Mummies, Pyramids, and Coptic Churches

So this week had a number of interesting events which I’ll recount here.

Does My Mummy Make me Look Fat?: Or how I was on the front line for history
The most interesting thing happened on Wednesday when the Supreme Council of Antiquities held a press conference to announce that they had found the mummy of the pharaoh Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut was an 18th dynasty pharaoh who happened to be a woman. The identity of the mummy was determined when a box containing her liver and one of her teeth was found (although the fact that her name is on the box does not guarantee that the items in it belonged to her). She was diabetic, as well as overweight and riddled with cancer. The overweight fact is not too surprising considering that she would have been carried around on a sedan chair most of her life. The embalming job was not entirely well done as her nose was crushed in the process.
We were aware on Tuesday that the press conference would be held the next day and we had all known for weeks what it would be about. Yet nothing could have prepared us for Wednesday. When we arrived the main hallway was cleared out of all of its objects, including most of the Predynastic objects (we later found out that many of the most famous and important Predynastic objects had been horribly jostled when their case was moved). By ten in the morning there were probably a hundred journalist with dozens of TV cameras just on the other side of our dividing screen. Guy (pronounce Gee), my fellow volunteer from Belgium, and I pulled the screen apart so we could watch the press conference. We had a large number of tourists and journalists trying to come into our “off limits” area because we had such a wonderful view of the press conference. The case with the mummy was covered with an Egyptian flag during the press conference. Zahi Hawass, the head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, was there as well as a number of important Egyptian officials. They did the press conference first in Arabic then in English. Half way through the announcement the flag was removed from the coffin showing the mummy. All the photographers rushed the case to take pictures. We were able to snag two Press Packets on the mummy. This was just an amazing experience to watch. After the Press Conference we were able to approach the mummy and look at her. As I said before she is a rather unfortunate looking mummy. Needless to say we didn’t get much work done that day.

Its Pronounced Cop-tic: Or how the Cairo subway is really nice
The Copts (pronounce like the word Cop plus a T sound) are the Christians of Egypt. An orthodox Christian church, they are one of the world’s oldest Christian faiths. A lot of their rituals as well as their language are based on Ancient Egyptian as well as Christian influences.
I decided to learn a little more about Coptic Christianity and go down to visit some of the old churches and the Coptic Museum. These churches were built in the fourth century and later, on top of the gates of the Ancient Roman city. To get there I realized the best way was to take the Cairo metro system. I caught the train at the central station just in front of the Egyptian museum. It only costs 1 pound per trip which is just twenty cents and the trains are clean, quick running, comfortable and quiet. I only had to go four stops to get to the Mari Girgis stop. This metro stop is literally right at the gates of the Coptic Museum in Old Cairo. I went there first. The museum is absolutely gorgeous, decorated in old style with intricately carved wooded screens and wood work with large beautiful courtyards. The art work and artifacts there are gorgeous. In one room you can see how the Ancient Egyptian “Ankh” became the Coptic cross. In addition, I saw one of the only copies of the Gnostic gospel called the “Gospel of Thomas” which was found in Egypt. The only problem was that the museum was not air-conditioned. After this I went to a church called the Hanging Church, which was built on top of the Roman walls in either the 4th or the 7th century. I then went to a Greek Orthodox church, another Coptic Church and a synagogue. These are some of the oldest religious structures in Egypt still in use and are absolutely amazing. While I was walking down the street a shop keeper asked me if I would help him. His wife had just given birth to his first daughter the night before and he wanted to send a letter to a friend in South Africa. He told me what he wanted to say and I wrote the letter for him. I ended the day by going to a restaurant called the Cairo Cellar at the President Hotel on an island called Zamalec. It’s a beautiful area with tree lined, winding streets.

Elvis isn’t the first King to live in Memphis: or how Mit Rahina isn’t as cool as Memphis TN
On Saturday I went to see the last of the Ancient Egyptian sites near Cairo. I started the day returning to Saqqara since I hadn’t gotten to take pictures last week. I also went inside the pyramid of the first king of the Sixth dynasty Teti which contains the pyramid texts, the oldest religious text in Egypt. Although the interior of the pyramid contains interesting texts, the outside is little more than a pile of rubble.
After this I went to the site of Dahshur which contains some of oldest pyramids in Egypt. The father of Khufu, the builder of the great pyramid, a king named Sneferu built two pyramids here. The first pyramid is the first true (non-stepped) pyramid in Egypt, but the Egyptians built the sides too step and the pyramid began to crack. To counteract this half the way up the, architects changed the angle of the pyramid so that it appears to be bent. Sneferu then built another pyramid which looks like a smaller version of his son’s pyramid at Giza. These pyramids are called the bent and the red pyramid respectively. I was able to go into the Red pyramid where I meet a group of Americans from East Tennessee and West North Carolina and I told them a bit about the pyramid and its cool interior. They were very nice and appear to have really enjoyed the little bit of info I gave them. I was unable to get to the bent pyramid so I took pictures of it from the Red Pyramid. Also at Dahshur is a ruined pyramid of the 12th Dynasty King Amenemhat III. Unlike the Old Kingdom pyramids which were built with a stone core, these pyramids had mudbrick cores, so once they were stripped of the limestone casing stones they collapsed. The pyramid, called the black pyramid, is little more than a bizarre looking mound of four thousand year old mudbrick. What is important is that a large quantity of gold jewelry belonging to the wives and daughters of Amenemhat III was found buried around the pyramid.
After this I went to the ruins of the ancient city of Memphis at a site called Mit Rahina. The remains are dismal and there is little more than a giant statue of Ramses II and an alabaster sphinx. I wanted to go to the site of the palace of Merenptah but was unable to get there. Althogh something good did happen while I was there. I got a call on my cell phone from one of the Memphis professors, Dr Onstine who is Luxor doing a dig. I had emailed her about meeting up when I go to Luxor and gave her my cell, we chatted for about ten minutes. Unfortunately she has not gotten her permit to dig yet so she’s been sitting in Luxor for two months with nothing to do. If she doesn’t get her permit by then she wants to go with me around and show me the sites which would be a ton of fun. I then came back to the hotel for dinner after having a wonderful, yet very long day.