I’m sitting on the roof of Happy City Hotel, smoking a coconut hookah and reflecting on our day at Giza and Saqqara. I’m emailing everyone to let them know that I finally made it to the pyramids, but I still can’t believe it myself.
The pyramids are weathered, their choppy limestone skeletons exposed almost entirely (with the exception of the top of Khafre’s pyramid, where one can still see the high-quality limestone casing that used to cover the whole of these structures). I found it impossible to capture an entire pyramid in one picture, so I had to take several of each to show all of the sides and rows of blocks.
Standing in front of the Great Pyramid gave me a funny feeling: it’s so big and so impressive for its time (2500 BCE), something to marvel at—but I just didn’t know what to do with myself once I was there. Most of the other students bought tickets to go inside and crawl up to the burial chamber, but I stayed behind with Monika and William.
The three of us walked around the structure as we debated whether or not it was ever painted (the answer is of course no, if only because the Egyptians would never have wasted their time adding color to something outside that would fade in mere decades). Monika and I found ourselves at the museum housing Khiops’ solar boat, where we were asked to wear cloth slippers over our shoes; they probably wanted to save money on floor polish, so we did them a favor and slid around the place like we were wearing ice skates.
The solar boat is extremely large–probably too large to have been merely a symbolic grave good. My guess is that the boat was used at some point and then buried with the king for use in the afterlife, though William suggested that it might have been constructed for real use in the afterlife without having been used before. The display is fantastic: three floors of photographs and relics like rope and wood, as well as posters showing the conservation of materials and restoration of the structure. Above hangs the solar boat itself, raised off of the second floor by t-shaped metal posts. The conservators clearly went through a lot of trouble to make the boat look like it was when it was built, probably using images from tombs and other buildings contemporary with the vessel. Though new wood had to be used to reconstruct some of the more delicate parts of the boat, the bottom is made from the original pieces. Amazingly, it is held together only by rope and the pressure of expanding wood after it’s been exposed to moisture.
Our trip to the Sphinx, which we saw next, was surprisingly short. Asharaff took us through the gates to the inner court, which is made of granite and constructed in the same way as the Osireion at Abydos (his theory is that they are linked, though built fifteen dynasties apart). We split up and walked up a stone ramp to the viewing area closest to the monument, where I thought I could get a good photo; instead, I was pushed and shoved by scantily-clad tourists trying to funnel in through the small surrounding walkways. (And what a display of poor taste! Their were shirtless men and women with shorts riding up their rears. No respect, I say!)
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Saqqara was originally supposed to be the subject of my site report, so I found myself adding little tidbits to William’s and Asharaff’s spiels. First we visited the Teti Pyramid, which is covered in neat rows of uncolored glyphs. The ceiling shows signs of earthquake damage and quick restoration to stop it from collapsing, in the form of plaster buffers between the stones. The king’s name is everywhere, filling in all of the blank spaces between the spells! Perhaps they should’ve thought of a more exciting space-filler…
I was particularly impressed by the reliefs in the 6th-dynasty tombs, which focused a great deal on daily life (like Petosiris’ tomb at Tuna el-Gebel and the Old Kingdom tombs), and are so detailed that the rope looks like rope, the fish look like fish and the force-feeding of piglets looks like the force-feeding of piglets (those were quite disturbing, I have to say). Other images included butterflies, dancers and, er, man parts. These images are important no doubt because they can help scholars understand how the people carried out everyday tasks in this area, in conjunction with surviving texts.
Each tomb had one or more false doors with cylindrical lintels, which reminded me of the one on display in the Met’s Egyptian Wing. Whereas the wall art was in raised relief, the decoration on the doors was in sunken relief (except in Mere-Ruka’s tomb, where the door was decorated in paint alone).
In the tomb of Ka-Gmni, two figures were defaced; I have a feeling that these were of the same person, someone who committed some crime or disrespected the ruling party at the time of this act. Other than that, the walls of each of these structures were in great condition, save the missing paint on top of the reliefs. On one wall, Mere-Ruka’s wife is helped to stand by a group of professional mourners, wearing wigs in contrast with her bald head. What a powerful scene!
I really wish we had designated a separate day for Saqqara, because I was exhausted by the time we arrived at Djoser’s complex. It would have been nice to walk around with some energy left in me, since the site contains the earliest known stone structures (exciting!) and is quite well-preserved for its date. Here are the results of the restoration of the world’s first colonnade, and the step pyramid that developed out of a mere mastaba. Instead of exploring the area, I found myself bending my knees around one of the foundation blocks of Djoser’s pyramid to get comfortable as the group nodded with the rhythm of William’s voice.
