Day 17 - Giza, Dashur, Memphis and Saqqara

 Day 17

Today I thought we were going to visit some old guy from England, (Geezer), but it turns out we were going to see some Pyramids (Giza) instead.  Maria, Father Wim and I met in the lobby and were soon approached by a young man called Akmed.  Akmed introduced himself and said that if it was easier we could call him by his last name Sary.  What followed was something akin to a classic Abbot and Costello skit and went something like this…

“Sorry?” enquired Father Wim.  “No Sary!”, said Akmed.  “Oh. Sary Akmed”, apologised Wim, “what was your preferred name?”  “Sary!” said Akmed.  “I said what is your preferred name?” asked Wim again.  “Sorry, I didn’t quite get that?” Chimed in Siri from Maria’s iPhone, “SARY!!!!!” chorused Akmed, Maria and I.

So after we agreed that Akmed would probably be best, we met our driver Amr, and headed off to Giza.  “WOW!!!!”  I have dreamt of seeing these all my life, (The Great Pyramid, The Pyramid of Khafre, The Pyramid of Menkaure), and even though I have seen them in movies and on television, it was just…I truly can’t put into words what it was like.  It was just mind blowing.  

Then when you throw in the Sphinx as well!  It was just magic.  Goosebumps.  

Akmed was also a very good guide, and coupled with the fact that there were only the three of us on the tour, we got plenty of time to explore.  We spent three hours here and it felt like 20 minutes.  We truly felt like we had died and gone to heaven, which meant we were ripe for the picking when we arrived at the Egypt Papyrus Museum.

Here we saw a twenty second demonstration of how papyrus is made using the traditional ancient method (lost when paper gained phenomenal market share and rediscovered in 1962 by Dr. Hassan Ragab who thought he saw a papyrus shaped niche in the market), and then held hostage for another forty minutes until forced to bribe our gaoler and escape.

Dashur was our next stop where we got to see two pyramids which I like to call, the “Good One” and the “Crap One”.  The Crap One was built for King Sneferu, and was the first attempt to build a smooth pyramid (like the Great Pyramid of Giza) instead of a stepped one (like the Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara).  There are many disagreements as to what happened, but the crux of the matter is that the architect completely “ballsed-up” the design when he decided to radically changing the angle of the pyramid from 54 degrees to 43 degrees halfway through construction. Apparently King Sneferu wasn’t impressed when, at the ceremonial unveiling he was presented with something that looks a bit like the pointy end of an IKEA pencil stub.  

Embarrassed, his architect asked if he could have another go, and this time stuck with the 43 degree angle all the way successfully gifting King Sneferu with the very pyramid he desired, even going all out and decorated the inner burial chamber with beautiful rosette limestones.  

He even gave each of the pyramids a name (the bent pyramid and the red pyramid), as if they were indistinguishable from one another in a ridiculous attempt to conceal his earlier blunder.  We didn’t even consider climbing inside the Crap One (Bent Pyramid), preferring to go inside the Good One (Red Pyramid) instead.  

So we climbed up about 20 to 30 metres to the entrance before climbing backwards down a 120 metre vertical shaft. 

Then we scrambled (bent double), down a passage built by Hobbits into a large chamber. Then we climbed more stairs to another Hobbit passage leading to the burial chamber. It was great.  Hot and exhausting, we repeated the process in reverse and emerged from the entrance shaft about 70 kilograms lighter. 

Back on the bus we headed for Memphis to visit the King.  The guard at the museum was called Juan (pronounced Warn), who told us we had to pay him to get our tickets in.  So we paid Juan with our money, bought two for the show, then the three of us got ready to go cat go and see the Colossus of Ramesses II (which was found lying face down in ground water at a Cairo slum), and not on the toilet.  The body of the King was retrieved by archaeologists in 2017, and even though it has no feet, it is an incredible piece of work measuring about 10m (33.8 ft) long.  We also saw the second biggest Sphinx in Egypt there as well.

From there we visited Saqqara (pronounced Sakkara), where we explored the ancient tomb of Kagemni, the Chief Justice during the reign of King Teti, and got our first taste of hieroglyphics.  

Then we climbed down into King Teti’s Pyramid to see his burial chamber and visited the Necropolis where we saw the embalming school, before finally visiting the Pyramid of Djoser, which is sometimes referred to as the Step Pyramid.

All in all it was a great day walking through 4000 years of history.  When we got back to the hotel we rekindled the “Re-cappy Hour” from our pilgrimage days, and had a lovely Italian meal as far away from Hanna (the greatest self promoting Maître d’ in Egypt), as possible.