Egypt's Goddess Nuit

When we were in Cairo, we visited a Papyrus place. I forget now if it was called a "Papyrus School" or a "Papyrus Factory." It was a tourist stop, and inside a man demonstrated the making of papyrus paper. Click here to read about the process of making paper from papyrus. Apparently papyrus paper does not tear. Its wrinkles can be smoothened away. It has long life, so that papyrus from thousands of years ago still exist.

Hyped up like that our small group of 30 was eager to buy papyrus. The place had all sorts of papyrus paintings for sale. There were a lot of Egyptian gods and goddesses and hieroglyphics. I wanted to get a painting on papyrus of the Holy Family - a stylized painting of Joseph pulling a donkey that's carrying Mary and Jesus. My husband spotted a painting of a woman wearing blue. Her body was curved like a horseshoe, with her head and feet on the ground. She had gold stars on her clothing and she looked quite glorious. We were told that she was the goddess Nuit or Nut. That was all we knew about her. We bought her because her image appealed to us.

When we visited the Valley of the Dead, we saw more paintings of the goddess Nuit in the funerary chambers. There were several versions of her but always she stood on all fours, with her body curved like canopy. One image showed her with a bubble in front of her mouth. Our guide explained that Nuit swallowed the Sun God Ra in the evening and gave birth to him in the morning. She was a friend of the dead, a mother-protector. She looked magical.

The above image is not the one we own, but it's one version of the goddess Nuit with her husband Geb (earth god) beneath her. This site gives you more information about the goddess Nuit.

We haven't had time to get the two papyrus paintings framed, but we're looking forward to getting that done soon. We won't be around to see if these will last for thousands of years though.

JERUSALEM - #3

I will be lazy here and post an excerpt of an email sent to a friend about Israel primarily:

"I will admit I had a bit of apprehension about going to the Middle East, given the political situation. I was worried for Lauren, not for me because he's the one who looks like the "enemy." Surprisingly he didn't get any flack really. You will have heard about the Muslim-American young student who had a difficult time at checkpoints (in Israel)? She and 3 other American students attending Cairo University were in Jerusalem, and we were together to visit Bethlehem. Now these kids entered Israel via land and didn't get their passports stamped; they got a piece of paper, which in the case of Sahara, had been taken away at some point, so she had no entry record. At the Bethlehem border there was a lot of excitement over this, with the young-woman-with-an-uzi checkpoint guard calling her superiors etc. After a lot of la-de-dah they allowed her/us to go to Bethlehem. We didn't have trouble returning to Jerusalem. But these young kids joined a Political Tour and we learned that they had difficulty returning to Jerusalem; their Palistinian tour guide had to travel far to another check point to get that kid back into Jerusalem.

When we were in the Old City during Passover (we lucked out) there were numerous military people with uzis; and there were the checkpoints on the way to Nazareth and Masada. The soldiers are so young, and at the checkpoints and at the airport security, there are many young women. They were arrogant and made little attempt to be polite - I guess this is what power does. In the Tel Aviv airport on our way out, someone cut in front of us and when Lauren asked about this, this woman said, "I'm security and I can do anything."

I kept thinking that there was a reversal of roles there, where the abused is now the abuser. The Palistinians are clearly second-class citizens and I can imagine that they must need to have their IDs and documents in strict order at all times, in case they are quizzed. We stayed in a Palistinian hotel and used a Palistinian tour agency; they were fine. The Palistinian tour guide was an angry man and he went on about the shelling that killed children.

Too many stories really. I'll try and blog them bit by bit.

So, yes, I enjoyed the visit to both Egypt and Israel. It was safer than I imagined, but in Egypt we were insulated; our group had an armed guard. The tourist sites were great. The political situation is disturbing. I think the US is now the modern day Romans."

(more later)

GRAND TOUR OF EGYPT - # 3 Edfu, Kom Ombo, Aswan, Abu Simbel

In Luxor, we boarded a boat, the Royal Lotus, for a three-night river cruise on the Nile. It was interesting to see how the boats docked along the Nile. Sometimes three boats would sit side-by-side and passengers had to cut through the reception area of the other boats to get on or off the boat. The accomodations were all right, not great, but all right. The room was nice; but comparing the Royal Lotus with the Princess Cruise Lines the Royal Lotus pales. The buffet meals were not great; the staff was sometimes rude or at least lacking in finesse that the Princess staff have. And - this is a small matter but irritating - on the first day we were on the boat, I asked about the price to use the internet, and the fellow at reception quoted $5 per hour. The next day, when I went to use it, he said it was $6. I reminded him about the $5 quote, and he gave me some story about the sudden increase in price.

Perhaps from the poverty of the people, vendors and service people tended to be grasping for the dollar (sinking as it was). Another matter: our Tour Guide informed us that we had to give an Egyptian pound to the bathroom attendants. Later we learned that this was if you used the toilet paper they handed you. Also, people could just give 50 piastres, instead of an Egyptian pound. There was a constant demand for tips, and some people were extremely demanding. At times, it was a relief to have our Tour Director act as a buffer between us and others. She could silence some pushy vendor with a couple of Arabic sentences, while we had to deal with scarves and other goods flounted in front of our faces.



It was pleasant to float down the Nile. One could see the farms along the sides, the villages, the crumbling temples, the changes in terrain as it got drier. The area near the Nile was generally green, but further out, it could get viciously dry and sandy.

We visited more temples. In Edfu, we took a horse drawn carriage to the Temple of Horus, the falcon god. This temple had Roman influence and had been built when Cleopatra was around 2,000 years ago - young by Egyptian standards. It was a particularly hot day and I remember covering up to protect myself from the fierce sun. There were numerous tourists, so between the heat and the crowd, it was difficult taking in what the temple had to offer. This temple had niches for essential oils, and the hieroglyphics and pictures on the walls indicated which oils were stored inside. The priests had a huge area where they adorned and anointed themselves before entering the altar area. This particular temple also showed some Crosses etched on the walls in the area used as a church. Our Muslim Tour Guide talked about how the early Christians defaced the ancient temples. But it just wasn't the early Christians who did this, because Pharaoh Ramses II was big on replacing earlier pharaoh's names with his. Of course, we have the grave robbers who for centuries have been looting the pharaoh's funerary sites.

The Temple Kom Ombo is dedicated to the crocodile and falcon gods. Click here for a site with a list of Egyptian gods and goddesses. The temple grounds had a deep pool wherein a crocodile used to be kept. There were mummified crocodiles but the line was too long and we didn't see these. This particular temple had a section in the back that had been used as a hospital, and the wall showed drawings of medical instruments and a woman on a birthing chair. Another wall showed a calendar; the ancient Egyptian year consisted of 36 10-day weeks, plus 5 festival days. The wall also showed the scheduled duties of the priest throughout the year.



We went through a canal lock and while waiting for our turn, there were little boats with vendors that clustered around. The boat vendors were selling their tablecloths, scarves and galabiyas to the people on the top deck, and parcels were thrown up to the top deck. It was fun to watch. Some of the people in this part of Egypt were Nubians, dark, lean, tall, handsome people. A famous Egyptian queen who was Nubian was Queen Nefertari, a favorite wife of Ramses II, for whom he made a temple in Abu Simbel - but I am jumping ahead of myself.

We disembarked in Aswan and transferred to the lovely Elephantine Island Resort hotel - yes, it's on an island and accessible by ferry. In Aswan, we visited the pink granite quarry where we saw the Unfinished Obelisk. It had a flaw and was left incomplete giving modern people the chance to see how the ancient peoples made such an obelisk. It is fascinating to see this huge piece sitting in the quarry. The question going through our minds was: how did the ancient people move an obelisk of this size to the temples? We are talking of 150 feet, and 1,150 metric tons! Here is a site that discusses moving such an obelisk.

In Aswan we visited a factory that makes Essential Oils and I picked up four scents: Lotus, Papyrus, Summer Jasmine, and Flower of Sakkara. The scents are delicate and subtle, really quite pleasing.

In Aswan we also visited the Temple of Isis which had been transferred from the Island of Philae to higher ground. With the building of the Aswan Dam, water rose, flooding many of these temple sites. The Egyptian government and Unesco saved the Temple of Isis by moving it to higher ground, a task that was an engineering feat in itself.

To tell the truth, by this time, we were having "temple-itis." The heat and crowds of tourists were sometimes too much. Visiting temples as we did - quickly, without time to really observe and study details - the temples started to blend together. So right now, I'm having a difficult time remembering details about this temple, which is said to be one of the greatest temples in Egypt, but here's a site if you want to know more about it.


We went on a felucca boat ride, but there was no wind, and sadly, our felucca had to be towed. We also visited a Nubian village where we saw their homes with sand floors and, oh, the charming camels rushing home in the early evening.

The last temples we saw were in Abu Simbel. This was one morning when we had one of those 4 a.m. wake up calls. We had to catch the plane and get to the site before it got too hot. It was excruciatingly hot anyway and the tourists were as (pardon the cliche) thick as flies. Ramses II, who loved a good press, built two temples, one to honor himself, and one to honor his Nubian wife, Nefertari. Of course Nefertari's temple is slightly smaller. These temples had also been transferred to higher ground. The size of the temples are mind-boggling. The temple of Ramses showed battle scenes between Ramses and his army and the Nubians, with Ramses the victor of course, one foot on an enemy while he slaughters another man. The Temple of Nefertari shows a lovely image of Nefertari and two attendants, tall, willowy, handsome women. Here is a site with information about Abu Simbel.

One problem we had was that our Tour Director wasn't always with us to point out details and to discuss matters. She would talk before releasing us to these places, and oftentimes we didn't know what to look out for.

Our last day in Cairo was spent visiting the Old section. Earlier in the tour, we had visited Saladin's 12th century Citadel, the Alabaster Mosque, and stopped by the bazaar. Now we visited the synagogue, the hanging Church and the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus where the Holy Family had taken refuge during their flight into Egypt.

We stayed in the Fairmont Heliopolis for our final night. It's a large, flashy hotel with a lot of amenities - pool, sauna, nice reception area - but our room didn't have hot water, and heaven-help-me, this is true, the bed I lay on smelled bad. We only spent a few hours resting before leaving for the airport. We were going to board an El Al flight and had to be in the airport three hours before scheduled departure.

Tomorrow I'll get started on the Holy Land. I realize I'm zipping through these blog entries, but you can understand dear Readers, that I'm actually behind in everything and am trying desperately to get caught up. It's nice to think about the places I've seen though, so I don't mind blogging about the sites. I do have more thoughts actually about Egypt but simply do not have enough time to explore them in these blog entries.

Let me add that I thoroughly enjoyed the Grand Tour of Egypt. Egypt, like India, offers numerous ancient sites and a culture that is different and fascinating. It's a developing country, like India and the Philippines, and there's poverty and annoyances, but if you go there with a spirit of adventure, you'll get much from the place. I had gone to Egypt with some trepidation - the political situation, this is an Arab country after all - but that wasn't so much of an issue. Several times, people approached my American husband and in a friendly way said, "America, forever!" I thought the veiled women would be passive and subservient, but after seeing our Tour Guide - a veiled Muslim woman - show spunk, intelligence and sophistication, I understood that like all other places, Egypt has passive women as well as assertive ones. Our Tour guide said that many Arabic women like to visit Egypt because it's one of the liberal Arabic countries where they can watch belly dancing and enjoy themselves. As liberal as it may be, I suspect that Egypt is still a man's world. I should add that these observations came from a tourist who was insulated from the "real" Egypt.

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Read also Grand Tour of Egypt Part 1;
and Grand Tour of Egypt Part 2

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Tags: travel, Egypt, Luxor, Cairo, pyramids, Cecilia Brainard

GRAND TOUR OF EGYPT #2 - Old Cairo, Memphis, Sakkara, Luxor

The organized tour was somewhat hectic, and most mornings we were up by 6, and a couple of mornings earlier at around 4 a.m. The reason for these early wake-up calls was not just because of the number of places we had to see, but because it was very hot in Southern Egypt. Our Tour Director tried to get the sightseeing done in the morning with a break mid-day (the hottest time of day), and resumed sightseeing around 4 p.m. The best way to dress for that heat was to wear long sleeves, long pants, a wide-brimmed hat, and apply sunblock on your face and the back of your hands. Our Tour Director, who was Muslim and wore the veil, even wore white gloves to protect her hands. Strappy sun dresses and shorts were not right clothes to wear in that scorching heat. Really, the Arabs have it right when they wear the long flowing robes and head covers - a la Lawrence of Arabia.


All right, back to what we did. From Cairo, we drove southwest to Memphis, which used to be the capital of ancient Egypt. There we saw the colossal statue of Ramses II and the great alabaster Sphinx. By now I'm getting the idea that BIG, COLOSSAL, HUGE are what the ancient Egyptians liked. From there we drove to Sakkara, the cemetery of Memphis. We saw pyramids older than the Great Pyramids of Giza. The Step Pyramid of Zoser in Sakkara is similar to the the Mayan pyramids. Funerary sites started out as benches (mastaba), then became step-pyramids, and later evolved into the smooth-sided pyramids like those in Giza.


From Sakkara, we flew to Luxor where we saw the Luxor Temple, Karnak Temple, and the Colossi of Memnon. We also visited the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens - more funerary sites. By this time, dear Readers, you will sense that we saw quite a lot of temples and statues and sphinxes. For more information about Luxor and these place, click here.

For now they have not yet blended in my mind, and I can still picture Luxor Temple, right beside the River Nile, lit up at night, with it's massive columns and the mosque and remnants of a Christian church in it's midst.



Karnak was near the River Nile as well, and in fact, there were flood line markings on columns. The walls also had graffiti by Napoleon's soldiers. Karnak stays in my mind because of the ramp (pile of soil, rocks, etc) in front of an unfinished wall; this shows how the ancient Egyptians may have built their temples. Karnak also has a couple of unfinished columns, showing how the Egyptians built these massive columns - simply by piling blocks of stone, one of top of the other, and later rounding the edges and applying a finish to smooth it out or to allow the application of hieroglyphics.

The Valley of the Kings and Queens was unreal. Set in the dry sandy mountains, which ancient Egyptians perceived as natural pyramids, the ancient pharaohs built their funerary sites right into the mountains. They haven't dug them all up; in fact our Tour Guide said only 10% of Egypt's ancients sites have been uncovered. The Valley of the Kings has 65 known tombs, including Tutankhamun, the boy Pharaoh - click here for more information about King Tut. We visited three tomb sites. You walked down a ramp and all along the sides were pictures and hieroglyphics, and chambers which had contained food or oils and other things for the magical afterworld of the dead Pharaoh. At the end of the shaft was the sarcophagus, which was usually layered, that is one sarcophagus placed within another and housed in several containers - somewhat like a Russian stacking doll. At the very core of the sarcophagus was the mummy, although the mummies have now been removed.

What I found most interesting was the belief of the ancient Egyptians of the 12-hour journey to the afterlife. At a particular hour, a specific entity such as a four-legged cobra would attack the spirit, and the spirit had to be ready with the right dagger or weapon. The prayers and weapons are done in hieroglophics and pictures to assist the dead. Click here for more information about the 12-hour journey after death.



Queen Hatshepsut's temple and her story dominated the Valley of the Queens, which lay on the other side of the mountains where the Valley of the Kings was. She was the daughter of a pharaoh who married her younger brother, Thutmose II. When her brother the pharaoh died, she became regent to his son by another wife, Thutmose III. Hatshepsut ruled with this son, but later declared herself the Pharaoh. She ruled for 20 years. She was hated by her step son who,when he became pharaoh, went out of his way to deface her statues, and remove her cartouches (her name)- thus compromising her joyful afterlife, per ancient Egyptian religious beliefs.

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Read Grand Tour of Egypt Part 1;
and Grand Tour of Egypt Part 3

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tags: travel, Egypt, Cecilia Brainard