The Cairo Egyptian Museum

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Pictures were not allowed inside the Cairo Egyptian Museum, so none were taken while inside. So the pictures connected with this piece are from other parts of the trip, that I may not have covered indepth enough during my journaling to warrant a single entry. There are sites as well as books that have great pictures and descriptions of what is all in the museum. The official site for the museum is http://www.egyptianmuseum.gov.eg/news.asp.

On a random side note, one of the interesting things about driving in Cairo is that the lane markers don't mean anything - as many cars that can fit - do. Hence, people constantly honk to let other cars know that they are there or being cut off.

Outside the Cairo Egyptian Museum, there are a ton of statues and sculptures - all representations of ancient Egyptian things - hieroglyphic markings, etc. This is the 3rd Egyptian Museum - there used to be two smaller ones instead, and we were told that something like only 1/2 of the artifacts that the museum has are actually on display. The basement is full of the other half of artifacts, mummies, treasures, etc.

In the museum, there is a fake replica of the Rosetta Stone, which was VERY coool - regardless of being fake. Just seeing the hieroglyphics, ancient Latin, and a Greek inscription were amazing. The actual Rosetta Stone is in the British Museum - for some strange reason.

We saw a lot and learned a lot, and there was so much information, I only was able to jot down some of it, so here's my rendition of the amazing amounts of information.

We saw the oldest document in the museum, which was from 3100 BC, called King Narmer palette, which was from the Schist Dynasty I. It's a piece of stone with pictures describing a story on both sides, and was found near a temple. The palette was almost in the shape of an urn, and the pictures described the conquering of Lower Egypt by Narmer. It was a beautiful piece, and if want to see what it looks like, do a google-search and click on the one with the title, "The Ancient Egypt Site - The Narmer Palette."

We learned that on statues typically, if the beard was straight it meant life, but if it was curved, it meant afterlife. If the leg was straight it meant dead/afterlife, and if they had the left leg out, it meant they were in the military.

Many kings had statues of all their servants as statues, and was buried with them. We saw statues about a foot tall of servants, some were smaller, some larger.

We observed a statue, which is known as the scribe statue, which was made 4600 years ago, and was special because it was made from limestone, but had eyes made of copper and alabaster. This is from the Old Kingdom.

Other things we saw:
Diorite statue of King Chephan, builder of second pyramid - IVth Dynasty.
Queen Hatshepsut - one statue of her dressed as a king, and certain feaures were masculine, but she still had her female facial features. Only queen to rule for any significant amount of time - since she never married.
King Tutankhamun (known to many as King Tut) became king at nine years old and died at eighteen. Only royal tomb we've found almost entirely intact - which is why he's so famous. During his lifetime, he basically did nothing.
A case that still held the remains (organs) of a mumified queen.
King Tut's actual chambers (the layers he was buried in) - made of gold and layered - are here, piece by piece.

I got to see up close the golden mask, dual coffins (one of gold, one with a thin layer of gold), and tons of artifacts from King Tut's tomb. All were amazing and beautiful. One site to give an idea of his tomb and the famous golden mask is http://www.site-ology.com/egypt/KT.HTM.

Some of us paid to go into the mummy rooms at the museum, which included the bodies of these ancient Egyptians:
King Seqenenre Taa II (c. 1550 - 1504 BC) 18th Dynasty - shown w/ a mask and wraps, and old flowers.
Princess Meritamun (c. 1545 - 1525 BC) - shown in full wrap.
King Tuthmosis I (c. 1550 - 1292 BC?) - full head shown, eyes and mouth closed, otherwise in wraps.
King Tuthmosis II (c. 1492 - 1479 BC) - New Kingdom - Full head and hands shown - eyes closed, mouth half open, teeth barely showing, arms crossed upward.
King Tuthmosis III - similar to the II.
King Amenhotep II (c. 1428 - 1397 BC ) New Kingdom - Tallest of New Kingdom pharoahs at 1.83 meters high (which is about 6 feet).
King Tuthmosis IV (c. 1397 - 1388 BC) - still with hair, teeth, well manicured hands - probably best one so far - amazing to see.
King Ramses II (c. 1279 - 1213 BC) - ruled for 67 years - shown in coffin w/ yellow hair (probably was silver) still intact.
King Seti I (19th Dynasty)
Merenptah (c. 1213 - 1203 BC ) 19th Dynasty
13th son of Ramses II - has a white-ish color to his skin opposed to black in others - due to salt in his mumification.

In the other mummy room laid:
King Ramses III (c. 1183 - 1152 BC)
King Ramses IV (c 1152 -1145 BC)
King Ramses V (c. 1145 - 1142 BC)
King Ramses IX (c. 1125 - 1107 BC)
Queen Isetemkheb (c. 1054 - 1031 BC)
Queen Henettawy (c. 1054 - 1031 BC) - the face was packed with soda and fat to give it the appearance of life, but ended up causing the cheeks to burst open.
Prince Djedptahiufankh (c. 1070 - 946 BC) - even looks young while mummified.
Queen maatkare w/ pet baboon (c. 1054 - 1031 BC)
Queen Nesikhonsu (c. 991-970 BC)

There is a room dedicated to animals that were mummified - four different types of animals were mummifed - pets, food mummies to provide sustenance for owner, sacred animals, and votive offerings. Examples of mummified animals that I saw included a horse, cow, hawk, crocodiles, pet gazelle, pet mare, pet baboons, pet dog, huge fish, nile turtle, votive cat mummies, votive dog mummies, and sacred rams.

Along some of the walls of the museum are multiple (100 roughly) coffins and encasings from tombs. Tons of sarcophaguses are on display throughout the museum as well. The inscriptions and hieroglyphics on them are sometimes crystal clear - as if it had been done recently - not thousands of years ago.

Just after I had left the museum, Harriet took a couple of us back in to see Queen Hatshepsut's mummy. Queen Hatshepsut was the great female pharoah. She was an obese female with bad teeth who died between the age of 45 and 60. Her story is an interesting one, we head to her temple later in the trip as well. The crazy thing about her mummy was that the museum had had the mummy for some time, but hadn't identified it until recently thanks to some tooth fitting in place - very strange, but they think it was her.

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