Giza

“ All who know the real Egypt, that Egypt which has nothing to do with dams and Nationalists and the external welfare of the falaheen, will understand. The pilfering of her ancient dead she suffers still; she, in revenge, preys at her leisure on the living.
The occasions when he betrayed himself were ordinary enough; it was the glimpse they afforded of what was in progress beneath his calm exterior that made them interesting. Once, I remember, we had lunched together at Mena, and, after visiting certain excavations beyond the Giza pyramids, we made our way homewards by way of the Sphinx. ”

“ The three got back into the little car and Hassan took a road that curved gradually around a hill, past a hotel that he identified as the Mena House, and up to the largest pyramid, once the tomb of Khufu and still the greatest monument in all the world.
On a line into the desert were the slightly smaller pyramids of Kefren and Mankara. These, with the Sphinx, were among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
Later, Rick promised Scotty, they would explore Giza and its wonders inch by inch. But now they were due at Sahara Wells. Hassan sped around the Khufu pyramid and pointed. ”

“ Bartouki described Cairo and promised that he would present them with guidebooks to be read on the way over. He told them about things to do in the ancient city, and listed places that were "musts" for tourists. They included the step pyramid at Sakkarah, the Egyptian Museum, the mosque of Sultan Hassan, and the mosque and college of El Azhar, founded in the ninth century.
"Of course you will see a great deal of the Sphinx and the pyramids at Giza, since our new radio telescope is nearby. But most of all, you must see El Mouski."
"What is that?" Rick asked.
"It is the Cairo bazaar. ”

“ It may be that these interesting relics were connected with the prehistoric drift westward of the broad-headed pastoral peoples who ultimately formed the Hittite military aristocracy.
According to Professor Elliot Smith, broad-headed aliens from Asia Minor first reached Egypt at the dawn of history. There they blended with the indigenous tribes of the Mediterranean or Brown Race. A mesocephalic skull then became common. It is referred to as the Giza type, and has been traced by Professor Elliot Smith from Egypt to the Punjab, but not farther into India. ”

“ The chief monument is an obelisk, about 66 ft. high, erected by Usertesen I. of the XIIth dynasty. A residential suburb, named Heliopolis, containing many fine buildings, was laid out between Mataria and Abbasia during 1905-10.
On the west bank of the Nile, opposite the southern end of Roda Island, is the small town of Giza or Gizeh, a fortified place of considerable importance in the times of the Mamelukes. In the viceregal palace here the museum of Egyptian antiquities was housed for several years (1889-1902) . The grounds of this palace have been converted into zoological gardens. ”

“ The XIIth Dynasty architects built walls of magnificent masonry, as we have seen, and there is no doubt that the stone casing of their pyramids was originally very fine, but the interior is of brick or rubble; the wonderful system of building employed by kings of the IVth Dynasty at Giza was not practised.
South of Lisht is Illahun, and at the entrance to the province of the Fayyûm, and west of this, nearer the Fayyûm, is Hawara, where Prof. Petrie excavated the pyramids of Usertsen (Senusret) II and Amenem-hat III. His discoveries have already been described by Prof. ”

“ The modern mind, no longer terrified by Speed, to which it has grown contemptuously accustomed, yet shrinks a little before this display of titanic and bewildering size. Egypt makes it realise that it has no handy standard of measurement. It listens to words that are meaningless. The vast proportions uplift, then stupefy. The girth of the Pyramids, the height of the Colossi, the cubic content of the granite columns and the visage of the Sphinx expressed in yards⁠—these convey as little truth as the numbered leagues of the frightening desert or the length of that weary and interminable Nile. ”

“ Presently, when, having ascended that marvellous staircase of the New Year, walking in procession with the priests upon its walls toward the rays of Ra, I came out upon the temple roof, and looked upon the desert—upon sheeny sands, almost like slopes of satin shining in the sun, upon paler sands in the distance, holding an Arab campo santo, in which rose the little creamy cupolas of a sheikh’s tomb, surrounded by a creamy wall, those little cupolas gave to me a feeling of the real, the irresistible Africa such as I had not known since I had been in Egypt ”

“ When I went back to Egypt, after a lapse of many years, I fled at once from Cairo, and upon the long reaches of the Nile, in the great spaces of the Libyan Desert, in the luxuriant palm-grooves of the Fayyum, among the tamarisk-bushes and on the pale waters of Kurun, I forgot the changes which, in my brief glimpse of the city and its environs, had moved me to despondency. But one cannot live in the solitudes for ever. ”

“ Philae is the last temple that one visits before he gives himself to the wildness of the solitudes of Nubia. It stands at the very frontier. As one goes up the Nile, it is like a smiling adieu from the Egypt one is leaving. As one comes down, it is like a smiling welcome. In its delicate charm I feel something of the charm of the Egyptian character. There are moments, indeed, when I identify Egypt with Philae. For in Philae one must dream; and on the Nile, too, one must dream. ”

“ That top is now a platform about thirty feet square; and the view from its elevation is unparalleled in the world! Before you is Cairo, with its lofty minarets, and its overhanging citadel, the mountains of Mokuttam skirting its rear; the green valley of the Nile is spread out for miles northward and southward; at your feet are the mounds of sand that cover the ancient Memphis; southward is the whole range of pyramids to Sakkara; behind you are fragments of other pyramids, the Libyan mountains, and the wide waste of the great desert. ”

“ For our present purpose, however, Egyptian civilisation is the most important, because it presents us with the most definite proof of the attainment of a high degree of what is specially scientific attainment at the very dawn of historical knowledge. This is well exhibited by that most wonderful work of constructive art—the Great Pyramid of Gizeh—which, though not quite the earliest, is the largest and most remarkable of about seventy pyramids in various parts of Egypt, and has been more thoroughly explored and studied, both as to its proportions, construction and uses, than any of the others. ”

“ No spirited traveler ever sets foot on the black soil of Egypt, without gazing on that wonder of antiquity, the threefold mass of the pyramids on the steep edge of the desert, an hour’s ride over the long causeway extending out from Ghiseh. The desert’s boundless sea of yellow sand, whose billows are piled up around the gigantic pyramids, deeply entombing the tomb, surges hot and dry far up the green meadows and mingles with the growing grass and corn. ”

“ Near Cairo, although the desert is real desert, it does not give, to me, at any rate, the immense impression of naked sterility, of almost brassy, sun-baked fierceness, which often strikes one in the Sahara to the south of Algeria, where at midday one sometimes has a feeling of being lost upon a waste of metal, gleaming, angry, tigerish in color. Here, in Egypt, both the people and the desert seem gentler, safer, more amiable. Yet these tombs of Sakkara are hidden in a desolation of the sands, peculiarly blanched and mournful ”

“ All that is characteristic of Egypt is in sight; to the west, the Libyan hills and the limitless stretch of yellow desert sand; to the north, desert also and the ruined pyramid of Abooroâsh; to the south, that long necropolis of the desert marked by the pyramids of Abooseér, Sakkarah, and Dashoor; on the east, the Nile and its broad meadows widening into the dim Delta northward, the white line of Cairo under the Mokattam hills, and the grey desert beyond. Egypt is a ribbon of green between two deserts. ”

“ In Egypt, as has now been definitely proved by Professor Petrie's excavations, he built the pyramid of Medûm, one of the largest and most striking of the pyramids. Around it were ranged the tombs of his nobles and priests, from which have come some of the most beautiful works of art in the Gizeh Museum.
The painted limestone statues of Ra-nefer and his wife Nefert, for instance, are among the finest existing specimens of ancient Egyptian workmanship. [pg 008] They are clearly life-like portraits, executed with a delicacy and finish which might well excite the envy of a modern artist. ”

“ On this national tillage was founded the greatness of the country, for from it came the means to execute other works, and in it began that toil, training, and skill indispensable in rearing the monuments and doing those things which have made Egypt famous forever, and preserved to us a knowledge of the language, religion, modes of living, and history of that wonderful people who held the Nile valley. No civilized person who has looked on the pyramid of Ghizeh, the temple of Karnak, and the tombs of the pharaohs in the Theban region, can ever forget them. ”

“ The climate of Gizeh is not very different from that of the actual Delta, and here five or six thousand years have not in the least affected the original casing at the top of the Second Pyramid. The obelisk that had been standing for very nearly two thousand years on the very beach at Alexandria, and which for the previous two thousand years had stood at the apex of the Delta, has not been affected to such an extent as would contribute, in any appreciable degree, I will not say to the overthrow, but to the injury, of any building ever raised by an Egyptian architect. ”

“ Here we found, high upon the northern cliff, the remarkable Egyptian rock-steles belonging to the earliest monuments of Egyptian antiquity with which we are acquainted. [111] Already, under{346} the fourth dynasty of Manetho, the same which erected the great pyramids of Gizeh, 4,000 B.C., copper mines had been discovered in this desert, which were worked by a colony. The peninsula was then already inhabited by Asiatic, probably Semetic races; therefore do we often see in those rock sculptures, the triumphs of Pharaoh over the enemies of Egypt. ”

“ Arriving in Egypt, he ascended the Nile to Cairo, viewed the pyramids, examined the mummy-pits; and then, with a select number of friends and attendants, departed across the desert to visit Horeb and Sinai, the wells of Moses, and other places celebrated in the Bible. This journey being performed in the heart of winter, he found Mount Sinai covered with snow, which did not, however, prevent his rambling about among its152 wild ravines, precipices, and chasms; when, his pious curiosity being gratified, he visited Ælau or Ailoth, the modern Akaba, and returned by Suez to Cairo. ”

“ Great care in execution, and great size in the units of construction, are only to be found in comparatively few of the Egyptian monuments. We have already remarked upon the painstaking skill with which the granite or limestone casing of the chambers and passages in the Gizeh pyramids was fixed. Certain buildings of the Theban period, such as the vaulted chapels in the Great Temple at Abydos, and the courts of Medinet-Abou, are notable for excellence of a similar kind. Everything, however, must in this respect give way to the Grand Gallery in the pyramid of Cheops. ”

“ We cannot tear ourselves away from this fascinating window even for a moment; far in the distance across the green fields and waving palm trees we see glimpses of the desert, looking pinkish-yellow, and rising up in it, changing with every mile we travel, are many pyramids, not only those famous ones at Gizeh we visited yesterday, but others stretching farther and farther away. ”

“ Leaving the cosmopolitan town of modern Cairo, the iron bridges, and the pretentious hotels, with their flaunting inscriptions, it imparts a sense of sudden peacefulness to pass along the large and rapid waters of this river, between the curtains of palm-trees on the banks, borne by a dahabiya where one is master and, if one likes, may be alone.
At first, for a day or two, the great haunting triangles of the pyramids seem to follow you, those of Dashur and that of Sakkarah succeeding to those of Gizeh. For a long time the horizon is disturbed by their gigantic silhouettes. ”

“ And then I recognised the outline. Once more, but this time recumbent and spread flat upon the desert’s face, I knew the monstrous shapes of the twin obsessing symbols. The spirit of ancient Egypt lay over all the land, tremendous in the dawn. The sunrise summoned her. She lay prostrate before the deity. The shadows of the towering Colossi lay prostrate too. The little humans, with their worshipping and conquered hearts, lay deep within them. ”

“ More advice is to look out of the right-hand window of the car for a first glimpse of the pyramids, the first sure proof that you are in Napoleon’s Egypt. After they are once found, it is easy for your eye to follow them through palm-trees and over mud villages until darkness interferes. Then you come to the station in Cairo, a hotbed of porters and dragomans,{10} and through the confusion you finally reach Shepheard’s, on the street like a great show-window—all but the plate glass—full of odds and ends from all the world. ”

“ The mountains were called Mas, “the twins,” in Sumerian; and the great Epic of Chaldæa narrated how the hero Gilgames made his way to them across the desert, to a land of darkness, where scorpion-men, whose heads rise to heaven while their breasts descend to hell, watched over the rising and the setting of the sun. It is difficult to believe that such a conception of the horizon could ever have arisen in Egypt. There the Delta is a flat plain with no hills even in sight, while in the valley of Upper Egypt there are neither high mountains nor twin peaks. ”