Cairo - Day Three: Memphis, Sakkara, Giza

April 20th, 2008

Today was LONG - because the Giza pyramids were shrouded in haze we started by driving to Sakkara to visit the step pyramid of Pharoah Zoser (Zozer the Zozerian, Zozer the Destroyer, Zozer the Traveler...*snicker* Sorry I couldn't help myself). The step pyramid is the oldest of the pyramids in Egypt and according to our egyptologist, the oldest standing building in the world. Period.

It was planned and built by the priest Imhotep - this man was so inspired, and invented so very many amazing forms of new architecture, that the Egyptians deified him. He invented, for example, the curved wall, the pyramid and the column.

This is the temple of the step pyramid:

Showing the columns that Imhotep invented - he wasn't sure they'd support the roof if they were free-standing, so he built them attached to a support wall.

This is the last remaining section of the original roof - it's ONE piece of stone carved into that rolling ornamentation. Unbelievable.

It was at the Step Pyramid that we all saw our first Egyptian ant. Ho ho hoooooly cow. Desert ants have FREAKISHLY LONG LEGS.

I don't know I think it looks more like a scorpion than an ant.

In egypt, the locals have quickly cottoned on to various ways of milking the tourists for money. Never take a picture of one, no matter how they ask you to, if you are not willing to give them baksheesh for the pleasure afterwards. My favorite though are the camel riders - they will heave the tourist up onto the camel, saying things like, "just two dollar!" and then take them out someplace in the desert or far away from where they got on - then extort huge sums to bring them back safely. If you want to ride a camel here, make sure you know what you're getting into!

On the way to Sakkara and Memphis, we drove through many poor districts - there are thousands of fragile looking high rises of cement and mud brick with few windows - they look like buildings in the ghetto in the USA which would be condemned and demolished. They build with those unfinished roofs so that when their children get married they can just add another floor. Since Egypt only gets about 1 minute of rain a year, it's not like they have to worry about leaks.

They are built, thanks to the socialization of the country, on what was once rich farmland. The Aswan or High Dam has stopped the Nile from flooding, and made it possible for many people to build in places they never would have before - since Egypt is 90 percent desert and only 5 to 10 percent viable farmland, this stealing of farmland for building has crippled the ability of the Egyptians to feed themselves. Now they must import their food...there were many donkeys, camels, goats, sheep and water buffalo being towed behind farmers or ushered down streets by small boys wearing the local outfit - what appears to be a long dress and is called galabeya.

Very nearly all the women here keep their heads covered modestly. We were interested in the irrigation canals but our guide told us they are filthy and often breeding grounds for hepatitis - the government tries to educate the people in the outlying areas not to bathe in them, or fish etc but the people ignore them. Gah.

Three boys playing on an improvised rope swing near an irrigation canal:

Knowing that there have been food riots here in the country, and seeing the relative poverty of many of the people, one is forced to reflect ruefully on the repeated failure of socialism to help the countries it has been instituted in. Mind you, I have not seen a single beggar yet, and everyone I have seen has been clothed, and looked fed. But the contrast between the four seasons hotel, and the homes of many of Egypt's people, is humbling. There is garbage everywhere.

The animals here range from cherished, (Arabian horses), to abused, (the poor camels), to ignored, (the wild dogs and cats everywhere near the pyramids and ruins). The men will often whip, HARD, the horse they are riding in an act of chest-hairiness. You know what I mean. "Look at me, I've got a big stick and I can whack this poor animal with it so it goes REALLY fast! I am MAN!" There's are definitely well-fed, well-cared for animals, and then there are the ones with the hip bones sticking out through dull fur, and invariably they're the ones being whipped, so you can imagine that Sandy has had to sit on me more than once to keep me from saying something - Black Beauty-style.

It is hard to be objective and try to stave off ethnocentrism. And speaking of which, we visited a "Carpet School" today.

They take in kids from the age of 10 years old up and put them to work making persian rugs from silk, wool and cotton. A small rug can take 5 months to finish, and these kids work FAST. I sat down at the loom and the young man working it helped me make a few knots.

It was crazy how fast he moved. Our guide urged us not to judge the institution - it was providing these kids with a skill and a trade, it helped keep them off the streets and out of trouble, and they were saving money to buy their own businesses someday etc.

Still you couldn't help but think "sweat shop" when the carpet school overseer who gave us our tour of their showroom mentioned that they had many factories and over 3,000 workers.

After the step pyramid we visited Memphis and saw a bunch of statues etc - I was right - they need their context in order for me to feel the full force of their effect. They are beautiful. It's incredible how much detail they were able to get out of the stone with such poor tools.

Ramses the Great, Ramses II

Ramses' name in his cartouche

The triad of Memphis - most cities and temples had a triad or trinity of gods associated with it.

A statue of the Pharoah

The alabaster sphinx of Memphis

After Memphis, we had lunch at the Khan El-Khalili restaurant in the Mena House Oberoi hotel - which was once a palace.

Freaking gorgeous. It's RIGHT next to the Giza pyramids - the view of them dominated the windows looking out into the garden.

Well, specifically the Great Pyramid, with the Chephren pyramid running a close second. It's infuriating to think of what those monuments would have looked like had the natives not used them as a quarry for the white limestone they had been sheeted with - they would have glowed.

But even reduced as they are they stagger. We went into the funerary room of the Cheops pyramid - (longest/steepest climb of my life bent-double because the passage is tiny) - and it was probably, even in its barrenness, the most amazing thing we've seen so far. A small black box of a room toward the top of the pyramid, with what was left of his stone sarcophagus built into the rock floor and that was it. Someone had burned a great deal of incense and the room at that time of day was a sauna - we were all sweating. What I did not expect was the SOUND - any sound, even the tiniest of scrapes of foot against floor, reverberated forever in that room. I could well imagine why they called them the Houses of Eternity - a whisper would bounce back and forth in that room for an impossibly long time. The echoes were unbelievable.

holy crap I'm touching a pyramid!

We visited the three pyramids there, and then went quickly to see the Sphinx. Although it is hard to describe the SIZE of him, it is equally hard to get close and get a picture - the Sphinx was the most crowded of all the tourist attractions we've seen so far.

There were many, MANY street vendors attempting to convince us that what our lives lacked was a belly-dancer's beaded skull-cap and a singing, rocking camel that read "7,000 years of culture." Arg.

We also visited Cheops' Solar Boat - at the museum they make you put these crazy bags on your feet to cut down on dust.

But the most amazing of our adventures happened at the end of the day - we received special permission to visit the Workmen's Tomb. Amazing. It's right next to the cemetery of the nobles next to the Sphinx, but separated by a wall - we saw a lot of really neat things which haven't been published yet so I'm not really going to talk about them, but it was, in a word, AWESOME to visit again a live dig and see what they are discovering.

Site of the Workmen's Tombs

We are waiting for the "inspector" to arrive and give us permission to view the tombs

Then I rode a camel and did NOT get taken out into the desert and extorted. I named my camel, with unholy Pratchett-related glee, "You Bastard." Our guide told us the average camel lives 8 to 10 years. I'm pretty sure You Bastard was about 16. He possessed incredible amounts of mucus. Sandy got some truly hilarious photographs of me on him. Hurrah.

And now, bed. Tomorrow we fly to Luxor.