Happy birthday to C.!

A truck stop along an Egyptian highway. What next?? ;-)

Egypt 2008: Alexandria - Kom el Shoqafa

October 12th.

The first place we visited upon arriving in Alexandria was a place I for my part had never heard about before I got to Egypt. Shame on me, I guess. The catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa - an underground necropolis that was in use from the 2nd through the 4th century AD, and then, upon becoming disused, was lost to human knowledge before being rediscovered in supposedly a rather surprising way in 1900.

Because of the specific period in which this burial site was being used, it is unusual in its iconography; a confluence point for many cultural influences. There is evidence of the Pharaonic funeral cult, but there are also very strong Hellenistic influences, as well as early Imperial Roman stylistic features. It's quite amazing - you'll see Egyptian statues, for instance, that wear Roman clothes. :-) The styles are blended in many ways. A very special sight.

The history of the catacombs is somewhat unclear. It's believed that it was originally constructed as a burial site for only one family - a very rich and powerful one, of course. :-) Eventually it was expanded to also make room for other families. There are a lot of chambers in this underground labyrinth, and graves of various sizes. Some are very elaborate and others much simpler. There are also rooms where living family members could assemble to celebrate their lost loved ones, and of course the place was set up for divine worship.

As I said, the catacombs were forgotten for many centuries. They were rediscovered supposedly by accident many many years after they had fallen out of use. The name of the place, Kom el Shoqafa, means 'potshards', and the circumstances of rediscovery were in a way what gave it this name. Basically the area became a landfill ... when the site was an active necropolis, those visiting the graves would bring gifts to the deceased, often food, in terracotta and other clay containers, which they then would not want to be bothered carrying back home, since they'd be empty. So a kind of dump developed on the site. Later, no one remembered what was underground, and it was to them just a mound of potshards. :-) The 'official' story of the discovery goes like this: One day in late September 1900 a man was passing across this dump with his donkey, and was quite startled when the animal suddenly fell into a hole in the ground. In the process of extracting his four-legged friend he realized that this wasn't just any dinky little hole ... this was some serious shit right here. :-) He alerted others to his discovery, and the rest is history. In reality, excavations had been ongoing on the site for some years, but they hadn't found anything until the fall of 1900. As you can imagine, archaeologists worldwide were very excited when news broke that the excavations had finally begun to yield results.

On many lists of great wonders of the medieval world, Kom el Shoqafa is named as one of the seven. It has only been open to the public since 1995, since there's been a lot of problems with water in the lower levels.

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures from inside the catacombs, as we weren't allowed to take any there. I've just got a few from the outside - they have some statues and sarcophagi and things on display there. But keep reading ...

The entrance gate. It looks deceptively humble.

A closer view ...

Officers from the tourist police guard the entrance, of course. But they were relaxing in the shade when we arrived. :-)

Some of the sarcophagi ... which have been used as coffins at some points and as bathtubs at others. :-D *

Another coffin. *

Statues and pillars are among the other artifacts on display outside, or rather above, the necropolis. *

A bit of the lovely little park that surrounds the display area of the site.

CH taking some pictures.

If you want to see some pictures of the interior, and also read some more about Kom el Shoqafa, you can go here.

The photos in this post marked with an asterisk are by CH, the others are by me. :-)

Egypt 2008: Giza revisited

October 11th.

Back to the pyramids ... I just have to share some of CH's great shots from our visit to the pyramids and the Sphinx. It was such an amazing experience. I can hardly believe that we were really there. :-) But I have these wonderful images to prove it. :-) CH called this picture Grandfather, father and son. Great title. :-)

The two of us on the lookout point. Hatem took the picture and he made us pose like this. :-D

I really like this shot. The ancient pyramids and then the camel rider in the foreground, and a couple of horsedrawn carriages and buggies by the foot of the pyramid. It could be an ancient image. But then the cityscape in the background kind of draws your attention, and becomes clearer and clearer through the haze ... It's a great shot, I love it. :-)

Me in front of the Cheops pyramid. The white thingummy to the right there by the foot of the pyramid is a kind of little museum where they display the reed boat that was found inside the pyramid. Unfortunately we didn't get to go in and see it.

Cheops seen from the plateau by the Sphinx. The reed boat house is just barely visible along the facing side of the pyramid.

Is this an amazing shot or what?? An amazingly lucky shot, certainly. There were so many people there yet CH managed to get this picture of me all alone in front of the Sphinx. o_O She's lucky like that ... she took a couple of shots in China too where she miraculously managed to avoid the crowds that actually were there.

A sphinx's paw, some temple ruins, and the Cairo skyline. What a place. :-)

All the pictures in this post were taken by CH. You can see more pictures from Giza here - the ones tagged *** are CH's and the ones without that tag are mine. :-)

Egypt 2008: Sakkara revisited

October 11th.

More pictures from Sakkara, the ancient necropolis on the outskirts of Cairo. My first post on it is here - that was all my own pictures, and all the ones in this post are CH's. I still can't believe that we were lucky enough to have the place to ourselves. o_O

The necropolis is sheltered on the city side by date groves. We had a chance to look at them while we were waiting to get in ... we were there so early that the gates hadn't actually opened yet. Hatem told us a bit about the Egyptian date industry - it's one of their biggest exports - and that the plants we were looking at were red dates. As opposed to some other color that I, alas, can no longer remember.

Me in the hall of pillars. Just the fact that I was standing there was so amazing, I mean, those pillars are 4600 years old. I can hardly grasp it. Amazing.

This little dog was quite interested in us, as the only one of the ... about a dozen dogs that were lounging around the place. I guess it was hoping for treats. Alas, we had none. And we didn't quite dare to pet the little critter since who knows what kind of bugs wild dogs may have. It was kind of cute though.

A view out towards the desert and the pyramids of Dashur. The Bent Pyramid to the right.

Various ruins with ongoing excavations. It is so incredibly obvious what is sandstone and what is Aswan granite. This was very striking on a site we visited in Alexandria as well. Sandstone doesn't last long in the desert, but the granite shipped from Aswan is incredibly hard and endures almost everything. Again, those pillars are more than four and a half thousand years old ... but look at them.

Amazing. :-)

More pictures from Sakkara here. The pictures labelled with *** are by CH, the rest are mine.

Egypt 2008: Memphis revisited

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I went to visit CH a weekend back in May. During which visit we finally got around to exchanging all our pictures from our trip to Egypt. We've been having shitty luck trying to send them back and forth on CDs and DVDs ... so now I just brought my external harddisk with me to her house and we copied everything. Yay, more pictures from Egypt - just what I needed. ;-) But there are some really good shots. Here are some of them, from our visit to Memphis, the old capital of Lower Egypt. There are more shots from Memphis here (the ones labelled *** are by CH) and you can see my original post on this visit here.

CH by one of the many statues on display.

Me by the Alabaster Sphinx.

The famous limestone statue of king Ramses II is pretty amazing. It's so huge and it's in such good condition. This is CH by the king's right hand ... and she had the bright idea to make a fist just like the statue, I wish I had thought of that. :-)

The statue of the king is lying down (because the lower parts of its legs are gone) and so you can see right up Ramses' nose.

Check out the two guys standing on the statue's left side. They were locals who were basically hanging around hoping to be photographed by some hapless tourist, whom they could then demand some money from.

A hapless tourist like CH! :-D (I wasn't with her just then or I'm sure I would have fallen for the trick too. :-) It's a good shot though, I really like it. :-)

This is us in the car going either to or from Memphis. Happy happy ... !! :-D

Egypt 2008: Alexandria

October 12th.

A selection of Alexandrian (Alexandrine?) street life. We drove around quite a bit in the city as we were going from one sightseeing spot to the other. I kept taking pictures through the car windows ... I wanted to preserve everything & anything I saw. :-)

We had a bit of a tricky time getting into the city as it had rained the night before ... it only rains there two or three times a year, so obviously there's chaos in the traffic every time it happens.

Carrefour is everywhere ... !! This mall looked interesting, but of course we had no chance to visit it.

As I think I've mentioned before, in my job I sell - among other things - protective gear and equipment to professional customers in the building industry and so on. So I know a little bit about the standards that exist in this country. Of course I know that the situation's very different in many other places. It's still a bit of a shock to see it with my own eyes, though ... o_O

Yes, you really are seeing what you think you're seeing ...

This was pretty typical ... very dilapitated buildings, but someone - or, as here, numerous someones - had made the effort to freshen up their own little patch of wall a bit. Again, something you'd never see in this country. It wouldn't be allowed and whoever tried it would probably be in for a shitload of trouble. :-)

There are lots of unfinished buildings all over the place. Hatem said that they're usually the result of funding falling through in the middle of projects.

A not very busy intersection.

An extremely fancy house. I can't remember if we ever found out what this was, but it must have been something pretty special. :-)

There are lots of little stores, of course, all over the city, selling various things ... and many of them hoping to attract tourists by putting up signs in what they think is English. :-D

A statue, palm trees, traffic ... A nice-looking sky ... :-)

A random street.

Some fancy modern buildings. A city of contrasts.

Something that I don't know what is, but that looked very nice. It was on the peak of a kind of hillside. A monument to something, no doubt. It looked nice against the blue sky.

And in closing, a video I shot during one of our short drives around the city. Just showing a bit of street life. :-) It was interesting seeing it ... I enjoy that kind of thing. Hope you do too. :-)

Egypt 2008: Day trip to Alexandria

October 12th.

On our first full day in Egypt we had scheduled a day trip to Alexandria. This ancient city lies on the coast of the Mediterranean, about a four hour drive from Cairo. The highway there is in great condition (although with no streetlights! o_O) so it's a pretty easy drive. Can be hot, though. You are in fact driving through the desert. :-) Bring water.

Our wakeup call was at 6am and we met Hatem in the lobby at 7. All six of us were going. We all piled into our minibus and set off. The driver was the same old guy as the day before. A good driver as far as I can tell about these things. He spent a hell of a lot of time on his cell phone (while driving, yeah) - CH and I discussed the matter and decided that he was talking to various of his driver friends in order to get info about police control points along the route, so that he'd easily be able to avoid any kind of penalty for his speeding. And hey, it worked like a charm. When he wasn't talking on the phone, he ate pistachio nuts from a huge bag of them that he shared with Hatem. It took us a while to figure out what that popping sound was that was coming from the front seat all the time ...

I of course had to take pictures along the route, although there wasn't that much to take pictures of. There was one thing, but alas, I wasted my opportunities there. We kept seeing weird structures in the distance that we couldn't figure out, so after some debate amongs the group we asked Hatem, and he explained that they were dovecotes. (Doves are a popular dish in Egypt and many people breed them for sale.) Huge ones, obviously. I became obsessed with taking a good picture of these things, but unfortunately I got the laughing bug and every time I saw one, I couldn't stop laughing ... so my pictures of them came out looking like shit, in the few cases where I even got off a shot. CH was not helpful in curbing my mirth. Alas. And of course, when we drove back along the same route hours later, it was pitch dark. Sob!!

Anyway. Here are various pictures of scenery, with explanations, from the road to Alexandria. :-)

Still in Cairo. Various apartment buildings etc seen from the highway. Check out the blue and white building. :-D

Oh, the view ... !! :-o

A very cool soft drink ad that we spotted on the side of a building, and that I was quick enough to get a picture of. I generally don't like billboards, but this one was cool. :-)

There was quite a lot of vegetation just alongside the road. But the sand began pretty close to the highway. This picture was taken on the outskirts of Cairo.

We passed an area with lots of construction going on; Hatem told us that a town was under construction there, and had been for years - 6th of October City. Apparently. o_O Many sections were already finished, but there still clearly remained a lot to be done. The town is a project the government started to help ease the constant problem of overcrowding in Cairo. It didn't seem to be for everyone, though ... I suspect that the ones who suffer the most from the overcrowding will never set foot in the place. :-( It seemed rather artificial and reminded me of the descriptions of the Stockholm suburb Blackeberg in John Aijvide Lindqvist's novel Let the right one in.

God vs Mammon ... :-D

See my precious dovecotes ... !! They're those weird pointy things in the center of the shot.

We stopped at a place along the way called El Sonny Star. :-D It's about halfway between the two cities, so it's a good place to stop. Plus our driver probably knew the people running it, nudge nudge, know what I mean. They had cold water and chocolate, though, so we were good. :-)

Aww, look ... !! It almost made it feel a little bit like home.

As we approached the outskirts of Alexandria I managed to get a better dovecote picture. They're along the roadside, to the left ... mostly hidden by some bushes. Alas. :-(

Oh, the dovecotes of Egypt ... !! Shall I ever see you again, etc.