Memphis and Saqqara

Today I have booked myself on a tour of Memphis, the original capital of Egypt and Saqarra, another site just outside of Cairo which was pyramids. The Giza pyramids are the most famous purely because of the size of them, but there are many pyramids scattered along the Nile Valley, and these particular pyramids are some of the earliest known pyramids in Egypt, so it is interesting to go and see how the art of pyramid design began and was slowly perfected over the centuries.

Memphis is all much of a muchness, it is another temple dedicated to the God Ptah, who is the creator god of Egyptian mythology, that has been heavily ruined by people either taking the stones to use in other buildings, or by Macedonian conquerors (aka Alexander the Great) who wanted to crush the people’s belief in these gods and replace them with their own.

Token Sphinx shot at Memphis (not in Tennessee)

Still there was a very impressive statue of Ramses II in the little micro-museum they had on site. I say micro because i estimate that there were only about 10 exhibits in the whole place, this thing being so big it too up most of the room!

Ramses II statue that fills up the micro-Museum

After that, we moved on to the main visit of the day at Saqqara. There are a few pyramids here, but all are significantly smaller than their cousins at Giza (pronounced Geez-ay). The first pyramid we saw was the pyramid of Teti, which from the external shots looks just like a mound of sand in the middle of the desert, with a load of bricks scattered on the top.

No, not just a mound of sand, to the trained eye, this is a pyramid

Shot from the other side, this is the entrance to the pyramid of Teti

Sure enough though, we reached the entrance which led down into the ground and after a few metres walking, I was in the inner chamber of the pyramid. This one was actually much nicer than the ones in Giza for several reasons; it was less humid in there, it was less arduous a trek to reach this pharaohs tomb it was less crowded, and at the end of it there was actually something to see! Yes, this pyramids walls were covered with inscriptions and hieroglyphs, so it made it all the more worthwhile to visit. The sad thing with most of these monuments is that the sheer weight of traffic (which i freely admit i was adding to) is damaging them on an unprecedented scale. My tour guide explained that when he was younger, the roof of this chamber has a blue sky and yellow stars, but the years of accumulated sweat moistening the atmosphere in the place had slowly bleached all the colour of it which seems a real shame.

A quick note about the guides, they are not allowed into the pyramids, as the Egypt Tourist board (or whoever manages the sites), wants to keep the flow of tourists moving quickly through the place, and not getting held up with guides wittering on. Therefore what usually happens is several groups congregate outside the front of the entrance are quickly informed about what to look at, and then all rush to get in there first!

Across from the pyramid of Teti is some tombs to important figures in Egyptian culture at the time, but not worthy of a pyramid (which was reserved only for the pharaohs as far as i can tell). Usually high ranking officials, priests and the like would have tombs near to their kings, the plebs would be just thrown in the Nile for crocodiles to eat presumably.


Anyway, for our tour guide, I give ten out of ten for enthusiasm about his culture, as he delights in showing silly western tourists how Egyptians discovered/invented all manner of inventions thousands of years before the concept of “patent offices” had even been thought of. I have to question some of his interpretations of the pictures though. For example a man with some reeds tied around him was deemed by the guide to be the first example of a life jacket, whereas it looked to me (admittedly i have an untrained eye in such matters) as a man just carrying some reeds. That is an important thing to note, the guides are all good fun, but there are points where I think they tell a story, because it is more exciting, rather than just sticking to the facts. So, these days whenever i go out with a guide, i take a pinch of salt with me (and my lonely planet guide book).

This pyramid was closed to the public, no tomb raiding here.....

After this pyramid we moved on to what i would consider a more impressive structure, in that it looked like a pyramid!! It is called the Step pyramid and was erected in memory of Netjerikhet (Djoser for short). It has a slight Mayan feel to it, but the guide delighted in telling us that those pesky Mayans were only a glint in the milkman’s eye when this monument was being constructed.

Viscious guard dog at the entrance to the Step Pyramid,
he was off duty today though, as it is a national holiday

The step pyramid was designed and its building co-ordinated by a priest called Imhotep (people may remember this name from the film, The Mummy). Alas, to my disappointment, any ideas of a Hollywood style re-emergence of this 4,000 year old dinosaur were soon dispelled when the guide told us that many of the tombs were raided (not by Lara Croft) and the body was, in all likelihood, dumped in the Nile.

The Step Pyramid of Djoser

After a few minutes walking around (it never seems like i have enough time on these trips out) it was time to move on, and we were going to the most interesting place of the day – a carpet school. Yep, that is right they have sneakily added this one in. In truth, it was one of the few visits i have not seen before, so i popped in to get a demonstration on how they use a loom and how many knots are needed to make a square centimetre of fabric, which is all well and good, but i want to be looking at monuments, not haggling over carpets which I couldn’t possibly get into my suitcase anyway! So, after the demonstration i walked almost immediately out and started taking photos of some date trees. Dates grow everywhere around Cairo, and to my surprise, they come in a variety of colours; red, yellow, black are ones i have seen so far.

My sixth sense told me that a visit to a school/shop was looming....

Ok, I need to rush, as i have to get showered and ready for today's adventure - i am returning to the Pyramids at Giza and also going to the necropolis at Dahshur. I will add the photos to this when i get back.