Egypt February 2-17, 2025

Wednesday, February 5, 2025 - Giza Plateau (Pyramids, Sphinx), Grand Egyptian Museum

We didn't sleep as well as we had the night before. We woke up at 6:45 a.m. and went to breakfast. We had omelets made to order (I had cheese and Craig had cheese and mushroom) as well as all of the other items we had yesterday: halloumi cheese, beef sausage, cheese, pastries, charcuterie, delicious fresh squeezed orange juice, and coffee.

We met Shady in the lobby at 9 o'clock, and he introduced us to Galel, our Egyptologist guide. Shady made sure we were all set, and then said goodbye for the day. We left for the Giza plateau, with cheerful Abraham driving us. He had plenty of water and snacks available in the van and always offered Craig his arm to help him get out of the van, saying "Opa!" each time.

While in the car, Galel gave us information about Egypt in general, how it only gets around 4 inches of rain per year, which explains why the Nile is so important and the population clings to its banks. We passed the Cairo aqueduct, which was used to transport drinking water to a cistern under the citadel.

The Pharaonic period in Egypt lasted from 3200 BC until 330 BC (the time of Alexander the Great). Roman rule started in 30 BC and lasted 700 years. St. Mark came to Alexandria in 56 CE. In the Pharaonic religion, common people could not talk to priests and were kept out of everywhere except the open courtyards of temples, so Christianity was comforting and within two centuries Christians were the majority population in Egypt. The Egyptian Orthodox church refused 700 years of Roman rule and wouldn't convert to Roman Catholicism. But it was bleeding the country dry with taxes until Islam came in. Muslim rule started in 642 CE.

We started our tour today at the Giza Plateau, formerly known as Memphis during the Pharaonic times. We were driven through crazy Cairo city traffic until we came to a stop at a ticket office. I looked out the van window and to my surprise saw the tops of the pyramids peeking out from behind the ticket office! The plateau is right on the edge of modern day Cairo, and the contrast between the modern city and the ancient necropolis is stark. We went through security and emerged to see the Sphinx and three pyramids ahead of us. It was breathtaking.

Giza pyramid complex (map), courtesy of MesserWoland, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

We started at Khafre's Valley Temple - where funerary rites took place. It was made from large granite blocks which had been quarried and transported from Aswan in upper Egypt, over 500 miles up river. They didn't need to use mortar to secure the blocks because they were so heavy, and the way they are shaped makes them fit together in an earthquake-proof fashion. It reminded us of the Incan stonework in Sacsayhuaman, Peru.

After walking through the Valley Temple, we approached the Sphinx. The Sphinx was built around 2500 BC in the image of the pharaoh Khafre, with the body of a lion. It is carved from the bedrock and measures 240 feet long, 66 feet tall, and 62 feet wide. Some people believe that Napoleon's troops shot off the Sphinx's nose, but that has been disproven. The more accepted story is that the desert swallowed the Sphinx in ancient times. During a sandstorm, it was revealed, and locals were afraid of this giant face emerging from the desert. They broke its nose off to try to stave off a curse. It was surreal to be looking down at it from the observation area. It is so iconic!

There is a stone tablet between the Sphinx's paws called the Dream Stela. It was placed there by Thutmose IV around 1400 BC. This stela contains an account of how Thutmose IV fell asleep under the Sphinx as a prince, and the Sphinx came to him in a dream and told him that if he cleared away the sand from the Sphinx and repaired it, he would become king of Egypt. It is possible to get access to go right up to the Sphinx, and there was a large group of people down there, but it is cost-prohibitive for just a group of 2 ($3500 - $4000 USD). So we admired the Sphinx from the viewing platform, waiting our turn to get photos from a prime angle, and then walking around the back to get a view of it from behind.

Next we rode camels the approximately one mile from the Sphinx to the Great Pyramid. My camel was a bit ornery, so I had to hold on tight and wasn't comfortable taking pictures or videos during the ride, but Galel got photos of us getting on the camels. It was so surreal to ride a camel across the Giza Plateau toward the pyramids. Sure it's touristy, but it was a fun way to arrive at the Great Pyramid.

The pyramid shape was decided upon for royal tombs because it represents the island which rose from the primordial sea in the ancient Egyptian creation myth.

There are three main pyramids at Giza. These pyramids date back to 2500 B.C. The first to be built was the Great Pyramid of Khufu. It is the largest, at 450 feet tall with a base of 600 feet. It is built of 2.3 million stone blocks. Khufu's son Khafre built the second pyramid. Although it may look larger, it is actually smaller (it is at a higher elevation and a steeper angle, but actually consists of 30% fewer stone blocks and its base is smaller).

It only took Khafre 20 years to build his pyramid (whereas it took Khufu 30 years), because Khufu had already put the infrastructure in place. The pyramid builders were young and it was a coveted job, as they would get meals and beer provided for them. It is a misconception that these pyramid builders were enslaved.

Both of these pyramids used to be covered in smooth limestone. Khafre's pyramid still has a bit of limestone on its tip, but the rest was taken and used for other projects.

The third pyramid was built by Menkaure, who was Khafre's son and Khufu's grandson. He was already 50 years old when he ascended the throne so he was afraid he wouldn't live long enough to build a pyramid at the scale of his predecessors. So he built a smaller pyramid (with a 339 foot base and a height of 215 feet) and covered it in red granite instead of limestone in the hopes that it would be remembered as "the red pyramid" rather than "the small pyramid". Not to be confused with the Red Pyramid in Dashour, which we would visit in two days' time.

There are also several much smaller pyramids for queens on the Giza Plateau.

One of the highlights of the day was being able to enter Khufu's Great Pyramid! Standing next to the 450-foot tall Great Pyramid dwarfed us; you couldn't even see the top when looking straight up! This is the only surviving Wonder of the Ancient World, and it was humbling to experience this structure which is over 4500 years old!

We climbed up some of the stone blocks to get to the entrance. This is the entrance to the Robbers' Tunnel, which is beneath the original entrance. At first, we could stand up in the tunnels. We climbed up to the burial chamber, which is 300 feet up. Much of the steep climb has wooden boards on the ground with horizontal wooden slats to keep you from slipping. The passages are narrow and when you pass people going in the other direction, you'd brush against them. Most of the climb forces you to be doubled over because the ceiling is so low. There are a couple of places where you can stand up straight and take a breather, where the ceilings are, in fact, quite high.

As you climb it gets hotter and more humid, and we were dripping with sweat by the time we got to the low entryway to the burial chamber. The chamber itself was bare - no decorations on the walls or ceiling, just an empty stone sarcophagus. It was so humid and oppressive - thank goodness we are here in the wintertime! The crowd thinned out while we were in the chamber. Though we hadn't realized it, it was approaching noon, the time at which the pyramid entrance closes to the public for midday. They stopped letting more people in, so as the crowd thinned out we had the chamber mostly to ourselves.

We both found the climb down more difficult than the climb up; as you gain momentum your legs want to go faster but you are doubled over so it is hard to manage. But because they had stopped letting people in, you didn't have to push your way past people going in the opposite direction. The air started to get cooler and drier as we descended.

We emerged into the noonday sunlight, suddenly 4500 years into the future. It was a fantastic experience and we are so glad we got to do it!!

Great Pyramid S-N Diagram, courtesy of Flanker, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Elevation diagram of the interior structures of the Great Pyramid viewed from the east. The inner and outer lines indicate the pyramid's present and original profiles.
1. Original entrance, North Face Corridor
2. Robbers' Tunnel (tourist entrance)
3, 4. Descending Passage
5. Subterranean Chamber
6. Ascending Passage
7. Queen's Chamber and its "air-shafts"
8. Horizontal Passage
9. Grand Gallery
10. King's Chamber and its "air-shafts"
11. Grotto and Well Shaft

We had lunch with a view of the pyramids at Khufu restaurant. We ate inside rather than outside because it was a bit windy and some sand was blowing around. But we could still see the pyramids through the picture windows. Galel warned us that the food wouldn't be ready until 1 o'clock; it was a 4 course prix-fixe meal of local dishes. This was fine with us; we were happy to sit and chat with Galel over a liesurely lunch.

I enjoyed a Khufu's Dream virgin cocktail (hibiscus, pomegranate juice, and rose water) and Craig had a Sprite. The amuse bouche was pulled beef qatayef with chilli jam. We were each served four appetizers: koshari salad, cottage cheese and chilli jam, babaghanoush, and chicken livers with date molasses, peanuts, and prunes. The latter is something we never would have ordered off a menu, but it was all absolutely delicious.

For the main course, Craig had fereek with smoked beef terrine and I had mu'ammar rice (baked Egyptian rice served with smoked beef braised on charcoal). Dessert was rice pudding and a chocolate pyramid cake with ice cream.

Everything was beautifully plated and presented. We had worked up an appetite at the Giza Plateau, and we fueled up for our trip to the museum this afternoon. Everything was delicious, and we greatly enjoyed our time at this lovely restaurant.

The Grand Egyptian Museum (GEM) doesn't officially open until July, but it has had a "soft opening" and visitors are allowed for a preview. The museum is very close to the pyramid complex, but there is no easy way to get there by car. So Abraham braved the crazy Cairo traffic once again to get there from the Khufu Restaurant. By the time the museum fully opens in July, there will be a bridge connecting the museum to the pyramid complex.

Galel bought our tickets, and we took a golf cart from the ticket counter to the entrance of the museum. Encompassing 872,000 square feet, it is massive. The ceilings are very high and it has a very modern feel. It cost over a billion dollars and will eventually house 100,000 artifacts. When you first enter, you are greeted by a colossal statue of Ramesses II. This statue used to be in front of the Cairo train station. It is 3200 years old, 11 meters tall, and weighs 83 tons. It really sets the tone for all of the wonders that you will see inside the museum. The statue has its left foot forward, indicating that it depicts a living Rameses II. (Seated statues with hands on knees represent ruling. Statues with legs together and arms crossed depict someone who is dead).

When we first booked the trip, only the Grand Staircase portion of the museum was open to the public. This is a large staircase on which are situated many statues, sarcophagi, stelae, etc. There is a conveyor belt that runs parallel to the staircase which functions like an escalator so that the staircase exhibit can be enjoyed by those who can't climb stairs.

The Grand Staircase alone would make it worth a visit, but since then several galleries have opened as well. They downplay the exhibits a bit (since the King Tut exhibit, which will be the star of the show, has not moved in yet) but we were astounded by the size of the exhibits! There were so many artifacts.

We learned a lot of information that would lay a groundwork for what we would see over the duration of the trip. Pharaohs were depicted with a nemes (a striped linen headcloth), uraeus (Egyptian cobra on the forehead), and false beard. Kings of Upper Egypt wore a white crown known as a hedjet, which looks like a bowling pin. Kings of Lower Egypt wore a red crown known as a deshret. Wearing both crowns simultaneously (the pschent, or double crown) represented a king of a unified Egypt.

Similarly, the lotus flower represents Upper Egypt, papyrus represents Lower Egypt, and intertwined lotus and papyrus represent unified Egypt. Egypt was unified into one nation around 3150 BC by a king named Narmer, the first king of the First Dynasty. A unified Egypt with a strong centralized government led them to be able to conduct public works projects on a grand scale, starting with building irrigation canals to take advantage of the yearly flooding of the Nile, and leading up to the building of the pyramids several hundred years later.

Ancient Egyptians mummified their dead in order to preserve the bodies, which would then be resurrected into the Afterlife if the person had been honest and just. They believed that both the body and the internal organs were required in the afterlife, but leaving the internal organs in situ would cause them to rot. The body needed to be dehydrated inside and out in order to preserve it. So they extracted the internal organs during the mummification process, and enbalmed them separately from the body.

At first, the organs were stored in canopic chests. Then they started using canopic jars. At first, these four jars had human heads. Later, the jars were decorated to resemble the Sons of Horus, who would guard the internal organs: Imsety (a human) held the liver. Hapy (a baboon) guarded the lungs. Duamutef (a jackal) presided over the stomach. And Qebehsenuef (a falcon) guarded the intestines. The brain was removed (through the nose) but discarded because the Egyptians didn't know its purpose, and assumed that it was just "stuffing" for the head. The heart was believed to be the seat of thought and emotion. The heart stayed inside the mummified body so Anubis could perform the "Weighing of the Heart" ceremony. If the heart was deemed to be heavier than a feather, the person had not lived a good life and would be destroyed by Ammit (the Devourer). This would doom the person to nonexistence (there was no real concept of hell in ancient Egypt). Otherwise, the person had lived a righteous life and would be resurrected and welcomed to the afterlife by Osiris.

Anubis is a jackal-headed god, and he is most likely associated with death because jackals lack an enzyme to digest fresh meat. They instead prefer rotten flesh, so they often would dig up cemeteries and feast on the bodies. This was often the case withh naturally dehydrated bodies that were buried in the sand before the Egyptians started performing mummification rituals and burying bodies in coffins in tombs.

We saw wrapped mummies with their shabtis, small figures which represent servants who will serve the pharoah in the afterlife. There are usually 365 shabtis, one for each day of the year. It was mistakenly believed that servants were buried alive with the pharoah, but in actuality it was just these small anthropomorphic figures.

We saw game boards and pieces for the ancient game of senet, which charts the journey to the afterlife. The gameboards and pieces are of varying quality, belying the fact that the game was played by all echelons of society.

The exhibit also contained furniture (a bed and chair) and a canopic chest belonging to Queen Hetepheres, Sneferu's wife and Khufu's mother. We saw a statue of Pharaoh Khafre, and could see the resemblance of the facial features with the Sphinx.

We saw jewelry (bangle bracelets, earrings, amulets, rings, gold and stone necklaces), cosmetic items including bronze mirrors and wooden combs, musical instruments such as lutes and clappers, polychrome glass vessels, wigs, headrests (that do not look very comfortable), and models of boats.

We saw a mummified crocodile and mummified ibises. There was an exhibit dedicated to Bastet, the cat goddess. It is said that she was popular with women...ancient cat ladies!

There were pyramidions (the tips of pyramids) and obelisk tips. Obelisk tips used to be plated with electrum (an alloy of gold and silver) that would shine in the sun and act as a sort of lighthouse to show people where temples are located.

We saw a statue of Hatshepsut, depicted as a male pharaoh, holding 2 perfume bottles. Hatshepsut was an interesting figure. She was the wife of Pharaoh Thutmose II. When her husband died, she ruled as regent for her stepson and nephew Thutmose III, who was only two years old at the time. But soon she became a pharaoh in her own right, ruling for over 20 years. Thutmose III attempted to erase her name from history, gouging out her cartouche from her monuments and breaking her statues. Whether this is due to bitterness that she had kept him from his rightful place on the throne for so long, or an attempt to erase her because she was the only female pharaoh is unknown. Although she wanted to be buried in the Valley of the Kings in her own tomb, her mummy was found buried with her wet nurse.

Large picture windows overlooking the Giza pyramids gave a sense of context for everything that was on display in the museum.

We spent several hours at the museum and didn't see everything. We probably could have spent an entire day or more! It was awe-inspiring. It is hard to wrap your brain around just how old these artifacts are! One toddler in the museum wanted his mom to lift him up to see into a sarcophagus. He was so into it and smiling; it's great to see the younger generations being fascinated by this history.

We left the museum at 5 p.m. We took the golf cart back to the ticket office and Abraham picked us up. On the drive back to the hotel, we dropped Galel off at the metro. We were back at the Four Seasons by 6 p.m.

We had eaten so much at lunch, that we definitely didn't need dinner tonight. We ate a few of the snacks that had been provided in the van when we got a bit peckish.

It was really a great decision on DAI's part to start our tour in Giza. Talk about starting off with a bang - seeing the only remaining Wonder of the Ancient World. This really whetted our appetite for everything that was ahead of us. The sheer size and scope of the Great Pyramid, and the fact that we had actually been inside a structure that is 4500 years old, was absolutely surreal. We immediately had intense appreciation for and were humbled by ancient Egyptian culture, and couldn't wait to see more.

Giza Plateau

Grand Egyptian Museum