Pyramids

Early on the second morning of our tour, we went down the road from our Gizan hotel to the site of the Pyramids. The Pyramids are essentially mausoleums. Each of the three contained the mummified corpse of a Pharaoh along with all the treasures and possessions someone of his standing would need in the afterlife. The largest (the Great Pyramid) was built by Khufu (aka Cheops), the next largest by his son or grandson Khafre, and the smallest by Menkaure. The afterlife was a major concern in Egyptian theology, so the final resting place of the Pharaoh was a major public project throughout his reign. Although it is smaller in height and in volume, Khafre's pyramid (the one with the remnants of its outer casing still visible around the top) is built on higher ground and so looks taller than the Great Pyramid that Khufu built. Since the Egyptians associated the setting sun metaphorically with the end of life, Giza is on the west side of the Nile.

The Gizan Pyramids were one of the seven wonders of the ancient world and are the only still in existence today. Although the Great Pyramid was built approximately 4,500 years ago, it was the tallest man-made structure until the construction of the Lincoln Cathedral in England was completed in 1311 AD. Their size made them prime targets, though; these and later smaller pyramids were all looted. Future generations of Pharaohs moved their tombs to underground complexes in the Valley of the Kings.

Besides the three main pyramids, there are a few much smaller pyramids that contain the remains of the queens of the Pharaohs. Additionally there are rectangular mounds called mastabas that mark the underground burial chambers of nobles. There are also underground pits that house disassembled ceremonial boats. One of these was unearthed in 1954, reassembled painstakingly for a decade, and is now on display in a museum that abuts the Great Pyramid. This Wikipedia image shows the layout of the Gizan Pyramid site.

For more of my pictures of the Giza Pyramids, click here.

Khan El Khalili Bazaar/Al Azhar

At the end of the first day of our Egypt tour, we visited the Khan El Khalili Bazaar, which was founded in 1382. This was probably my least favorite part of the Egypt tour. I wasn't interested in buying anything and the narrow streets of the bazaar crowded with people didn't really interest me. I wandered around the streets a little, but it was difficult to take pictures without feeling in the way and the bazaar is an area they warned us about pickpockets and thefts. In short, I was tired and there wasn't much for non-shoppers to do to be entertained.

Of more interest to me was Al Azhar University (at left of picture), which is directly across the street from one end of the bazaar. I would have much preferred to go on a tour of the university and mosque. Al Azhar was founded in 975 AD, is the second oldest degree-granting university currently in existence, and still serves the primary site in the world for the study of Arabic literature and Sunni Islam.

Here are the rest of my pictures from the bazaar area.

Call the Copts!

The Copts are an ancient sect of Christians that formed in Egypt in the first century AD when Egypt was under Roman control. They had their own language and script (Coptic), evolved from the language and hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptians. In the 7th century, Islam came to Egypt and became the dominant religion. Coptic Egyptian was still the main spoken language for another 300 years, but gradually Arabic replaced Coptic. Now there are only a few hundred speakers since a revival of the language in the 19th century.




The most famous Coptic church in Egypt is the Hanging Church in Cairo, which my tour visited on our first afternoon. On our short walk to the church, two of our tour members separated from the group, causing a little stir. As I remember, we didn't find them until after we left the church.

Here are some more photos from my visit to the Hanging Church.

Cairo Citadel/Mohammed Ali Mosque

On our first day, our first stop of the morning after crossing to the east side of the Nile from Giza was at the Mohammed Ali Mosque. This mosque, which was built by Mohammed Ali in the mid-19th century, is housed in a much older structure: the Cairo Citadel, the construction of which was started by Salah Ad-Din (Saladin) in the late 12th century. Parts of the citadel afford a great view of the sprawl of downtown Cairo.

On the subject of Saladin: You've likely heard that there's a lot of tension between Arabs and Kurds in Iraq and also Turks and Kurds. (The Kurdish terrorist organization PKK frequently kills Turkish troops near the border with Iraq/Kurdistan; Turkey made a small incursion into Kurdistan in retalliation to one such attack while I was in Istanbul.) As it turns out the great Muslim warrior and vanquisher of the Crusaders Saladin was a Kurd himself. I wonder if his heritage gets downplayed in modern Islamic history classes or if he's seen as an exceptional "good Kurd".


Here are some more of the pictures I took of the mosque and citadel.

Cairo

Here are a few pictures taken through the window of our van while riding between tourist sites around Cairo in November 2007.

My Own Auschwitz Experience

While planning my trip through Eastern Europe, ensuring that I saw Auschwitz was my top priority. On the Monday before Halloween 2007, as I was finishing up my stay in Krakow, I was able to take a tour of the nearby Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps.

(I have pictures for this, but need to locate them.)

The tour almost didn't happen. When I got to Krakow the preceding Saturday, I realized two facts in my first hour or so there:

1) My hotel was a decent walk from the Krakow train station, especially with my luggage.
2) Once I could see my hotel, it was clear that it was across a highway from where I was with no obvious way for a pedestrian to cross to the other side; a massive construction project had made a mess of the whole area around it.

Eventually, after a few false starts, I figured out the path to take, which involved walking significantly past my hotel on my side of the road along construction fences and barriers, finding the cross walk, waiting for traffic to thin or stop, carefully and quickly crossing the highway, and then backtracking to my hotel. Fortunately it was still daylight when I tried this the first time and traffic was relatively light since it was a Saturday afternoon. (This became a lot more fun in the evenings after Polish daylight saving time ended Saturday night.)

On Monday morning, though, the construction had impaired morning commuter traffic around my hotel significantly. The tour was arranged through the hotel, and we were supposed to meet outside the lobby at 8:45 AM for a 9 AM pickup. I went outside and joined the big crowd mulling. As the pick-up time approached and then passed, it became clear that we weren't going to start exactly on time. As minutes of standing or pacing in the cold elapsed and I listened to the conversations various groups were having, I became worried that I was with the wrong group. I asked a few people and learned, sure enough, this was a different tour group than mine.

After a few frantic minutes of asking various people which tours they were on, I finally located my own tour guide, who looked a little despondent. She was in frequent phone contact with our driver and told me that traffic was at an absolute standstill on the highway outside and that the driver didn't really know when he would be able to fight his way through.

After a half hour of waiting, the guide told the few of us that we could go inside and she'd come fetch us in the lobby when the driver arrived.

After close to an hour, the driver arrived, but then another problem was apparent. He was only the driver for us and a few other people nearby. We now had to fight our way back out and meet up with the main tour group, and traffic wasn't getting any better. I'm sure I wasn't the only one wondering how long they'd delay the main tour group before giving up on us.

The next forty minutes or so were spent inching through a whole series of traffic snarls with lts of aggressive driving and horns honking. At one traffic circle, our driver had an extended, heated argument with a traffic cop who stopped us just as it was our turn to merge in to the main flow and let dozens of cars from all the other arteries get in front of us.

Eventually we made it to the main tour bus and were able to start off the trip to Auschwitz. When we got there, the bus was almost full and had been sitting waiting for us for most of an hour. This left few seats open to us late-comers. And that leads to another story.

But that's another post for another day.

Never Forget

Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet Forces 64 years ago today (Tuesday 27 January); below is a 5-minute YouTube video commemorating this anniversary. (h/t: Andrew Sullivan)