that is why there are many images of the evil eye that are used to protect against evil.

Other stories tell how when the Eqyptians were first buried in shallow graves, jackals were found to have eaten the flesh of the dead. To prevent this from happening, people were then buried 30m down in the ground. The jackal became symbol of a god that had something to do with death - can't remember exactly.

We had seen the Giza pyramids from a far when we drove past them on the way out, but we were looking forward to seeing a pyramid up close. The next destination on our tour was Dahshur, to see the Red and Bent pyramids. I was surprised that there wasn't hoards of people out the front and there wasn't heaps of hawkers selling their wares. Apparently, peak season isn't until September, when it is much cooler. We were currently in sand storm season, which may also be another reason for the lower number of tourists. Apparently, they expect about 50 days of sandstorms a year!

Our tour guide told us to not interact with the tourist police or people on camels or take photos of them, as they will want money for this. The tourist police are paid very little and so try to make extra cash from the tourists. She said the best way is to ignore anyone trying to talk to us, as they are skilled conversationalists that will push for money in some form. Also they may offer to take a photo for free, which they will do, but then you have to pay a large price to get your camera back. Not nice, but confirmed many of the things I had heard about visiting the pyramids in Egypt.

The Red pyramid actually isn't red. The underneath, now exposed, blocks that were used to build the structure have a pinkish orange hue, so that is what gave the pyramid its name. We climbed 29m up the outside to the entrace, before walking the 60m down inside the pyramid. The walkway down was a steep slop with metal bars fastened to the ground acting as steps. There were well over 100 of these "steps" as the man passing us on his way up told us. We had to crouch low and make our way downwards, which was kind of an uncomfortable way to move. I don't see how any elderly person could have made the trip without exhaustion and back pain, but us nimble young uns were able to descend (and ascend) without too much trouble.

Once at the bottom, the room opened up with a 12 foot high ceiing. The ceiling looked like staggered blocks forming an apex at the top. The air was stale, but much better than what was to come! The preserved blocks in the walls showed exactly how big they are, as it is hard to tell the true dimensions with the erosion on the outside. We walked into the second room that looked very similar, if not a little larger than the first room. There was a wooden staircase leading upwards. By the time I had climbed halfway up, I could barely breathe due to the stench of the stale air. We made it to the top and walked into the third and final room, which is located directly below the peak of the pyramid and where the king would have been buried in a tomb. There was a shaft down in which the tomb was located, so it wasn't level with the room that we were standing in. I was breathing through my shirt at this stage, as the airflow was minimal at this point and the stale air smelt like ancient death.

Before pyramids had been created, the kings were buried 30 metres below the ground, with a tunnel going up towards a large tomb that covered the top. One king decided that he wanted 2 levels on his tomb, so the original tomb base had to be expanded to allow a smaller one to sit on top. After seeing this, he wanted to make it bigger again, so the base kept being expanded and more steps were added above the base to eventually form a step pyramid shape.

After the step pyramid had been created, the next kings down the line decided to smooth the outside to give the shape of what we all recognise as a pyramid. It is thought that the first one was built at a 55 degree angle and the architect changed it to 43 degrees half way through construction, because he was worried that it wouldn't be strong enough to last at the higher angle, which gives the Bent pyramid its shape. The king at the time, didn't want to be buried in the bent pyramid, as he was worried that it would collapse on him, so he had the red pyramid built. He was the only king to have 2 pyramids built for him.

All pharaohs created their tombs before their death, so they always saw what it looked like before they died. This is true for all Egyptian kings, except Tutankaman, as he died at age 19 and hadn't built one for himself by them, so one was built for him.

The bent pyrmaid still has the smooth outer shell that has eroded on most of the other pyramids, so that was interesting to see. We couldn't go inside this pyramid, but seeing the detail of the outside made it worthwhile.

We hoped back into the mini van and were driven to Saqqara to see the Step Pyramid. It has 6 steps in total, with the lower step harder to see due to erosion. The pyramid oringinally was a complex with a wall surrounding 15 acres around it. We walked into the entrance of the remaining wall, which was built to represent the king's palace. The papyrus scrolls and wooden beams in the roof were all carved in stone to preserve this image. Once inside the grounds we could see copies of ritual buildings that were used to reinstate the king every 20 years. There were shrines that housed all the gods (where only the king and priests could go), a change room for the king to rest and change and to fight a weakened bull that he would kill to show his people how strong he was. There were big D formations in front of the pyramid that represented the different corners of Egypt that the king had to run around to show that he would still remain to be king over those regions in the time to come. All of these buildings were symbolic of what the real buildings would have looked like in Alexandria, the capital of the time. A dummy burial chamber was also built on the south side to appease the people of the south, as his real tomb/pyramid was built in the North.

We learnt that Eqypt originally was 2 lands, one in the south and one in the north. Once the king in the south conquered the lands in the north, Egypt became the land it is today and the royal families started the history. There was just over 30 royal families/dynasties recorded in history since this time. The king had a crown for the north and one for the south or he would wear both together. As he was located in the north, if he only wore the crown of the north, it meant that he only ruled the north lands. By wearing the combined crowns it showed that he was king of both lands and by wearing the crown of the south, it also showed that he was king of both lands, because he was located in the north and wanted to represent the south whilst he was in the north. He mainly wore only the south crown as it was lighter than wearing both of them.

After the Step Pyramid, we visited the tomb of a wealthy official that was the right had man to the king. He had married the king's daughters (yes, polygamy was normal) and so was very much apart of the royal family. Many of the wall images nad writings have been very well preserved. The colour is missing from most of them, but you can definitely make out the animals that were used for offerings and the boats that were there to sail him to the after life. There were smaller rooms for his wife and son as well. Kings were not allowed to be buried with their wives, but as this man was not a king, he was able to have tombs and offering rooms for his family as well.

Interesting note: The pyramids at Giza are the large pyramid of the king, 2 smaller pyramids for his 2 wives and another smaller pyramid for his mother. So the wives were sometimes thought of in this death ritual.

In Saqqara, there are many carpet schools for children to learn how to make the different styles of carpets. We visited a school and saw some of the girls making silk and woollen carpets. We had a turn at tying the silk onto the cotton threads of the carpet skeleton, which wasn't so difficult, but considering that the carpest have 64 silk knots in a square centimetre of carpet, there are a lot of knots to be done to create a big rug. The girls were extremely fast with each know and looked like they had learnt the skill well. As it was friday (the Egyptians version of us not working on Sunday) there weren't many children working that day. We were taken up to the shop afterwards to see the wares and make any purchases. As we weren't in the market for a rug, we politely watched the showing of the many styles of rugs and left with our guide.

We had the option of visiting a papyrus factory as well, however our stomachs were crying to be feed, so we bypassed that tour to eat some traditional Egyption tucker. Lunch is not normally eaten until after 2pm, with dinner not eaten until about 8pm. So we need to adjust our bodies to cope.

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