Pyramids, The Sun Disc, and The Forgotten Capital

Pyramids, The Sun Disc, and The Forgotten Capital

Cairo, Egypt

The approach to the pyramids is not as grand as you would expect. At least not at the beginning. After driving at breakneck speeds racing against heavily modified VW vans (i.e. no windows or doors either present or in working order) ferrying passengers up and down the boulevard, you pass a building and behind it emerges a pyramid. You are more surprised than awe-struck, like finally finding your keys where they should have been all along.

After that, they never leave your line of sight. As we approached the UNESCO site I was transfixed. Once, when I glanced his way, Eric jokingly asked me to resist bursting into tears. That was not going to happen. Not to say that the structures did not impress me, they did, but my main interests in ancient Egypt lay elsewhere. If I was to burst into any tears, it was going to happen in Luxor.  With that said, however, do not underestimate the grandeur and timelessness of the pyramids of Egypt.

Like many grand structures, the closer you get to these man-made mountains the larger they seem. When faced up against one, all you see is the flat terrain of stone ending at a blue horizon. The very blocks it is built with are about four feet high and when you line up to enter the great pyramid, you are dwarfed by the sheer immensity of this place.

Not that I had any intention to entering the pyramid. I found the Leaning Tower of Pisa to be a disturbing experience (the passageway and the end of the winding corridor leading immediately up to the roof is quite narrow) so there was no convincing me of entering a place that requires an adult to crawl for the sole purpose of finding an empty, unadorned room. I’d rather eat a live scarab beetle while he was still pushing his ball of dung.

While Eric waited in line, Mahamoud, our guide for the day, and I sat and talked. It was a comfortable morning. As predicted, the temperatures of northern Egypt remained in the twenty to twenty-two degrees area with a brisk wind that sometimes begged for a light jacket while in the shade. I was grateful for this, for I knew that while we were still in the late winter months, it was still going to be hot in Luxor and Aswan.

Mahamoud eventually asked me why a Canadian would be so interested in ancient Egypt. We discussed what it took to be become and Egyptologist and how far along the path I went before my poor talent in languages eventually encouraged me to choose another path. His path was very different. I lot less academic and much more practical. This is not to say that he did not know his stuff, he certainly did. But, like in Greece and Italy and other countries, a licensed guide is required to maintain his or her credentials in order to work. They need to keep up with the latest information and developments and they must be able to prove their knowledge and competencies every five years in order to renew their license.  His education was Egyptology to know, understand, and teach knowledge rather than to explore concepts and deduce the human passions behind historical events. Not better, not worse, just different.

By the time Eric returned, I could tell Mahamoud was still somewhat befuddled by my interest, but he was too polite to push for more information. We wandered the Giza plateau ignoring the vendors and camel rides and marvels at the 5000 year old structures. Mahamoud was thorough in his descriptions and his relaying of how and why these structures came to be.

At one point, when we stopped at the “panorama view” spot where you can see all three with the desert behind them, I stared at the only survivor of the seven wonders of the ancient world and finally felt the realisation that I was, indeed, in Egypt. It wasn’t an emotional moment. In fact, I felt quite separate from the reality, like I was outside the experience and looking on from a distance. I suspect I was overwhelmed at the thought. It took me a long time to get here. Now that I’m here, now what?

We moved on to Dashur where most people do not visit because they are unaware of it. This is too bad as I find it much more interesting than Giza. It is also less crowded. In fact, we were almost the only ones there. Dashur is home to three pyramids. The brick pyramid, a first attempt at a pyramid structure made of mud bricks that simply could not survive under its own weight. The bent pyramid is, well, bent. When it was determined that the angle of the structure was too sharp, it was decided to complete the top half of the pyramid with a more direct route to the apex.  I feel it gives it a bit of character. When the bent pyramid proved to be insufficient, the red pyramid was constructed. It’s names comes from the colour of the brick used in its construction.

I really love this site. When you stand in the mostly empty parking lot among these buildings you are witness to the human mind calculating and recalculating the specific requirements to bring reality to spiritual thoughts. The trial and error of our ancestors have been preserved for five thousand years in this place. You look around you and you see the development of the famous pyramid form we all see at Giza. This is the drawing board of the ancient Egyptian Old Kingdom. And most people don’t know about it.

After a stop at the ancient capital of Memphis, or Menofer, in which we saw the colossal statue of Ramses II, we made our way to the Step Pyramid. With this final visit we have completed our backwards journey of the development of the pyramid in Egypt. From Giza to Dashur to Saqqara we can backwards trace the line of thought behind the eternal houses of the Old Kingdom pharaoh. Designed by Imhotep, a man so revered he is the only know non-royal individual to be worshipped as a god, the first pyramid of Egypt is a staircase to the heavens. It is an expansion of the flat platforms called mastabas that covered the shaft graves of the nobility at the time. The High Vizier would receive one platform, so Pharaoh would receive five. It is the oldest monumental structure built by man on earth and it is spectacular. Being a part of the usual Giza tour package, it is well attended, but it is a part of a larger historic site consisting of eleven points of interest. I was to visit one other.

The Serapeum is a complex structure underground that housed many bulls sacred to the god Apis, or Serapis. I presented my ticket and I was welcomed as an old friend. Before I knew it I was being led down the corridor and presented in dramatic fashion the glories of the archaeological site. The problem was that this site was quite simple in its design. It was magnificent, to be sure, but it really consisted of a long and short corridor connected by a short passageway and room after room of giant sarcophagi. There were no elaborate carvings on the wall. No statuary. Nothing.

Nevertheless, my new-found brother would have none of my cynicism. I once watched Jack Layton work up a room full of loyal followers into such a lather that he could have been auctioning off air and stale farts and would have made a bundle in fundraising. This “guide” was in that calibre. When he offered me a secret, tell-no-one, just-this-time entry past the barricade and into one of the chambers holding a sarcophagus I hesitated. He would definitely want a tip after this. I sighed and lifted myself up and over the barrier. I did get to examine that chamber thoroughly, but I wouldn’t be making any contributions to the latest issue of Archaeology Magazine.

As we left, I gave him some Egyptian pounds. Not a lot, but not too little either. He wanted American money. This was not going to happen. First of all, I only had twenties in American. While I was grateful for the opportunity to feel like the plunderer Belzoni for five minutes, it’s not like he opened the door to the Ark of the Covenant for me.  I had given him a decent tip, but he wanted more.  He kept insisting and I began to ignore him. He never touched me. He was never angry. But it was more aggressive than I had yet experienced. As we left and I had stopped speaking to him, our guide gave him a tip that seemed to appease him somewhat.

Our next day was a day trip to see the ancient capital city of Akhetaten. Located at Tel El Amarna, just next to El Minya, this was the chosen location of the pharaoh Akhenaten. After undermining the power of the priests of Amon-Re for years, the decision was made to move the capital and institute a monotheistic religion by replacing all of the ancient gods with the sun disk Aten. Akhenaten was a radical in many respects. He was a proponent of peace, a perplexing and threatening concept to many of his subjects. He let the strict stylization of art relax, allowing artists to create works of art within a span of less than two decades that are rare in their intimacy and charm. Few of these pieces survive, being  a mere spark in three thousand years of Egyptian history, but they are compelling in their ability to help us find ourselves within the intimacy of our daily interactions with each other, the living out of our daily lives, and the passions that drive us. You will see charming intimacy between Tutankhaten and his Queen Akhsenpaaten on the back of his small throne. Akhenaten, instead of an imposing figure towering over everyone, is pictured with his wife Nefertiti and their daughters climbing over them in a charming family portrait. And, of course, there is the mesmerising bust of Nefertiti that is now in the British Museum.

Our first stop was in at Beni Hasan where tombs of the nobles were located. Walking in and seeing Amarna art on the walks was jarring for me. Like everything else in Egypt, I have seen many photos of many things many times. Seeing these objects and places in real life is surreal for me.  It takes my brain a moment to process. But Amarna art is different. For me it is special because, while I enjoy all of ancient Egyptian history, my main love has always been between Hatshepsut and Akhenaten. Tutankhamon was my first introduction, but these two figures have always spoken to me. I believe now it is because they were boldly going against the norm. They were subversive, rebellious, and confident in their differences. There, of course, many ways to read their actions; political, personal, spiritual. But for the young boy growing into manhood with an innated and unnameable understanding that he is different that his peers, that he somehow looks at the world around him in a way that his peers do not, this was very appealing.

For Akhenaten the dream was short lived. This is reflected in the tombs we visited as they were unfinished and abandoned. While Aten may have been universal, his prophet pharaoh was not. Nothing makes this profound than the state of his capital city. Aside from a few stones restored into some semblance of a brief structure there is nothing but some tombs and a vast desert.

It wasn’t hot. In fact, the cool winds of winter still blew around us keeping the temperatures around the twenty degree mark. But looking about at the wasteland, Eric and I could feel the desolation. The city was destroyed thoroughly and completely after Akhenaten’s death and the place was abandoned. There are stories of the land having been salted, a dramatic demonstration of condemnation in a desert country. Looking around I believe it. We are in the valley, not the rocky foothills where the tombs are, and there is nothing growing. The rebuke of Aten and his follower remains.

As we drove back to Cairo I sat back and listened to our guide and our driver chat in Arabic to each other. Eric was on his phone already posting some pictures on social media. I looked out the window and thought of Akhenaten. While some Nile cruises stop at Beni Hasan, very few come to the capital city of his dream. To be sure, tourists were not even allowed here until recently. For the most part, this place has been forgotten. This saddens me. Sometimes, when you are the bold outlier like Hastshepsut, you will surpass your failings and achieve recognition for your tenacity. But if you are Akhenaton, your wish to change the status quo, your radical new way of looking at the world, results in personal destruction and your erasure from history.

A risk I believe that kid in Kamloops, with his early thoughts and explorations of who he really was, was, deep down, already aware.