The Great Pyramids, Saqqara and Memphis

Giza's plain stretches from hectic suburbs out to the empty horizon, where the last of the Seven Wonders of the World stands, Cheop's Pyramid. Now badly scarred, the pyramids were once cased in glittering white limestone, three prisms lined up on the desert. The casing has been stripped long ago, for use in building later empires, usually those of foreign rulers.

Khefren's Pyramid

The statistics overwhelm the senses: built in the 26th c BC, Cheop's pyramid contains 2.3 million limestone blocks, each weighing an average of 2.5 tons. The precision with which these gigantic blocks were placed is breathtaking--there is no margin of error greater than 0.2% in its symmetry. Napoleon calculated that its stones, piled in a 3 ft wall, could surround all of France. Built over the course of only (according to one estimate) 30 years, it employed 100,000 workers, who (according to our guide) wanted to join Cheops in Paradise. But the stories are legion--there are still advocates of the theory that only aliens from outer space could have built them--and the facts difficult to ascertain. Was it an astronomical observatory, a kind of almanac, a prism to concentrate energy? Was it a center of initiation? Napoleon reputedly was searching for its Masonic Brotherhood connection, when he slept inside the burial chamber and emerged in the morning, shaken.

Now rough exteriors

The second pyramid, of Cheop's son Khefren, retains some of its limestone veneer and has a more composed appearance. The three great pyramids are perfectly aligned, astounding for such ponderous creations, each block unimaginably heavy.

We climbed inside the burial chamber of Cheop's pyramic, a steep ascent on a narrow ramp which requires a certain amount of acrobatics, especially as crowds pass each other going in different directions. The chamber itself was spare, but neither stuffy or claustrophobic--somehow the air seems purified inside. It was a profound experience, but we were hurried along by the guard whose job it is to keep damage at a minimum.

Omar of the secret police, trying to get baksheesh

Tourism is down some 70% in Egypt, hence we were always magnets for every vendor and would-be guide. A boy thrust his wares at Jacques--try it!-and suddenly his fingers were in Jacques' breast pocket where he kept some cash. Meanwhile we were being accompanied by a hefty man who had ridden on our bus with us and claimed to be "security"--but who did nothing about the boy. Turned out our friend, Omar, was with the secret police, but that didn't stop him from desperately trying to hit us up for baksheesh!

Immortal Sphinx

Before Khefren's pyramid is the iconic Sphinx---to reach this splendid creature we rode the bus around the vast monuments. Terribly damaged, apparently by water seepage, the Sphinx is also subject to much speculation of origins, one theory makes it 10,000 years old. It was also damaged by Turkish rifle practice. It is carved of a single block of stone, 2558-1532 BC, dates on which most Egyptologists agree. It is the earliest colossus.

Goddess Ma'at at the Louvre

Below is the funerary temple where Khefren's body was mummified--for a pharoah, the process took 3 months. The brain was extracted through the nose, the organs were extracted and preserved each in their own funerary urn, sometimes in different tombs, and most importantly the heart was extracted, desiccated and then replaced, for it would be weighed by the goddess Ma'at, after the long journey to the other world, against her feather. If the balance was perfect, the Pharoah would join the Immortals. Ma'at is often depicted on sarcophagi with vast, graceful wings, which signify protection in Egyptian art. Originally--before 3,000 BC--Egyptians were buried in the sand and perfectly preserved by the dry climate. When sarcophagi were adopted, so was mummification, to duplicate the perfect preservation that had been accomplished by the elements of Egypt.

The first Pyramid, by Imhotep

Pyramids are actually strewn throughout Egypt, the earliest at Saqqara, where the great architect Imhotep developed the Step Pyramid for his Pharoah Djoser (2667-2648 BC). The temple that Imhotep built there was the first stone building ever built, and remains elegant, its architecture still imitated. Nearby is a small but exquisite museum in honor of Imhotep, his matchless sense of beauty and engineering ingenuity.

World's first stone building

Saqqara was the great Necropolis for the Old Kingdom, beginning in 3100 BC. Smaller pyramids, mastabas and other tombs are everywhere. We visited the small, crumbling pyramid of Teti (2345-2323 BC) whose subterranean walls are covered with hieroglyphics--hymns, litanies and magical spells. This was the beginning of tomb decorations which would flower into majestic reliefs in later times. The tomb guardian, a toothless old man in a jellabah, showed us the name "Teti" over and over again in the endless engravings.

More beautiful is the mastaba of Mereruka, a son-in-law of Teti, with its colorful painted reliefs of hunting the exquisite wildlife, perfectly carved ducks and hippos. The entire tomb of Mereruka has some 33 rooms, of which we visited about 4. Many of the monuments in Egypt are closed for work, or open on rotational bases to avoid too much damage from the breath of tourists.

A blind man in our group, discovering Ramses II

While kings were buried at Saqqara, the center of power was old Memphis, the world's first capitol, 4,000 years before Cairo was built (using Memphis' stones). Even in Herodotus' time (5th c. BC) Memphis was a bustling, gleaming metropolis, but now it is buried beneath a sleepy village where plastic bags blow and garbage remains uncollected. A small museum has managed to retain what statuary has not been spirited to other countries, most impressively an enormous Ramses II, now lying on the ground.