Passion 4 Travel

Egypt: Museum & Pyramids

Packed to the point of overflowing, more than 120,000 relics & antiquities from almost every period of ancient Egyptian history are housed in the fantastic Egyptian Museum, enough to induce "Pharaonic phatigue" on the first day of the trip. Approx 1,700 objects on display are from the tomb of Tutankhamun who died in 1352BC, which are the best overall exhibits. Wandering from room to room is like taking a stroll through history giving a great insight into ancient Egyptian life. Morbidly curious, we paid the extra for a walk through the Royal Mummy Room. Most of the mummies looked quite peaceful, well as peaceful as several thousand year old corpses look. However there was one who died in battle and his mummy was particularly grotesque. We also saw mummified animals including crocodiles, cows, a horse and various other creatures.

Just on the southeastern edge of Cairo, on the west bank of the Nile River stand the 4,500-year-old mausoleums known as the Pyramids of Giza. The only remaining one of the Seven Ancient Wonders, they rise out of the desert towering above the modern city of Cairo right on the edge of the suburbs. The tallest & oldest of these is the Great (or Khufu's) Pyramid with a base covering 5 hectares. In front of these pyramids is the mythical beast of lion's body & human head known as the Sphinx. These are indeed a spectacular sight although after hearing so much as I had about the pyramids prior to the trip I expected them to be bigger than they were. But they are still big and still impressive.

On the afternoon of the second day, we continued on the theme of pyramids and visited King Zoser's Step Pyramid at Saqquara where we also got a sighting of the Bent and Red Pyramids that were built by King Zoser's successor. The Step Pyramid is considered the first real pyramid though it was built in six stages. The architect was Imhotep, who was later deified not buried at the foot of Annubis in the City of the Dead as in the movie The Mummy!