Our first 12 hours in Egypt

We arrived in Egypt just 12 hours ago (2:40 AM local time) and have already seen so much! Granted, we need a solid night of sleep before the adventure continues, but with only seven days here and most tourist locations closing at 3 PM due to Ramadan, we couldn't waste today. We were pleasantly greeted by Rachel's mom in the hotel lobby despite it being the middle of the night. As an adventure for herself as well as birthday presents for us, Linda is here and set up some amazing sight-seeing in this historic country.

We did manage to sleep a few hours before we headed to the Egyptian Museum of Antiquities in Cairo. It was so cool! The museum displays just 1/10th of the artifacts that Egypt currently possesses from ancient times, not to mention the tons of artifacts taken to other countries by early archaeologists nor what was stolen and sold on the black market long ago. We were given a guided tour of the highlights before being left to our own devices for two and a half hours. We certainly kept busy during our visit. It's a pretty big building and every room is chock full of artifacts, so a full day would be recommended to others with similar interests as us (history, art, culture, antiquities, etc). Truly every room was amazing, but some of the highlights included the royal mummies, huge stone statues on the first floor, smaller statues with the original paint on them (still fairly vibrant), and nearly everything that was found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun in the first quarter of the twentieth century (to which we are headed later this week).

Better known as King Tut, Tutankhamun is significant for two major reasons. The first is that his predecessor is known as somewhat of a heretic for abandoning the worship of Amun and their pantheistic religion in favor of the singular god Aten. This is an extremely interesting period of Egyptian history that we recommend you look up online if you are intrigued. King Tut was born Tutankhaten (note: "Aten") and changed the suffix on his name after coming to power and returning ancient Egyptians to the worship of Amun and the rest of the pantheon of gods. The second reason he is significant, and probably the more well known reason, is that his was the only tomb discovered in a relatively undisturbed state; there had been no successful grave robberies of King Tut's tomb before Howard Carter rediscovered it, partially due to the fact that the tomb was later covered by that of another pharoah. Thus, it is an archaeological gold mine (literally and figuratively) in that it serves as a more accurate window to the past, allowing us to see a complete collection of what might be in just one young pharaoh's tomb. It was truly astonishing to see how many riches and items were included in this nineteen year old's burial chamber as well as learn about the intricate funereal techniques that were common for royals and the wealthy.

Now we are headed up to the pool for a bite to eat and some swimming before sunset. Tomorrow, we visit the pyramids and sphinx in Giza! Life dreams coming true!!!!! :)Weiterlesen