Day 32

SUNDAY 10th JANUARY
Synopsis of day: Cairo is a big, smoggy place but oh! the civilisation!
Highlight of the day: Finally seeing the Egyptian museum, a place I have wanted to visit all my life. We didn't have the time to see it all, but so many of the very famous artefacts were included. The entry ticket was so low compared to what I would have been willing to pay.
Lowlight of the day: I was a bit horrified by how much I liked the mosque that we went into. All the hundreds of mosques we have driven past have green lighting and this mosque, the Mohamed Ali (a past ruler, not boxer) Mosque, was stunningly beautiful and designed with a green theme within. These photos were the ones I was most disappointed about losing from yesterday (we weren't permitted to take any in the Egyptian museum).
Toilet ratings: Egyptian Museum ones were so awful we all recoiled and decided to wait for another one. These at least were marginally better, but equal payment is usually required despite the variable quality.
Favourite photo:

Random taxis that you just jump into, since they leave the doors open.

I haven't worked out how you pay for this since other people are travelling with you on this

- it seems like a mini-bus.

Cultural-shock moment: We were able to enter two churches, a synagogue and mosque all within a few hours. The differences in how people commemorate worship and the different attitudes of reverence is an interesting study.
New food consumed: Most delicious fish I've had in ages. Like, years. Also a fresh mango juice. WOW.
Random act of crazy: Khan-el-Khalili souq.
What Arthur did next: Didn't turn up this morning for the designated departure time. We ended up leaving without him after a while. Later that evening, he told us he'd been up on a bender with some unexpected friends and two bottles of vodka and slept through. We gathered from that we could have been waiting for a very long time had we not been fed up with him and gone.
Something I want to remember: The brittle and yet astonishing levels of preservation of the royal mummies, and thoughts concerning ethical display of human remains.

Note that I lost all the images from this day except for a few traffic photos. I was delighted to discover that the Egyptian museum had been changed to be our morning rather than afternoon destination. We were really only there long enough to see most of the famous treasures, and I will have to return there to have a complete experience. Tutakhamun's mask and many of his burial treasures were just as I had imagined, but I most enjoyed seeing the hall of the Egyptian royal mummies and some of the wooden work from the OK. Also the Narmer Palette was our first artefact and I thought that was incredibly awesome, because I thought it might have been located in the Louvre or British Museum (though given its significance to Egypt is arguably equal or greater than the Rosetta stone, one would prefer to it be in its country of origin). Those sources were truly marvellous, and I cannot doubt that my teaching about Egyptian culture has been significantly enhanced by what I have seen and wondered over these past few days. The museum felt largely like an old storeroom and not everything was labelled or even encased. A larger and more modern museum is being constructed (with completion c. 2013 and it will be the largest museum in the world) and it is sorely needed for the museum was crowded both with people and artefacts.



The mummified bodies were beautiful to behold (I think most people would disagree with me on this) and I was transfixed by the fingers and eyelids. The bodies were so tiny and fragile, and looking at the colour of the body from the passage of time and natron, I couldn't help but want to comprehend their thoughts about the afterlife, and to wonder at the horror of having the body publically displayed to gawking and noisy tourists. It is both an historically precious and ethically complicated action, with a little macabre thrown in for extra measure. Ramesses II's hair was still visible and his mummy was probably the best preserved there. I had far too much wicked pleasure seeing Thutmosis II, Hatshepsut and Thutmosis III so close to one another in death, given their shared histories. Seeing Hatshepsut's mummy was the most exciting for me because it is only a recent identification, and when I studied her in year 11, the expectation was that she would be unlikely to be ever identified. The narrative about how this was achieved will be another interesting story to share with students – I've picked up a couple but I think this one might be my favourite – it also helps that it has its accompanying pun in “Hot-chick's-tooth” which is more child friendly than the one we learned for Ramesses II.

We had to hurry in the museum shop because it was crowded and we weren't allocated much time. I was so frantic that I mustn't have been thinking and bought a bunch of things accidentally in French (I just read the titles and didn't take the time to realise they needed translation!). While this is not necessarily a bad thing, some of those purchases were purchased for people who don't read French!

Advertisements. My particular fave is the red one for a "scarph"

Typical street front in Cairo.

Following our visit in the museum we headed around to some various religious sites. We started off in the Orthodox church, which was suspended over something small. It was the nicest large church that we had been to in a while, and the loveliest Orthodox church outside the monasteries. Ash, who is Coptic Orthodox, explained the design of the tower pulpit, which has thirteen columns (twelve for the apostles [Thomas and Judas' were darker in colour] with six different designs since they were sent out in twos. At the front was the thirteenth representing Christ.



We next visited a synagogue, and after having seen several ancient forms, it felt more familiar and recognisable. I also realised how much I was missing seeing Hebrew written everywhere! I haven't warmed to Arabic as much. We headed off towards another Orthodox church which was very close to the Nile in earlier times and is probably famous for something but I can't remember what. Something to do with the Holy Family which may be(or may not, but probably is) rot. There was a poster showing all the sites that were supposedly visited or lived in, but the archaeologist in me is highly spurious.

Look at the guys in the ute - Solomon style!

Traffic police seem completely ineffective.

We went after that to the Mohamed Ali mosque and it was the first I'd ever entered. It was absolutely beautiful. See Kerri's journal for more profound and educational commentary. I was really disappointed to discover that my pictures were lost when I tried to transfer them, but was really thankful it was this day rather than some or all of the earlier ones, which would have been devastating.
 Kerri and Mary bought a fez in the marketplace right outside of it, and we saw them being made. I was saving my money for our next location, the Khan-el-Khalili marketplace, which we only barely touched. I'm sure on Getaway I've seen it larger. Regardless of the fact that we were only there for an hour and made it around one block, I managed to buy plenty, bargain heaps, annoy Kerri, get a marriage proposal and various out flirtatious comments, was mistaken for a German and saw and smelt crazy things.
 When we got home, because we had been purchasing at such a mad rate at the Egyptian Museum and markets, Kerri and I did a show and tell to see what we had actually bought! We also had to pack our bags once more, and we've started leaving stuff behind which we don't anticipate needing. We also went to the Japanese restaurant at the hotel which was very exciting for us both because we've had so much Middle Eastern food, and Asian was such a nice change. Yay.

Traffic on the way to the museum.