The Pyramids and the Great Sphinx
While reviewing this blog in preparation for a presentation, I realized I never finished! Better late than never!
Upon returning to the city, we took in Coptic Cairo, a part of Old Cairo that contains many historical sites, including the Hanging Church, the Babylonian Fortress, the Greek Church of St. George and many other historic buildings. Christian tradition holds that the Holy Family took refuge in the Saints Sergius and Bacchus Church during their flight into Egypt. All of these structures date to the 7th and 8th centuries A.D.
The old bazaar in Cairo is everything you could imagine from an Indiana Jones movie: a tangle of shops offering all manner of merchandise, from prayer rugs to hanging lamps to unique quilts to pottery.
The Egyptian Museum is like Cairo’s attic, stuffed with more artifacts than you can imagine. Unlike the National Museum, there seems to be no logical order to the exhibits; nevertheless, there are important items here such as King Tut’s burial mask and treasures from his tomb. They’re constructing a new and better home for the hundreds of thousands of artifacts, the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza.
And speaking of Giza, we wrapped up our tour with a visit to the Pyramids. I had been under the mistaken impression that they were out in the desert somewhere, but no: they rise up from a field within the Cairo city limits.
The Great Pyramid is believed to be about 4500 years old, and took over 20 years to construct. Contrary to popular belief, the Pyramids were not built solely by slave labor. The sophisticated construction techniques called for highly skilled labor, and it was considered a badge of honor to help build the structures. The Great Pyramid (aka Khufu’s Pyramid) alone is made of 2,300,000 stones, which had to be quarried and transported to the site. Each stone weighs about 2.5 tons!
The two images above are of Khafre’s Pyramid, smaller than Khufu’s, but still retaining some of the fine limestone casing at its tip. Originally all three structures were encased in the expensive limestone, but time and looters have taken their toll. Menkaure’s Pyramid rounds out the famous trio.
The Great Sphinx is a mythological creature with the head of a human, the body of a lion and the wings of a falcon, and is connected to the Sun God Ra. People have speculated that his missing nose is the result of Napoleon’s soldiers using it for target practice when the famous French emperor invaded Egypt, but that cannot be verified. The statue is part of the pyramid complex.
A sumptuous Lebanese lunch marked the end of our stay in this fascinating country. There’s so much more to learn and write about, but I’ll conclude with this story about the relocation of Abu Simbal, facts I learned after I returned home and read a biography of Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt called Empress of the Nile.
Desroches-Noblecourt, an intrepid fighter in the French Resistance (she was responsible for relocating and secreting many masterpieces from the Louvre to Loire Valley chateaux to avert Nazi theft) became an Egyptologist after the war, a rare career for a woman in those days. Energetically advocating for the ambitious temple relocation scheme, she was able to secure the support of Jacqueline Kennedy, who persuaded JFK to appeal to Congress for funds to help the effort. Even after his death she continued to make sure the US provided financial assistance. This was a fascinating book and enriched my understanding of Egypt and its monuments. I highly recommend it.