constant threat to Aliâs governorship of Egypt. After an evening of festivities, the Mamluks poured out into the lane leading down the hill from the fortress, where they were ambushed and massacred. Ali achieved his goal of eliminating his opposition and gaining sole control of the country. 1 Cleopatra clearly wasnât to be the last of the ruthless rulers of Egypt.
I wandered back to the doorway, retrieved my shoes, and strolled over to the terrace, and, there spread before me was a spectacular view of Cairo, miles and miles of square and rectangular buildings, tin domes and minarets, smog submerging the mishmash of newly built high-rises, half-finished apartments, and older two-storied buildings in varying shades of grey and brown, a smattering of white mosques and occasional flashes of color as far as the eye can see, or at least distinguish under the film of dirty air created from the congestion below.
And then there, behind all the city tableau, was what I was longing to see. Two massive triangles, the greatest of the three Giza pyramids, so incredibly large that they seemed almost a mirage or a photographic trick that has been staged for the naïve tourist. But they are real. They are the essence of Egypt. They are the symbol of people of the desert and the Nile, the land before Europe encroached on the continent from across the Mediterranean Sea. It is the backdrop tothe life into which Cleopatra VII, the last Cleopatra of the Ptolemaic line, was born. 2 It is evidence that would help me profile the life and death of Cleopatra more thoroughly and concretely.
I arrived at Giza early the next morning, far before the site was open to the public and when there was hardly anyone but the locals moving about, getting ready for their day. Giza is a bit of an odd site up close, not at all what one expects from the carefully shot photos of the three pyramids. There is a tendency to believe that one will need to travel miles from the city, and there in endless sands of the Western Desert, the pyramids will rise majestically on the horizon. In reality, one can jump on the metro and arrive at Giza in a matter of minutes. I took a taxi from downtown and passed by hotels and restaurants, and in less than fifteen minutes I was at my destination. Hardly far from the present-day world, the pyramids can be seen through a Pizza Hut window just a short walk down the street from the archeological site, the laser light show viewable from its roof, as a number of low-budget tourists (including myself) have discovered. The remainder of the 118 pyramids of Egypt spread west across forty-three miles of desert to Fayoum City, most of which are not visited by the majority of visitors to the country. It is easy to see why once one has viewed the Great Pyramid, the others pale in comparison, although they are still treasures to historians and archeologists.
Since it was still early, I decided that before I entered the Great Pyramid, I would take a visit farther down the road to nearby Dashur to examine a couple of smaller pyramids built earlier: the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid. I grabbed another cab and traveled south along the canal until I came to the two pyramids, both built by King Sneferu (2613â2589 BCE), the pharaoh who ruled during the Fourth Dynasty; he preceded his son, Khufu (2589â2566 BCE), who built the Great Pyramid at Giza. It would be interesting to see the construction of these two pyramids and what kind of workmanship they displayed and what their burial chambers might have looked like. I was specifically interested in two things: (1) did burial chambers make good living spaces for a trio of women to spend time in, and (2)how tightly sealed were burial chambers back in those days? Were they too tightly sealed to let a snake slither out of them?
In my previous travels throughout Egypt, I had visited two other sites in which burial chambers were included in their structures. One location was in the Valley
I wandered back to the doorway, retrieved my shoes, and strolled over to the terrace, and, there spread before me was a spectacular view of Cairo, miles and miles of square and rectangular buildings, tin domes and minarets, smog submerging the mishmash of newly built high-rises, half-finished apartments, and older two-storied buildings in varying shades of grey and brown, a smattering of white mosques and occasional flashes of color as far as the eye can see, or at least distinguish under the film of dirty air created from the congestion below.
And then there, behind all the city tableau, was what I was longing to see. Two massive triangles, the greatest of the three Giza pyramids, so incredibly large that they seemed almost a mirage or a photographic trick that has been staged for the naïve tourist. But they are real. They are the essence of Egypt. They are the symbol of people of the desert and the Nile, the land before Europe encroached on the continent from across the Mediterranean Sea. It is the backdrop tothe life into which Cleopatra VII, the last Cleopatra of the Ptolemaic line, was born. 2 It is evidence that would help me profile the life and death of Cleopatra more thoroughly and concretely.
I arrived at Giza early the next morning, far before the site was open to the public and when there was hardly anyone but the locals moving about, getting ready for their day. Giza is a bit of an odd site up close, not at all what one expects from the carefully shot photos of the three pyramids. There is a tendency to believe that one will need to travel miles from the city, and there in endless sands of the Western Desert, the pyramids will rise majestically on the horizon. In reality, one can jump on the metro and arrive at Giza in a matter of minutes. I took a taxi from downtown and passed by hotels and restaurants, and in less than fifteen minutes I was at my destination. Hardly far from the present-day world, the pyramids can be seen through a Pizza Hut window just a short walk down the street from the archeological site, the laser light show viewable from its roof, as a number of low-budget tourists (including myself) have discovered. The remainder of the 118 pyramids of Egypt spread west across forty-three miles of desert to Fayoum City, most of which are not visited by the majority of visitors to the country. It is easy to see why once one has viewed the Great Pyramid, the others pale in comparison, although they are still treasures to historians and archeologists.
Since it was still early, I decided that before I entered the Great Pyramid, I would take a visit farther down the road to nearby Dashur to examine a couple of smaller pyramids built earlier: the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid. I grabbed another cab and traveled south along the canal until I came to the two pyramids, both built by King Sneferu (2613â2589 BCE), the pharaoh who ruled during the Fourth Dynasty; he preceded his son, Khufu (2589â2566 BCE), who built the Great Pyramid at Giza. It would be interesting to see the construction of these two pyramids and what kind of workmanship they displayed and what their burial chambers might have looked like. I was specifically interested in two things: (1) did burial chambers make good living spaces for a trio of women to spend time in, and (2)how tightly sealed were burial chambers back in those days? Were they too tightly sealed to let a snake slither out of them?
In my previous travels throughout Egypt, I had visited two other sites in which burial chambers were included in their structures. One location was in the Valley