Our last day in Egypt, we enjoy a hearty breakfast before departing for Memphis and Sakkara, our final visits on this amazing trip. As we drive along the bus, I see two feral dogs running full out, at the same speed as the bus, and they slip through the metal decorative fence to dash below to the river, probably to get at something to eat. Today we’ll go to Memphis and Sakkara, and we’ll then have lunch in a place famous for its bread.
Memphis was built in 3,000 BC, as the first city in the world, by King Mena, to unify the lower and upper Egyptian capitals. It is in the middle of the two countries, at a point where the Nile begins to branch out. The cemetery of Memphis is called Sakkara, to the west of Memphis, where the Step pyramid is located. We will also go inside a pyramid and see some pyramid texts. We will also see a tomb of Kagemni there, which depicts scenes from the daily life of the person who died, agriculture, hunting, making offerings, and more. It is only at this cemetery where this is visible.
Hassan gave us two sheets of paper with his key to hieroglyphs, and the list of determinatives and key symbols. The Egyptians used R for L, and the Greeks brought the, the letter L, so the lion symbol does not appear until the Greek period. The determinative for an old man indicates wise, Egyptian men exaggerate their age so they appear wiser. The symbol for the Israelites had the word people, not country, because they were not settled.
Here in Memphis there are no remains of the city itself, which was mud brick, but the stone buildings and statues remain. Wherever the capital moved, Memphis remained the theological capital, where Kings were crowned. We see near the entry a triad of Ptah, Sekhmet and Nefertim, with the symbol for Rameses II. The word Memphis was men palace and nefer beautiful or great, thus the name. The Greeks added s to everything, thus meneferis, Memphis. Our ticket says mit rahina, the ancient name in Arabic based on hieroglyphs. Mit means avenue, rahnia means Sphinx, the first avenue of Sphinxes. This Sphinx was lying on its right side thus the carvings in the limestone are better preserved. We see a statue of the king approaching the gods through a small version of the god in a shrine, similar to how Christians pray to a saint for intercession with god. A large statue of Rameses II came from a temple, and this was displayed in the US city of Memphis for 10 years as part of a celebration of all cities worldwide named Memphis. There is another like this is the British Museum, and one without legs remains here, and they built a museum around it. We see it from the perspective of how sculptors saw it as they carved it. The left side is perfectly preserved, especially the face, headdress, the muscles of the body, the texture of his kilt and knife belt, even the fingernails. He holds the two contracts of kingship with Egypt in his hands, each stamped with his name. His wife Nefertari would have been on his left side, much smaller, but only her arm remains. Inside the museum built around this statue is a statue of Bes, the dwarf who carries a basket of fruit and wine on his head, a benevolent god, found in every temple and home.
At Memphis we see a whole pack of slender but not skinny feral dogs, in varied colors of off white and tan, females and one male and at least one pup. A vendor is throwing bread to them, and then they come over to us, tails wagging. They are a mini version of our dog Atlas, about 1/3 size and shorter fur. Many of us are animal lovers so we take quite a few photos of them.
We head toward Sakkara. We see lots of folks up and about, especially women, almost all in black, some with the niqab. Indoors women wear colorful clothes, no black dress. In the countryside, women often wear the black dress and a hijab outdoors, and often the niqab. 20-30 years ago, Hassan notes that few women wore the black dress or the veil in cities and even some villages, but this has become more conservative in recent years. The specific dress is from tradition, not the Koran, but people think they will be more pious by dressing this way. This is in part based on the legend on Isis and Osiris, where Isis disguised herself as an old lady wearing black, so she is allowed by the gods to cross the river to an island by sail to feed her grandson. One of the gods guarding the boat asked for a bribe, Isis gives him her gold earring. Thus sailors today have a gold earring to pay someone to feed them on shore or ferry them to shore. The black dress is from this legend. Once on the island, she tells the gods that her husband’s brother took her late husband’s land, the field that should have gone to her son. The gods agree, then she reveals herself as Isis; Egypt is the field and her son Horus is the grandson.
We arrive at Sakkhara and see the Step Pyramid in the distance. There is another pyramid nearby which is mostly a pyramid shaped pile of rocks. In early pyramids the walls were leaning on a mound of rock and rubble, eventually they collapsed and what is left is a pyramid shaped pile of rubble. There are 120 pyramids in Egypt, but only 10 are the solid structures we think of as pyramids. Sakkara is the cemetery with more discoveries, always new discoveries are being made. We come to the pyramid of King Teti, 2,400BC, mostly only the rubble remains, all the chambers are down below out of sight. This type of pyramid was sealed by huge stones slid into place, hard to chip through, so tomb robbers would heat the stone then throw cold water on it to split the stone. The burial chamber was built, the sarcophagus put in place, the walls painted, and then they could mostly finish the pyramid, and the coffin could then be slipped inside the sarcophagus. Inside we walk through a narrow low and steep passageway, past where the sealing rock came down. We come to the tomb area, encrusted with the King Teti cartouche on the walls, and we can see into the sarcophagus. It has a calm and quiet feel.
Next we go to the tomb of Kagemni, with a smaller entryway, he was the son-in-law of the king. Close relatives were buried near the king. Kagemni’s tomb is like a mastaba, a table. The style of the entryway also appears in the Muslim tombs in the City of the Dead, the only place where this is seen in a cemetery. People would come here with a picnic, even stay overnight, and sit with the ancestors, even today people say when they go to the family tomb, they go to sit with their family. In these old tombs, people documented what they had on earth, as they believed this is what they would be brought back with in them in the next life. At the entry, we see an image of Kagemni with the short beard of nobles. Ka is a person’s invisible twin, a childlike copy which flies up to the gods, then the ba which is the soul, would reunite with the ka and the body for resurrection; if any parts were lost the person would not come back.
Inside we see a papyrus boat with a sea scene with hippos and crocodiles, in the second room are a series of dancing girls leaning backwards, with two more who are clapping their hands. The five girls are the corps de ballet, standing on their right legs, with the left leg kicking up, the arms raised, and they are leaning back almost horizontal. Nearby is Kagenmi standing on a papyrus boat, he is fishing with nets and hooks, which are depicted below. We see large fish like salmon, squid, tilapia, perch, elephant fish, catfish, waiting to be caught, while we see hippos and crocodiles being chased by his servants who advance before his boat, clearing out the crocodiles and hippos from the master. In another scene we see frogs and butterflies and Nile plants. A man is shown kneeling and giving food he has masticated to a baby pig, feeding it before it has teeth. Another man is milking a horned cow, holding her baby in front of her to keep her calm. A rope is tied around the front leg of the cow, around the back, and to the back legs, then tied together. First the calf drinks for a bit and then the man quickly moves in to begin milking the cow, and we can see small drops of milk. The cow is surprised to see a man milking her after the calf was switched out, we can see this from the surprise on her face and the tongue sticking out. Another scene shows a baby cow with the front legs of the cow on the stern of the boat as they row away, then his mother would follow (her tongue is out showing excitement or agitation), so would others follow, and a man in the back would urge them forward. In the next room we see a large Kagemni looking over his backyard with animals. In one part, men are force-feeding geese. They also are feeding hyenas which they used for hunting. Egyptians used three animals for hunting, lions, hyenas, and greyhounds, and fed them before the chase they would not eat the prey while hunting. The legs of the hyenas are tied as they are dangerous animals. We move to a much larger reception room which has an offering table, beautifully decorated, with the tomb down below. At one end is the false door, a façade with a slot for the ka and the ba to come through and visit the body. The walls depict servants bringing animals fruit, grain, flowers, jars, and more with the symbol for 1,000 to show thousands of offerings. The animals are depicted moving and lively, the baby animals even playing with each other. In the next small room is the depiction of making wine and beer. It is being made and put into large ranks of containers, supported on wooden sledges pulled by teams of men, one pouring water on the front of the sledge they ease it along.
We now go to the Step Pyramid, the first stone structure on earth, 3,000 BC. It is currently under some restoration, thus the scaffolding on one side. We walk up the hill and come to the entry gate. This first structure was the work of the architect Imhotep, the genius who figured out how to build the step pyramid. He was a high priest, architect, and doctor. Jean Louis Lauer, was a French archaeologist, who started restoration of the Step pyramid, the only building visible here at the time. He came here as a young man, worked here nearly 70 years, who uncovered all these tombs. The Step pyramid was one step, a mastaba, and Imhotep had the idea of adding more steps like the primeval mound on which was Ra. When it was done, there were four steps, then he adds 8 meters from two sides, thus six steps. The layer of limestone told us about the construction method. There are also shrines for coronation, and a colonnade, the entire complex surrounded by a massive wall. This wall is 5-7 meters wide, very thick, and the vertical shape with crenellations which made it very stable. There were 14 entrances, 13 of which were fake, to control access. Stone decoration was a new idea so what exists mimics mud brick.
Much of this imitates how homes were constructed. Inside the entryway corridor there is the door hinge, the ceiling is made of half-rounds of stone, like the bottom of the palm fronds used in a home (the flat side faced up). The colonnade is the first columns of stone ever on earth (most are restorations). There are 42 recesses between the columns, 21 on each side north and south, just as Egypt was divided into 21 northern provinces and 21 southern provinces. In each recess was a statue of various gods and goddesses. The columns are like a home’s column made of papyrus tied into a pile with rope and fitted into a mud base, which are scalloped outward, the opposite of Greek columns. These columns show the “ties” and the “mud” base. No one had ever tested how long such stone would last, so for durability, the architect attached each column to a wall behind so the columns are not freestanding. This opens out into a huge open area with the Step Pyramid rising above us to our right. The scaffolding shows how the restoration work has been done on the left side while the right side is rougher and more worn, less visibly restored.
This pyramid is the first ever on earth. The size of blocks here is small compared to the pyramids at Giza. This is the first time people quarried stone, the first time lifting stone, the first time fitting stone, so they did not go for huge, just stable. They was no mortar used here, the small stones do not fit together airtight so the pyramid is collapsing outward from the corners. The 1992 earthquake made it clear that this needed to be saved, and the government decided to dedicate revenues to restore this. A southern tomb is being restored nearby. What is so unique here was never done again, to take certain living festivals to the afterlife. Earlier, kings were supposed to be young, fit, and fertile, and once they grew old they were killed. Once this was a kingdom, understandably the kings wanted to change this, they had a festival called Hapset, a renovation of the 30 year term of the king. The king had to demonstrate his fitness by doing some activity like lifting weights, running, etc.; here he would emerge from the colonnade running around the courtyard, then a bull would emerge and he had to lasso the bull and stop him. Then the king had to catch the tail of a different bull, wrapping its tail around his wrist and stopping it. Finally the king would run a lap around the courtyard, and then they begin the ceremonies of the new term of the king. First, he had to fake his death, they would “bury” him in the ceremonial tomb, and then he would be the “new” king, so then he would emerge alive and he would get the double crown. On the walls of Abydos we see this ceremony being done by Rameses II. But no one could really do this with a bull, but they might have done it with a cow. Weak kings would do this more often, sometimes as often as 2 years, which showed how weak they were. Most countries that still do this are showing off for their own people but fundamentally they are weak. After 2,700BC, this ceremony was discontinued and no others have this large courtyard.
We climb the wall by the southern shrine and we see all the pyramids. First the Bent pyramid, then the Step pyramid in the far distance is 10 kilometers away. Near to that is the red pyramid which was faced by a different limestone that faded, built by Senefru. In the distance north 20 kilometers away are barely visible the pyramids at Giza. Then finally are the last pyramids built, the layer of rock over stones and rubble, the “cheap” type. I take a video of the whole area, such an amazing view, we spent four hours in Memphis and Sakkara.
We go on to the government weaving school, where the ancient art of hand weaving is taught, as a coop program with the children spending half the day in school, half the day learning weaving. The cotton wool blend carpets are tied 200 knots to the inch, the cotton about 400 to the inch, and silk ones 400-800 knots to the inch, which is why they take the longest and are the most expensive.
We head back to the hotel through heavy traffic, it is amazing that we don’t see pedestrians getting hit every block or so, maybe is because the traffic moves so slowly that the pedestrians are so brave. After a shower and packing, it is time for the farewell dinner. Hassan asks us about our favorite or most surprising memory of Cairo, and we all applaud his and Michael’s wonderful leadership of the trip. After the farewell dinner, contact information is exchangd, and we head up to get ready for one more early departure. The group now splits, we go back to the Bay Area, others continue to Jordan and Petra or other places. We arise tomorrow at 3:45am, bus leaves for the airport at 5:00am, then back home via Istanbul. It has been a wonderful and illuminating trip. We love Egypt.
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