Egypt Ancient and New, 3 October 2018

Cairo, Egyptian Museum, 3 October 2018

We arise at 5:30, have an early breakfast and briefing, and we are off in Cairo traffic to the Egyptian Museum. We’ll have a tour with Hassan and then some time on our own. We drive along the Nile, lined with boats and barges, and a light breeze is blowing on this day when it will be around 90 degrees.

We arrive at the famous Egyptian Museum, which displays about 100,000 objects, less than half the collection. The exterior features stone tablets carved with the list of the kings of Egypt.  We go in, and the first thing I noticed is that contrary to what I was expecting, this museum is not air-conditioned. This will be a warm morning, glad I brought a fan (which I send so vigorously it finally broke).

We begin by seeing a few of the treasures from each era. Pre-history is considered before 3000 BC, around the time of the unification of upper and lower Egypt by King Narmer. The Narmer Palette shows him on one side with the crown of upper Egypt and on the other side with lower Egypt,  as he conquered lower Egypt. Originally the king was often shown as a bull to symbolize strength, later his became the lion which as shown with the body of a lion (stronger than a bull) and with the head of the king – the Sphinx. The palette shows two long-necked lions whose necks are intertwined symbolizing upper and lower Egypt, so that as they would pull they would be bound more tightly together. In 2700BC Djoser had a famous architect named Imhotep, the first to start building with stone, which is the Step Pyramid at Sakkara. Djoser’s statue is the first life size one, and was found buried on an angle on its back, with two holes above it so he could see up to the stars. We learn Nat there are three different types of false bears: long and straight for the king, long and curly for gods , short and straight for high officials.

Moving to the Old Kingdom, we see the black basalt panel from 2500 BC which shows the king Menkaure in the middle, to his right the goddess Hathor, and to his left the god of the local provinces (there were 42 provinces, thus 42 of these beautiful panels were made). We see a beautiful alabaster coffin from the Old Kingdom, though later they transitioned to more rugged stone, the coffins inside were usually of wood or metal-covered wood. Hassan discusses the canonic jars, which held the lungs, kidneys, liver, and intestine, the heart was kept in the body as it was necessary for the judgement of Maat, and the brain was dissolved by a salt. We see the wooden statue of Sheikh el-Balad whose real name was Ka-pur; when he was unearthed it was thought to be real when light reflected off his painted whites of his eyes, 2500 BC. When Hassan projected light on his eyes from below he looked quite spooky. We see the statue of Khefren, of the second dynasty, one of the most beautiful statues on earth, from 2500BC, made of Dolomites, a vey hard stone, the hardest on earth after diamond. It is unknown is how this was carved, as they did not have diamonds, and it takes something harder to carve any material. Their hardest material was copper. The falcon god Horus embraces the king from behind, not visible from up close (only the king is seen), but the head of Horus is seen from a distance. We view some ushabtis doing various tasks, kneading bread or brewing, from 5th century near Sakkara. We see the tiny statue of Khufu about 3” high and made of ivory, which was done quite later. Ironically Khufu built the largest building through most of history, the great Pyramid. We then see the multi-colored statue of Ra-Hotep, brother of Khufu and the general of the Army, with his wife Nefret,  whose name means beautiful. During the time of Khufu , making statues was forbidden, so this beautiful piece was technically illegal; rather than being buried in the tomb, it was wrapped in linen, and buried for thousands of years, which explains its excellent state of preservation. We learn that all Egyptian gods had families, a wife and a son or daughter, a triad, symbolic of the importance of family in Egyptian life. Another statue family group shows a princess with husband a dwarf, who were renowned for doing fine gold work, and their two children, the fate(r sits cross-legged with the children standing below his perch, visually serving as his legs. Children in Egyptian art are always shown with the faces of adults.

We transition to the Middle Kingdom, which followed the first Intermediate Period, a time of chaos when many of the skills of fine artistic achievements of the more stable Old Kingdomwere lost. A dark stone statue shows the king, whose proportions are quite off due to this (Barney and I are in this photo). The face of (Senerset?) displays the worry and fraughtness of the period. A king who rules in a period of chaos must focus on his people not himself, rebuilding his country not building giant monuments to himself. This is a parallel to today post Arab Spring. Around this time the elaborate braided wigs came about, showing the Asia Minor influence of those kings around 1800 BC. They brought their fashion of wigs and broader features, an African look. They brought with them the chariot and introduced horses (1800BC), a huge military advantage. They ruled lower Egypt for 200 years until the Egyptians learned to breed horses and improve their weapons, then the kings from Luxor invaded lower Egypt (Ahmose) and thus began the 18th Dynasty. A beautiful partial head of Hatshepsut, who has to claim she was a man to be on the throne, based on a legend about her birth as the son of a king (similar to the story of the birth of Jesus). After she came to the throne, she never again appeared as a woman, however, her successor broke most of her statues and erase she name from many of her monuments.

We move into the New Kingdom area, to the room of Akhenaten, originally called Amenhotep IV, the “heretic” king who turned Egypt to worship a single god, the disk of the sun Aten. His son whom we know as Tutankhamun was originally Tutankhaten after his father. These works are stunning, not only for their totally unique style – narrow, elongated head and body, rounded hips and almost a female shape to the Pharaoh – but also for being often broken in the aftermath of his death, when Tutankhamen was forced to change his name and restore the religion and worship of the state god, Amun-Re.

We go upstairs to the exhibit of Tutankhamen, which will soon be moved to the new museum that opens in 2020. He was not really running the country, in part because he was so young, and things were really being run by his advisor, Aye. Tutankhamen is famous largely because his is the only tomb ever discovered unrobbed. The debris from a later tomb helped hide Tutankhamen’s tomb, so it was sheer luck that Howard Carter’s staff person found it. More than 5,400 objects were found in the four-room tomb. There are four golden shrines, a stone sarcophagus, then the wooden coffins, then the golden coffin, and inside it the golden mask on the mummy. Each was brought into the tomb in pieces and assembled inside the tomb, with even instructions for assembly (I.e., front-west) inscribed on it. It took about three years to remove everything from the tomb. The inner mask weighs 14 kilos of solid g9ld, and the golden coffin weighs about 240 pounds. Almost everything is trimmed or covered in gold. The golden shrine being held by the goddesses covered the alabaster box which contained the canonic jars. We see his golden beds as well as a folding bed amazingly preserved and 3,000 years old.

At this point the group has free time in the Museum, so we head back to the Tutankhamen treasury, where the gold mask lays. On the way we found another size room filled with glorious jewelry, faience glass beaded necklaces, elaborate huge earrings, golden collars that covered a mummy’s chest, gold and lapis lazuli rings, and complex pectorals which were more than a foot wide. All this done by people, each tiny bead and piece of precious stone laid by hand. The craftsmanship’s is stunning. Then on to the treasury, where the most gilded and famous pieces await. The beautiful gold mask has a three-layer glass bead necklace below it, which we realize stretched from ear to ear, based on the discovery photos. We see his two gold-covered coffins with remarkable inlay work and delicate etching of the gold, and over and over the cartouche of Tutankhamen. Even more jewelry was displayed, large ceremonial earrings (no human earlobe could have supported the weight), a series of gold vultures about 3” tall, each one posed slightly differently, an extraordinary gold and beaded pectoral.  Our meeting time approach, so we headed off to the bathroom ( glad that Hassan gave us the correct  small change), and back to the bus.

Then n to the U.S. Embassy where we are to receive a briefing from some of the staff. Once we arrive, we see some amazing feats of bus driving, as the driver had to back up the bus into traffic to make a sweeping turn into the embassy compound and Hassan ad the the security guy literally walked out to stop traffic so he could make this maneuver. We go through security and into the Embassy, which has a monumental and somewhat severe architecture that is suited to Egypt, into the warm and in it8g public room of the building. We are served a series of juices and teas which is quite refreshing, and plates of sweets and tiny spicy savory bits. The Chargé d’Affaires is quite literally in charge as no ambassador has yet been appointed, he has been in Egypt four years, gave us some great background on political and economic development, and the US role Egypt. He was joined by the heads the consular, cultural, economic, and political sections, who provided in-depth views of modern Egypt . It was great to see what smart and accomplished people represent the US in Egypt.

Back to the hotel, and a short nap and some notes. We get ready for dinner, and decide that we will do the balloon ride in Luxor, so exchange se funds to pay f9r that. It should be quite exciting. The. We gate with the group for dinner, a short bus ride across the Nile to the restaurant the The Blue Nile for dinner. We go over the Embaba bridge which was built in 1852 for the king’s invitation to dignitaries to see the pyramids without having to change carriages to cross the nile. It was built as a drawbridge when most ships were sailing ships with tall masts, then rebuilt somewhat lower when steam powered ships came into being. The bridge includes symbols of many friendly nations, and it is the oldest bridge in Cairo. We go by the Cairo Opera House, which was supposed to host the premiere of Verdi’s Aida but the space was not finished in time, so they began with Rigoletto.  It was destroyed in the 1950s in a fire, and the rebuilding was financed by the Japanese, who insisted that the premier piece would be a four-hour kabuki piece, a somewhat odd choice for an Egyptian audience. The Opera season is not on at this time, so sadly we cannot see it.

Hassan provides some interest history of Cairo. In the 18th century it was not large when Napoleon conquered it in a battle of which took place near the bridge, but Napoleon, ever the PR guy, knew that the Battle of the Pyramids sounds so much better than the Battle of Embaba. By 1882 the English had taken. Supposedly this is when the nose of the Sphinx was shot off by a cannon, but it happened many centuries before. In 1798 there were no buildings between the pyramids and Cairo so the pyramids 20km away were easily visible. We are en route to The Blue Nike, a restaurant on a barge in he Nile. We have delicious hummus and baba ganoush, a mixed grill of kofta and chicken, and a chocolate cake, with wine. Cairo at night is so lit up, with neon and colored floodlight everywhere. Hassan describes  the itinerary for tomorrow at Giza, which will include a camel ride which Hassan will orchestrate for us. In the distance along the Nile we see brightly lit Cairo Tower which was the tallest building in the Middle East until almost 20 years ago.

Back to the hotel, some writing work, and then off to bed for another early start.