Day 10: Sharm to Cairo

When we arrived back in Cairo, we went to the Egyptian Museum. The museum was built in 1902 and everything inside was real. Outside there were lotus and papyrus plants symbolizing upper and lower Egypt. We looked at artifacts from the old, middle, and new kingdoms. The old kingdom occurred from 2800-2200 BC. I was surprised to see a wooden statue with movable arms included in the artifacts from this period. There was also a nice statue of King Khafren. This statue was found buried in a hole at the sphinx. They exaggerated his features on the statue to make him look more god-like. The middle kingdom was divided after a civil war, so there were no kings; there were only princes of lower and upper Egypt. The new kingdom occurred from 1575-798 BC. This was a period of perfect art and famous names. We saw some sphinxes of Hatshepsut, which were cool since she is a woman. There was one room of the museum that was very different. This room represented the reign of Akhenaten. He changed the art, religion, and capital of Egypt. The people in his art have both masculine and feminine traits. Our guide explained a few of the theories for this:

• He wanted to represent all makind
• He had a genetic disease
• He was of an undefined sexual orientation

Nefertiti was his wife. Her name means "The most beautiful." No one knows what happened to her though. Tutankhamun followed Akhenaten. His exhibit was by far the best. There was so much gold! We actually got a chance to see his famous mask, which is made completely of gold. The gold came from Nubia, which means city of gold. Nubia was covered with water, however, after the Aswan dam was built. On our drive to the hotel we drove by the tomb of unknown soldiers and the building where President Sadat was assassinated. We also drove through the sacred burial grounds, sometimes referred to as the "City of the Dead." There were actually groundskeepers living there with their families.