Jazīrat adh Dhahab

Built in 1901, the Egyptian Museum in downtown Cairo was home to an extensive collection of ancient Egyptian antiquities, with over 120,000 items both on display and in storage. A new museum in Giza is almost completed (but very delayed) but the old museum will remain a major site in the centre of Cairo, but hopefully by less cluttered and more organized.

We have not gone there yet, but went to a brand new museum called the national Museum of Egyptian Civilization.

The crown jewel of the museum is the Hall of Mummies which displays the mummies of 18 kings and 2 queens of Egypt that were found in the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. By the way, we will be taking the train to Luxor to see this valley on Saturday.

After death, the pharaohs of Egypt usually were mummified and buried in elaborate tombs. Members of the nobility and officials often received the same treatment, and occasionally, common people. However, the process was an expensive one, beyond the means of many.
Using special processes, the Egyptians removed all moisture from the body, leaving only a dried form that would not easily decay.

It was important in the religion of the Ancient Egyptians to preserve the dead body in as life-like a manner as possible. It was a little creepy but when we looked at all of the mummified bodies, we had a fairly good idea of what the person looked like in life, 3000 years ago. So strange.

The mummification process took seventy days. Special priests worked as embalmers, treating and wrapping the body. Beyond knowing the correct rituals and prayers to be performed at various stages, the priests also needed a detailed knowledge of human anatomy.

No photos were allowed to be taken in this hall (bags were checked), but if you are interested, there are some great videos of what we saw on the internet.

By the way, the area that the museum occupies used to be a huge slum. The government razed this area and offered new apartments to everyone who lived there.

After getting our fill of reading about ancient Egyptian kings and queens we were taken to the Khan El-Khalili Bazaar. It is one of the world’s first markets and a maze of narrow alleys. Many artisans have shops here and are involved in the production of traditional crafts like metalwork. It is great place to just walk around and try to grasp what life was like 600 years ago when merchants came from all over the world to sell their merchandise in this market.

Chris and I are pretty used to dealing with hagglers and even though we were warned about the aggressive salesmen, didn’t find it too bad. It is all a selling game and yes, they are experts. A guy tricked me, in a pleasant way. He invited curious me to see something that I have never seen before. I went upstairs and he asked me if I had ever seen his employee before. Of course I hadn’t so he got me. I laughed and said firmly that I was just looking, not buying, and headed back downstairs. It was pretty funny actually. All part of the game.

I think that the market has become a tourist market though. The prices for objects are way overpriced. You have to be good at bartering to get the prices down. We were told that we should start by offering half of the price and then try to get to a price that we feel the object is worth to us. We did buy some Egyptian candies this way and it worked.Read more