The Pyramids of Giza

Saturday 24 April 2010. After our morning looking at the stepped pyramid of King Zoser, we were to head back to Cairo to see the famous pyramids at Giza.

We were surprised to see just how close to the outskirts of Cairo the pyramids really are. But before we get to see them up close we have a stop at a restaurant for lunch, together with several other coaches, each with their armed security guard. Ours was ok - he didn't speak English but was quick with the smiles and he went to sleep on the seat in front of us with his holstered gun sticking between the seats right in front of us. I could have drawn it far quicker than he could have...

I did the same trick again with the glasses - left my sunglasses on and the normal glasses on the coach. Therefore once in the fairly dark restaurant I stumbled about gathering weird buffet concoctions onto my plate - cheese with sardines and pasta with waiter's cleaning cloth... I managed in the toilets ok - someone screamed at one point but it was a chap, so I knew I'd gone in the right door...

Fran was chuckling when I came out. "One of those blokes with a gun just came out with wet streaks all down his trousers... here... don't rush me... What's the hurry?!?"
"Come on," I urged, "We don't want to miss the bus!"

Then onto Giza and the most famous pyramids of all. There are 140 plus pyramids dotted all over Egypt but how many of you could name them all and spell them correctly? Me neither...

Lots of camel jockeys, postcard and jewellery sellers, enthusiastic would-be guides. Most Brits make the mistake of saying a polite "No thanks..." which results in the invisible glue between yourself and your new best persuasive buddy getting stronger. Best way to avoid them is to ignore them totally. It's their culture. They find ours just as mystifying. "Hey if we just ignore them maybe they will come to us and ask to buy!" "Oh yeah, right, sure - I think your brain fell off with your fez!"

Luckily there are Tourist Police here to protect us. One saw Fran stumble and indicated a safer way down from a pile of rubble. Then he grabbed her arm and led her off away from me to look more closely at the stones of the Great Pyramid. I uttered an authoritative "Fran!" and he let go, cursing me that I'd realised he was about to charge around 20 euros for whatever insignificant fact he was about to impart... They are all at it!

There are three major pyramids here, the Great Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops in the Greek) which is the only survivor of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, at its side that of his son Khafre, which is the one with the cap of facing stone still in place. Further to the side is the pyramid of Menkaure. Smaller pyramids at the base of the large ones are tombs of queens and princesses. All around are lesser tombs and mastaba of court officials and followers.

We wandered around the pyramids and piles of attendant rubble for a while until the colour of my shoes had changed to the colour of our surroundings. When it started to creep up my legs we headed back to the bus which was now about to head slightly down the hill to another ancient monument that I had wanted to see for a while.

The Sphinx pre-dates the pyramids by a couple of thousand years. It wasn't built to guard them at all but it is possible that they were built to be guarded by it. Not necessarily though - if you look at any Egyptian image of a bird, god, animal, or person it will be a profile - a sideways view. So the Sphinx is definitely not intended to be guarding the pyramid that sits right behind it.

Nor, apparently, was its nose shot off by Napoleon and his band of lager louts on their away tour through Europe. It was depicted in drawings as early as the 1300s AD with no nose. I was rather disappointed by the Sphinx I am sad to relate. For one thing the sun was behind it so it wasn't all that easy to see any detail on it - I've increased the contrast of the photo by several times to get it as clear as this. But also it's smaller than I imagined. The head is incredibly small for its body and it is thought by some that it did have a lion's head originally to match the body but that some lordly "Hey look at me, I'm a Pharaoh!" type such as Rameses II had the head re-whittled in his own image.

Guide, Manal demonstrates the flexibility of a papyrus stem prior to us being shown how the Egyptians made papyrus paper. Then it was back through the Cairo traffic. Ha! This has to be seen to be believed. And I thought it was bad in Naples or around the Arc De Triomphe roundabout in Paris!

Cairo traffic is a doozie! Almost as entertaining as the Pyramids themselves... And why did most pick-up trucks have either a couple of cows in the back or a pile of stuff reaching as high as a double-deck bus?

Once on the freeway on the way back to the port, a siren-blaring military-looking police van with three armed guards in the back waved us into the kerb and then led us in a convoy of coaches back through the traffic, which was stopped at every junction to let us through unimpeded. This apparently is a regular occurrence and has been for a number of years but when you're not expecting it is a bit of a facer. Fran described it as "a bit scary" but the armed escort on the seat in front of me didn't seem worried and the guards in the back of the open truck in front looked bored so I wasn't too bothered. Although if they had marched us off to a brick wall whilst handing out blindfolds, our friend in the seat in front would probably have just joined them and taken aim...

We got back to the port and ignored the vendors wanting to sell us more souvenirs. "Two Euros for you all to go back to England!" muttered one as a joke for his mate. They'd had a long day at the port. "Ten!" I tossed back, wittily...

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A Morning at the British Museum

Sunday 15th January 2012. We had to set off for home around lunch time so there wasn't a great deal of time to go wandering.

We decided on a walk down to the British Museum and the Egyptian Galleries in particular.

There are some massive bits of stone in here, though dwarfed by those you can see on a visit to the Aswan Dam I suspect. I've not done that yet though...

Once up on the top floor amongst the mummies (but no daddies...) we found that not all Egyptian statues are on a massive scale. These are grave goods, presumably there to perform tasks for the departed such as dressing and doing their hair etc. You can just imagine them saying, "Can you bend down a bit? A bit more...?"

The Roman mosaic flooring was displayed on the walls of the staircase. As we were climbing two floors both with rather high ceilings these gave an excuse for a welcome breather on the way up! I'm wondering whether to have Burke Towers done with something like this - I'm sure it would last longer than a carpet...!

And that's this little trip to London dealt with. As a group we are currently planning something a little more ambitious for our next trip together. Stay tuned!

Large versions of the photos: Egyptian Gallery, little sculptures, mosaic

Palaces And Pyramids

We're now back in the UK after another fearless - well.. almost fearless trip abroad. I dropped my iPod off the balcony from Deck 11 and couldn't believe my luck when the headphone cable, which I managed to grab, didn't unplug itself!

Anyway, despite best efforts, my laptop refused to connect to the Internet via the ship's satellite so without further ado, here is the entry you should have been able to read last weekend...

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Like thousands of others we've been watching the antics of the Icelandic volcano over the past week or so with some trepidation. We were due to go off globe trotting last Thursday ourselves on a cruise on the Ocean Village. Anyway, although Miss Franny was convinced we were not going to get out to Crete to pick the boat up and despite all my attempts to cheer her up saying things like "Well... we can go somewhere like Great Yarmouth..." we did actually manage to get out and onto the ship.

As I write this I'm sitting on a tiny balcony off our cabin with a gorgeous view of cranes, containers and lengths of railway line stacked into bundles on the quayside below me. We're in Limassol in Cyprus today and we haven't arranged any trips as yesterday was a long day. The description of the day in Limassol will come tomorrow!

We docked in Port Said yesterday at the mouth - or one of the mouths, as it's a delta - of the River Nile. We did a trip to see a few pyramids and such. The first surprise was the number of gents in suits and dark glasses with guns very obviously sticking out of holsters under suit jackets. Our coach had one such, an affable chap who swapped smiles readily enough and who sat in the front seat, just in front of ours before going to sleep in a position that meant I could have drawn the gun much quicker between the seats than he could have hoped to...

The poverty here is obvious. The occupation of many old men and young boys seems to be collecting alfafa grass which is piled high on carts pulled by donkeys or oxen. I suspect they have to sell an awful lot to make a living.

Our first stop was to be at the stepped pyramid at Sakkara, built by King Zoser a long time before Cheops got cracking with his effort which we would see later. The time scales dwarf our own history in Britain. We were still happily building houses by digging pits and roofing them with grass whilst the Egyptians were building these impressive stone structures.

In fact we would still be doing so for a few thousand years to come... Although here's a quick aside for you! How many of you know how to count to four in (one of) the language(s) that the people who built Stonehenge used? Shall I count to two and see if you can carry on to four? Ok? Eeny, meeny..... Here in Egypt there are soo many tombs and buried structures that they can be spotted with just a few top stones sticking out of the sand, waiting for someone to dig them out.

We got out of the coach to visit one that had been uncovered. It was the tomb of an Egyptian princess, just one of the many mastaba, or tombs of the King's followers and family.

Again there are more of them still hidden. Unfortunately we could not take photos inside the princess' tomb but the hieroglyphics inside were amazing. Very impressive. The ones on this doorway are carved into the rock - in the tomb they were bas-relief. The pictograms stood out from the wall meaning they had been carved around. Hippos and crocodiles were happily sharing the Nile whilst men were fishing or being fished - "Watch out for that croc Achmed... Ooh... that's got to hurt..."

Bas relief carvings stick out of the wall rather than being carved into it - it takes far more effort and skill - try drawing a black sky but leave white space for the moon and stars and see how long it takes before you get fed up... and - oops - you drew over that space where the moon should be... The guide, Manal, was strict about not letting us touch the wall carvings. "Mind your backs, don't let your bags scrape the wall!" she said. "Right, now this scene..." she emphasised her area of attention by banging the carvings vigorously with the plastic handle of her guide's flag...

On the horizon are more pyramids. One with a curved profile at the top. It took the Egyptians a while to perfect a technique of building that would support the weight of a large regular pyramid. The stepped pyramid we have come to see was an early version. The curved top a later one and the perfect pyramid the final triumph.

The stepped pyramid of King Zoser (or Dsoser), built for him by his priest (gulp) Imhotep...! (Ring any bells? No? Watch more films...)

King Zoser got on with the task of building his tomb, studiously ignoring all the tradesmen who were trying to get him to buy plastic models of his growing pyramid. "One euros, souvenir, you take home, stick on mantlepiece, yes?"

The complex was once ringed by walls. This portion has been recreated by archaeologists using as much original material as possible.

We passed through. You can't help looking upwards wondering whether it's going to fall on your head, but of course this is a reconstruction not the original thousands of years old structure. You can't help looking upwards wondering whether it's going to fall on your head...

We came to find several affable guys in full desert gear, robes and heads covered etc., offering to pose with tourists for photos. It was only afterwards they remembered to mention they charge for this service...

We got back in the bus - a relief as I had left my camera bag in it. That wasn't a problem but my glasses case was in the bag with my normal glasses in it, so I'd had to stumble round the dark tomb in sunglasses - a choice of dark or very blurred... Ok, we're off for lunch somewhere and then into Cairo to look at the famous pyramids and the sphinx.

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A Weekend in London

From Shrewsbury I drove into central London where we would spend the weekend. Fran was already in the hotel, having struggled with late trains due to the horrendous weather that was spreading over Scotland and the Lake District.

Gill and Eddie had been down to Disneyland Paris for a couple of days and we met them at St Pancras station off the Eurostar train.

On Saturday we spent the morning in the British Museum.

I was keen to see the Elgin Marbles, having been to see the Parthenon in Athens earlier in the year. The row of sculptures here come from one of the great triangular pediments.

You can see here a copy of the horse's head in situ - it was coming out of the sea, pulling a chariot that is still beneath the waves. The next figure is Dionysus and to reconstruct any further figures the Greeks are shaping stone to reconstruct the pediment itself.

Lord Elgin had permission from the Turkish Ottomans to remove sculptures and he took around half of them. It has been much criticised since and the Greeks want them back and certainly the Parthenon would look much better with the sculptures in place. Set against this however is the fact that, at the time, it was reported that any marble that fell from the Parthenon, ancient sculpture or not, was being burned to produce lime for fresh building work. So if he had not taken the sculptures we can assume that some at least would not exist today.

Then we had a look at the Egyptian galleries with their mummified figures and sarcophagi. It's a bit spooky really. These are real dead people. Britain doesn't do death well - we are not allowed to look on death. When it happens in public the police immediately seal off areas, close roads, erect screens and keep us away. Even if it's a poor Celtic serf whose bones have been dug up after 1600 years.

And lastly, the magnificent bronze ceremonial Roman helmet, found at Ribchester in Lancashire where the Romans had a cavalry fort, Bremetennacum Veteranorum.

After lunch Eddie went off to watch Blackpool play Reading and we, inevitably, hit the West End shops. We met up again and enjoyed an excellent meal at The Mermaid's Tail on Leicester Square. And then somehow I pulled the muscle in the back of my leg as we were heading back to the hotel and by the time we got there I was in agony. Fran also had a massive bruise by the time we got there because as we walked (or hobbled in my case) through Russell Square Gardens I trod on a fallen branch, the other end of which whipped up and dug into her ankle.

But we soldiered on gamely and walked down to Covent Garden on Sunday morning where Eddie and I had a look round the London Transport Museum whilst the ladies indulged in yet more shopping!