Hi all,
Sleep was not very successful last night, but I’ve left the noisy hostel now so all good!
I dropped my luggage off at the G Adventures hotel. Then I travelled for the final time to my day tour meeting point, this time for my fourth and final Urban Adventures trip. The man on reception knew me so well by now that we chatted away for 20 minutes or so until my guide (Marwa, same as yesterday) arrived. Still yet to find a rude Egyptian! Any words he was unsure of he typed into google translate. Such a nice man.
The traffic was very quiet this morning, I suspect because it is Friday which is the day of prayer. As we drove the 30 or so minutes to Memphis and Saqqara, I saw many cute donkeys along the road.
We then arrived in Memphis. Memphis was the capital from around 3100 BC, when the pharaoh Narmer unified upper and lower Egypt and created the capital where the Nile Delta met the valley. Even once the capital of Egypt changed to other cities, Marwa told me that Memphis still functioned as a sort of second capital. Throughout history, it was reportedly a lovely city and its name was derived from 'Menefer' - meaning the lovely city. However, it was abandoned during the first Arab invasions in the 7th century AD and due to floods and plunderers, hardly anything is left from the capital back then. The only remaining evidence of Memphis is a small open air museum that Marwa took me to. The centrepiece here is an 11m long limestone statue of Ramses II. He is one of the mummies I saw at the Egyptian museum the other day, and is the pharaoh who ruled for 67 years. He loved having ginormous statues made, particularly of himself and he also had 100 children (yikes!). The statue we got to inspect up close here has a twin that has been placed in the new Egyptian Museum (that they're now saying will open in 2020).
At the open air museum we also saw a sphinx and a mummification table. It made me think of conversations I had with the gorgeous year sevens I taught last year. They did a huge unit on Egypt and were so excited when I told them I was coming here. They would absolutely love it!
On the day out, we saw lots of different temples that have only recently been discovered and are still archeological sites unable to be accessed.
Then it was on to Saqqara. Even though most tourists just associate Egypt with the Giza pyramids, there are actually around 120 known pyramids in Egypt. Saqqara was the necropolis of Memphis, and was a burial site for around 3500 years. Named after the Memphis God of the dead 'Sokar', it's complex is made up of around 16 pyramids.
Our first stop here was the Imhotep Museum. It was very interesting and as well as gathering a lot of great information, I saw the oldest mummy which was about 4000 years old. How insane is that?!
Saqqara was just about all covered by sand until French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette discovered the site. Since then it has been a gradual process of uncovering the site. French architect Jean-Philippe Lauer began work here on an 8 month contract in 1926, and ended up spending his remaining 75 years here uncovering the site. Thanks to his work, we are now able to visit different pyramids as well as the tombs of pharaoh's families, administrators, priests etc. Thousands of these exist in the complex with more being discovered all the time.
Saqqara is Egypt's oldest archaeological site, and even though the Giza Pyramids are more famous, Djoser's step pyramid here is the world's oldest pyramid. I'll go with it, but being a Maths teacher, I do want to quickly point out that by mathematical definition it is not actually a pyramid due to its faces not being flat triangles. But it's ok - it's amazing and I'll allow it! The architect who built this "pyramid" was Djoser's chief architect called Imhotep. It is the world's earliest stone monument and is 60m high with six steps. Imhotep inspired all the later pyramids with his design. Prior to the creation of this pyramid, tombs were made of perishable materials and royal tombs were made underground.
Underneath the step pyramid lies 3km of trails, representing a map of the underworld. No one is allowed to navigate these as it is feared they will collapse.
We entered the Saqqara necropolis complex via a reconstructed section of the wall that originally surrounded the site. We then walked through a gorgeous row of columns. We spent the next little while walking around near the step pyramid, and then onto the north and south houses which Marwa told me were designed for Djoser to spend six months in during his afterlife.
Then came a real life 'Indiana Jones' moment - I got to go inside/underneath a pyramid! The Unas pyramid might not look like much from the outside anymore, but I was fascinated to descend inside of it. A local guide showed me walls of hieroglyphics and shone his torch to show me that the stone had also been carved in such a way that the shadows created a picture too. What I want to know is - how on earth did they get these extremely heavy sarcophagi inside the pyramid? They were so clever! Ducking and weaving under the pyramid was a really cool experience and I half expected to bump into Harrison Ford along the way.
Next we visited two tombs. Marwa explained to me that the scenes on the wall here showed hunting and fishing, and the hieroglyphics were a magic formula for the dead to gain access to food and whatever else they needed. The two tombs we went to were called the tomb of Idut and the tomb of Kagemni. Interestingly, I'm the second tomb there were images of men dragging heavy jugs of wine across the ground by wetting it and creating mud. I wonder if somehow this strategy was used to move blocks in the construction of the pyramids.
I then descended into the tunnels of the King Zetta Pyramid. You could tell it was his because his cartouche (like an Egyptian name badge) was everywhere in hieroglyphics all over the walls.
When I resurfaced, the weather was the warmest it has been the entire time I have been here. I was in just a t shirt - exciting! What was also exciting was that the fog had cleared and Marwa was very pleased to show me some other pyramids in the distance (the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid amongst others).
I was dropped back after what was a really interesting morning. My next adventure was a supermarket. Navigating a supermarket when you can't read any of the language is very interesting! I google translated the word "bread" into Arabic and a man helped me find it. I had a simple lunch of laughing cow cheese and bread as well as an apple. Cost me a grand total of $3 Aussie!
Next I walked to my new hotel and checked in. On the way I saw everybody in the street praying in the direction of Mecca. I am yet to meet my room mate for my tour, but all I know so far is that her name is Kristine and she's from New Zealand. I did some washing and unpacked a little before setting off by myself. The room is really nice and a huge improvement noise wise on the hostel!
The afternoon was so beautiful and sunny that I just could resist going up the Cairo Tower. Even though in the scheme of things its 200 pound price tag for foreigners is pretty expensive, in Aussie dollars it's only $18. So I caught an uber and up I went! The tower is 187m tall and is meant to represent a lotus flower. It was a bit of a slap in the face to the USA, because money that was meant to be used to buy arms from the Americans was instead used to build the tower. I think they made the right decision - the views were unreal!
It was so clear and sunny that I could see not only the Giza Pyramids, but some of the pyramids I had visited earlier today as well. It really gave me an idea of how much of Cairo I've covered over the last few days. I saw the Islamic area, the Egyptian Museum, the Nile, and the new area Doqqi that I am now staying in. As well as enjoying the view up there, I felt really proud of myself. A week ago I was so nervous about coming alone. I feel like I have really made the most of my time here and embraced all the goings on around me. Ildi was an amazing help with this too of course.
Our tour meeting is at 6pm tonight and I will now be on tour for the next 15 days. Tomorrow we do the Giza Pyramids and the museum again, followed by an overnight train. I will try and post the blog tomorrow if my data works well on the train. If it's not up though, you know why.
Love to all
Claire
Xoxox
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