I’m in Cairo, Egypt, on a hotel balcony overlooking the Nile River, a fantasyland I’ve heard about my whole life -- and I’m here. I needed to take a minute to revel in that. And recognize that thanks to Overseas Adventure Travel’s (OAT) Ancient Egypt and the Nile River Tour, I was about to begin a magical journey through 6,000 years of history. But how to recount this rich history in the space of one short story? All I can do is bring you along to experience a little bit of Egypt the way I did.
A stop at the Egyptian Museum was an introduction to the many iconic sites across the country: the actual tombs, crypts, statues and pyramids that belie belief and challenge the imagination.
Amid miles of monochromatic monotony lay the Saqqara Necropolis, a sprawling complex of temples, pyramids and crypts. The largest of the many tombs is the Step Pyramid of King Djoser. The first pyramid ever to be built in 2650 B.C.E., it remains the oldest stone structure in the world.
The statue of Ramses II in Memphis, dating back 3,200 years, is also of an intimidating size -- about 36 feet tall -- and that’s with his legs broken off. Egyptian antiquity is by definition big, overwhelming, powerful and very old. Ramses, Egypt’s longest-reigning pharaoh and its most prolific builder of temples, served for 67 years and had 55 wives and 115 children.
The Valley of the Kings, located outside Luxor, literally took us deeper into the tombs of the most famous of Egypt’s rulers. The older tombs had been ransacked, so later pharaohs decided to build their own tombs in this protected area, where the new tombs were chiseled deep into the sides of desolate cliffs. Because they had been sealed for so long, the walls have retained colors so vibrant as to look freshly painted. Deeply etched hieroglyphic symbols describing the journey to the afterlife are still as visible as if recently crafted.
Fortunately, our guide, Hussein, spoke fluent hieroglyphics and could read the walls like a storybook. Thus we learned of the royal lives of the kings and everyday lives of the villagers from 5,000 years ago.
The pyramids were always a fanciful figment from far away and so long ago, but they were nothing to which I could personally relate -- until now, when I was actually standing on one of the huge boulders of which one was made. The fact that it was made of these boulders seemingly randomly thrown together was nothing I could have imagined before. Mountains were moved and reshaped to the ego of one person, depleting the physical and economic resources of the current city to ensure the pharaoh’s safe journey into his next life, along with all the accoutrements -- jewelry, foodstuffs, furniture, chariots, weapons -- he had acquired.
The Pyramids of Giza pretty much define Egypt. No matter what else I saw -- and it was all astounding -- this is where my mind’s eye returns whenever I look back on the trip. The Great Pyramid, at 480 feet tall and built more than 4,500 years ago, is the last of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the World to still stand.
I could literally see each of the 2 to 3 million huge boulders placed round the clock over a 20-year span and could imagine the 10,000 workers sweating and panting from the strain of creating this monstrous edifice in honor of the pharaoh Khufu. Did I mention the stones were brought in from limestone quarries 20 miles away?
From afar, the surface of the pyramid looks smooth. As you get closer, you can see the enormity of each stone, several feet in diameter, carefully placed beside and atop the other. As I climbed newly embedded stairs onto the pyramid itself, I wondered if Khufu would take offense. I might add that to look at the pyramids from atop a camel added a whole new level of authenticity not usually associated with standard sightseeing options.
I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be impressed by the size of anything else anytime soon. And then we came to the Sphinx -- inscrutable, mysterious and equally as old, carved from one piece of limestone and seemingly part of the mountain itself. The head of a man and the body of a lion represent the combination of intelligence and strength attributed to the pharaohs. “Take some time to revel in the history embedded in every block of stone and the incomprehensible size of each structure standing tall in the desert sand,” admonished Hussein.
