The Sand Between My Fingers, The Abandonment of a Museum, and The Golden Mask.

Alexandria & Cairo, Egypt

We made our first scheduling error when it came to the overnight train to Cairo on our way to Alexandria. We purchased tickets for a night later than we intended and found ourselves, after making our way to the train station, back in our hotel room in at the Winter Palace in Luxor. This was actually a blessing in so much that we were given an opportunity to relax and catch our breath for the first time since our arrival. We napped, wandered the gardens and spent some time discussing our adventures.

Ramadan had begun when we arrived from Aswan and we were witness to the daily celebrations of the setting sun as the city settled down for Iftar dinner together. We sat in our balcony and listened to the calls to prayers echoing in the dusk. It would begin with one voice over the PA system in one mosque, then spread, one voice at a time, around us until the air around us was filled with a multitude of songs competing with each other, but somehow achieving a hint of choral definition within the melodic cacophony. It was thrilling to witness at first, and not a little surreal. But it eventually became a source of calm and comfort. In truth, we felt privileged to experience this time in this place.

The night we actually left the Winter Palace was bittersweet for me. I had dreamed of staying at this historic place for so long, and now that was done. Eric and I had stayed long enough to see the frayed edges of the display that the hotel puts forward to its guests, the lack of menu choices, the inexperience of some of the staff, the snobbery of others, and the colonial whiff that permeated the halls. The dream was dead, but the gratitude for having stayed before remained. The Winter Palace had lost its magic, but that was okay. Now it felt like an old friend. Imperfect, but still worth loving.

Alexandria was completely different than the previous destinations we had slept in. On the shores of the Mediterranean, the more cosmopolitan nature of the city was immediately noticeable. The people who walked the streets were more diverse, speaking a variety of different languages we hadn’t heard in Egypt as yet, and the streets were generally wider and more reflective of European design. Clearly a result of the Greco-Roman origins of this place.

Our hotel, like the Winter Palace, was a remnant of the Victorian and Edwardian influences on Egypt. We were charmed by the salon style room we were allotted, with a grand view of the sea, and the unique elevator with it’s wrought iron gates and cage-like design.

We visited the key sites of Alexandria, the Roman amphitheatre, the site of the Pharos lighthouse, and the catacombs, but it was the libraries that impacted me the most. Yes, plural: libraries.

Near the amphitheatre was the underground remains of the small Alexandrian library that served as a satellite of the major, famous, library. It would be at this location that the scrolls you requested would be made available and it would be here to which you would return them. It is a simple cavernous passageway now, with the recesses for scrolls still carved in the ancient sandstone.  At one point the guide and Eric walked away and I was left alone in the dimness of this ancient place. I placed my hand on the sandstone wall to feel it. I don’t know why. Perhaps to connect with it? As my hand pressed against the wall, the sand of the stone began to fall gently through my fingers. Not a lot, the place was quite steady, but enough to allow for a feeling of something disintegrating between your fingers. Like time.

The burning of Alexandria’s library, the very thought of what had been lost, was always heartbreaking to me. So much knowledge. So much collected wisdom and ideas and explorations. Gone in an instant due to man’s folly. We are so much our own worst enemy. In that dark space I was reminded of how distant, in time, in space, and in context, my world is from the world which holds so much fascination for me.

That ancient world was a place of refuge to me, but it was also a place of escape. Not just from unhappiness, but, I suspect, from some joy as well. If I am to be honest, I believe that my love of this subject matter was not always healthy. It allowed me to isolate myself. To avoid difficulties with peers and family. It was an easy way for me to disappear into myself and not deal with the issues I had, both internally and within my family.

In that dark place, watching the sand gently slip past my fingers and fall silently to the ground, I was reminded how lucky I was to eventually find my own truth and become more whole in the real world.

We also toured the new Library of Alexandria. To say that I was impressed is to understate my reaction. The building was amazing, the various museums were impressive and the design of the complex, including a planetarium, was genius. It was abundantly clear that all those involved in the creation, design, and implementation of this project wished to harken back to the original inspirational idea while bringing a twenty-first century design that focussed on the future. They wanted to make Alexandria the centre of human thought once again.

Having finished our final tour together in Alexandria, we returned to Cairo with the intent of having a quiet finish to our time in Egypt. Eric, determined to see as much of Cairo as he could, hired a driver and explored the Islamic and Coptic regions of the city. Visiting mosques, synagogues and biblically significant sites, he explored aspects of the country not covered by pharaonic history. I, however, continued my dream trip with a last minute surprise tour.

When planning my trip to Egypt I had to postpone everything a couple of times. The first reason was because of the revolution in 2011, but I also tried to plan the trip to coincide with the opening of the new Grand Egyptian Museum. This was not meant to be as the opening date kept being moved forward. It is currently planned for some time in 2020. We shall see. During our trip we discovered that it was possible to visit the construction site of the new museum and tour the research and restoration labs within. It would be costly, but I chose to do it.

Getting in felt like I was attempting to enter a high security military site. Four different checkpoints and a final drawn out process at the reception desk in Receiving. They examined my passport, I signed a document that promised I would not publish my activities, I was required to keep my phone in my pocket, and I was searched. Thoroughly.

The tour was mind bending. I saw things in boxed, just unpacked, that overwhelmed me. I was shown objects that had just been found and items that had been kept away from the public since 1922. I was able to wear protective white gloves and touch an item that was used in everyday life three thousand years ago. I saw some things that are famous, and other items currently unknown to the general public. I watched professionals clean and restore artifacts and I discussed a newly found piece that is a puzzle with Egyptologists.

In short, I was in a state of absolute grace for three and a half hours. It was like I walked down the path of an alternative life. The life I would have had if I had made different choices. I was shocked. I was overcome with joy. I was at home. I was a visitor in a strange land. I was overwhelmed to the point of weeping.

I was in a moment that was forty-one years in the making.

After the labs I  visited the construction site and saw the scaffolding, the workers, the structural progression around me and wondered, even working twenty-four hours a day every day, how it could ever be complete within a year and a half. When it is done, it will be a massive and impressive place. Standing at the foot of a colossal stature of Ramses II that supervised the work going on around him, I was awestruck by the commitment and passion towards this process. Egypt was taking a public stand regarding ownership of her history and her artefacts.

Before I left the site, I stared at the pyramids of Giza not far away. I had visited these marvels only three weeks away. So much had happened since then. So much had been seen. So much had been experienced. So much had been learned.

I was dropped off at the Cairo Museum and spent the rest of the day, and all of the next, touring its many rooms. Apparently the first building ever to be constructed for the sole purpose of being a museum, this place is definitely showing its age. I’m not referring to the structure itself, the Uffizi, the British Museum, and the Louvre are significantly older structures. It’s not just a faded relic, it is a partially abandoned collection of artefacts with little or no over arching vision or organisation.

The abandonment is not reflected in emptiness, although there are spaces vacated from due to the upcoming move, but, rather, it is found in the lack of passion for the space or for the collection. The wood-framed, dusty, smeared-glass display cases are neglected. The light is terrible. Most information cards are incomplete and unhelpful. If there is any information provided at all. Some cases have been moved so that the limited information provided is facing the wall or out of reach.

The artefacts themselves are hidden behind doors, other exhibits, or so dusty the details are lost. One large piece was hidden behind a floor model air conditioner.  Some of the disarray can by attributed to the packing up and reorganisation of the moving process, but this included two or three rooms in the Greco-Roman section. Most of this is clearly neglect.

It seemed like there was a massive attempt at updating the place in the thirties or possibly the forties, but then not attempts have been made since. There is no passion evident in the building. No respectful archival of a nation’s heritage. Instead, you feel as if you are wondering your recently deceased hoarding grandparents’ attic.

If you enter the front and go to your left, there is an attempt to follow a semblance of a timeline, but this is abandoned by the second floor as you wander between pre-dynastic pottery and artefacts from Tutankhamon’s tomb.

In order to see the mummies you have to pay extra. Of course. This approach is consistent with The Valleys of the Kings, The Valley of the Queens and Egypt in general. As I have noted before, I am not a fan of displaying human remains for the purpose of people staring at them. But, I dutifully paid extra. In for a penny, in for an Egyptian pound. Or a hundred extra pounds as it were.

Ramses II the was there, of course. I remember the fact that he had to get a passport in order to be shipped to the United States for a tour. And a number of others from the 18^th and 19^th dynasties. Including the mummy known as “The Noble Woman” until very recently when her identity was finally confirmed as that of Hatshepsut. As I gazed down upon her, I read the card that described her as “an obese woman with very bad teeth” and sighed. Now they decide to get specific in their description. No other mummy has this kind of description when describing their attributes. The female pharaoh is still badly treated by the Egyptology community.

I returned the next day with Eric and we spent hours wandering the museum and discussing the pieces, famous and relatively unknown. Having spent the last three weeks going up and down the Nile visiting temples, tombs, and other archaeological sites, Eric could now hold his own in a conversation about ancient Egypt. It was so wonderful to be able to share this place, inadequate as it was in many ways, and wonder over the many artefacts I had dreamed of seeing for so long. This was especially true among the Tutankhamon collection.

At the end of the day, after having seen every single room in the building, I returned to the collection of Tutankhamon. I had seen this in Seattle in 1978 when I first gazed into the eyes of the famous gold mask and saw the face of a young man, a boy, who ruled his world. The facts and theories of surrounding this face, and the family of the boy it supposedly represents, has made my relationship with masterpiece more textured and complicated. But the wonder is still there.

As Eric stood by, I gazed once again into the eyes of this most famous of ancient Egyptian art pieces and silently gave thanks. I had finally seen the things I have wanted to see for so long. Been to the places that I have longed to visit. Experienced the connection to an ancient culture that had provided me with a safe place to dream, a passion that would lead me to higher education and a wanderlust that would take me far beyond the Thompson Valley in the interior of British Columbia. And I saw it with Eric.

It had been a wonderful trip. Perfect really. It had been worthy of forty-one years of preparation.