Day 10 - Cairo

Opening Hours: Saturday to Thursday 9.00am-4.00pm, Friday 9.00am-11.15am/1.30-4.00pm Admission (1997): L.E. 10.00, Students L.E. 5.00 (in 1989 it was 3 L.E.!)
Camera Permit (1997): L.E. 10.00 (flashes and tripods are not allowed).
  

The (present) museum was inaugurated on the 15th of November 1902. Therefore it will be 100 years old in  2002. To celebrate this important event a special book "The Centennial Anniversary" will be edited.  Click here for an interesting contribution to the history of the museum.

• Marsankh III (or Meresankh III): was the wife of Khephren and the mother of prince Nebmakhet. The tomb is very beautiful, but is rarely visited by the tourists (wrongly!). See photo.
• Mery-nefer Qar: judge and vizier from the sixth dynasty

Recently 2 scientists discovered that the North-South plan of the Pyramids matched the reflection of 3 stars of the Belt of Orion. If you're interested, click here.
  

• Funerary Complex of Djoser (Zoser): lies in the middle of the necropolis and is most of all known by the Step Pyramid (details) which on his own lies in the middle of the Djoser complex. This entire complex was once surrounded by an enclosure wall, that when complete, was about 549m long and 274m wide and rose to over 9.1m The wall is made of brick-size stones. The architect was Imhotep and because of his realization he was later worshipped as a god! Details Step Pyramid
• Mastaba of Idut: Indut was king Unas' (see next) daughter. The relief's are brilliant. Well-known is a scene of hippo hunting. Several offer scenes.
• Pyramid of Unas: king of the 5th Dynasty. The pyramid is in poor condition. We have to climb over a small metal ladder to enter a very low corridor (only 1m high) and which leads to the burial chamber. Carved into the walls you can see the earliest Egyptian funeral text, the so-called "Pyramid Texts", with a blue pigment. On the ceiling you will see five point stars.
• Sphinx avenue: less remains from the earlier avenue but from here we start the next visits
• Mastaba of Mereruka: he was the vizier of Teti. His tomb with 32 rooms is the largest and most beautiful of Saqqara. His wife and son were also buried here. Most of the wall paintings represents the daily life: butchers slaughtering an ox, Mereruka sitting on his bed playing the harp, swimming hippos in the Nile, etc. (see photo gallery). There's also a statue of Mereruka in the sacrificial chamber.
• Serapeum: we hire a horse to go to the Serapeum along the former Sphinx avenue. Serapis was the mystic unification of the gods Osiris, Apis, Dionysios and Asklepios. The Serapeum was a subterranean complex where the sacred bulls of Apis were buried. The bull was thought to have been an incarnation of Ptah. The whole complex is impressive: corridors 350m long, 3m wide, 5½m high with chambers of 8m high which contain 24 sarcophaguses each one as a single block of granite that weighed between 60 and 80 tons. Impressive!
  From the Serapeum we walked along the avenue of the Philosophers, statues of the Ptolemaic period, to the Mastaba of Ti.
• Mastaba of Ti: he was related to a royal family of the 5th Dynasty. A narrow passageway leads into the burial chamber. The tomb is very beautiful with relief's still partly in bright colours. The mastaba contains 3 chambers and a corridor which leads to 2 chapels. One is Ti's grave with brilliant relief's: Ti and his wife life-sized, scenes of wine making, peasants and musicians, a bull slaughtered for offering, Ti in a boat through the swamp, a crocodile biting a hippo, etc. Back on the road we walk (what a heat!) to the Mastaba of Ptah-hotep.
• Mastaba of Ptah-hotep (and Akhti-hotep): Ptah-hotep was a vizier during the reign of Djedkare, 5th Dynasty. Akhti-hotep was probably his father. The mastaba has some bigger and smaller chambers with relief's still more beautiful than this of Ti's mastaba, although not all finished (interesting to see how the artists did their work because of the several stages of development). A lot of scenes: bulls, geese, hunting for gazelles, leopards and lions, a group of cranes running after a boy, even some mating animals,...

And that was our visit the big and very interesting necropolis of Saqqara.

In the afternoon we were guided by our driver to a carpet factory... and made acquaintance with children from 8 to 13 years old, working 8 hours a day for 5 E.P.! You can't believe it, when you didn't see it (see Photo Gallery Cairo).
  

• Abu Serga Church (St. Sergius): according to the legends it's the place where Joseph, Mary and Jesus rested at the end of their journey into Egypt. The crypt is now filled with water. The church is now restored because it's dilapidated.
• Ben Ezra Synagogue: built on the place where Moses was found (another legend...). There are beautiful walls embellished with wood.

...and farewell!

...and we were sure, one day we would come back...

...as we did later in 1995, 1996, 1997, .....!!!