Day 2: i'm sailing away with khufu ~ Making Waves

(A warning for my dear classmate, Benjamin Fisher: This post will discuss a certain solar boat museum. There will even be pictures. Please take this opportunity to prepare yourself appropriately.)

What happens when you combine six new friends, two great guides, renowned Egyptologist Dr. Bob Brier, and art historian Patricia Remler? Two fantastic days exploring ancient Egypt! After venturing to the Egyptian Museum the previous day on our own, it was really nice to have not one but three real guides to show us around the Giza Plateau.

Mother and I met the Briers and Mohommed, the local tour guide, early Tuesday morning at the Marriott in Zamalek. We were soon introduced to the six other travelers touring with Far Horizons, a US-based tour company that specializes archeological and educational tours. Mother and I were very fortunate to tag along with the group during their time in Cairo. The Far Horizons group started their tour with us on Tuesday but continued on to Upper Egypt (southern Egypt) later in the week. Enough about Far Horizons. "We have bigger fish to fry."

We boarded our bus and trekked out to the necropolis. No combination of lectures, textbooks, and photographs could prepare one for seeing the Great Pyramid in person. I'm really hesistant to even try to describe it, because I cannot do justice to Khufu's (Cheops, if you must be Greek) great monument.

The Great Pyramid on the Giza Plateau

Rather than bore you with facts that you could just as easily Google, I'll try to share some of the lesser known trivia that Professor Brier imparted on the group. (There may even be a Yummy Mummy question or two.)

Several years ago, Jean-Pierre Houdin, a French architect obsessed with unraveling the mystery of the Great Pyramid, emailed Professor Brier with a riveting new theory about how the ancient Egyptians built Khufu's final resting place. You may be aware of the existing theories: a long, single ramp built to the top, a ramp that wound around the sides, and use of minature cranes to lift the massive 3-ton blocks. These ideas can sound realistic at first, but we can say with some level of certainty that these concepts just would not work. Jean-Pierre has been inspired by his father to explore a new idea. He wagers that the Egyptians used an internal ramp that wound its way up through the pyramid. The ramp would have been integrated into the construction of each level. If the Great Pyramid was constructed with an internal ramp, it would still be there today.

Several pieces of circumstantial evidence support Houdin's theory. This picture shows a notch in the northeast corner of the pyramid where the white limestone casing stones have been removed. Professor Brier climbed to this notch with a cameraman during the filming of a National Geographic documentary on Houdin's theory. Professor Brier found a large room concealed behind the notch. Professor Brier is still awaiting permission from the Supreme Council of Antiquities to perform non-destructive infared imaging scans to the Great Pyramid to confirm Houdin's obession.

The notch that gives Jean-Pierre fuel to keep theorizing.

After walking around the base of the Great Pyramid, we continued to the Solar Boat Museum. We donned special shoe covers to keep dust out of the exhibit and followed Professor Brier into the gallery. Can you believe that the mooring lines are still intact? There's even a section of the reed-mat roof on display. The discovery of Khufu's boat was a happy accident, as is typically the case with archeological discoveries. Archeologists were excavating the base of the wall around the Great Pyramid and noted that the square-shaped wall jutted out at a point on the south side.

Braided rope that was found in the pit with Khufu's boat.

We aren't certain, but most Egyptologists believe that this reed mat was part of the roof covering.

After years of careful restoration, Dr. Zahi Hawass (henceforth, Uncle Zahi) opened "Cheop's Boat Museum." The museum was built over the pit where the pieces of the boat were found. Interestingly, the museum's storeroom contains the "leftover" pieces from the pit. I don't know about you, but my LEGO days tell me that leftover pieces tend to mean that something isn't quite right. Regardless, the boat is displayed in a large sunlit gallery with three viewing tiers that wrap around the entire vessel.

The actual pit where the boat pieces were found.

For more information about Khufu's solar boat, you can go here or contact Benjamin Fisher, Webb '11, who completed a term paper on the funerary barge. One more Webb connection: Professor Brier oversaw a thesis project's resistance test of a scale model back in 1995. The wooden oars that you see tied to the boat do not have enough surface area to provide adequate propulsion. Egyptologists (and naval architects) agree that the boat was probably ceremonial at best and possibly towed across the Nile when the pharoah died.

Cheop's Solar Boat -- a ceremonial barge that ferried him to the afterlife.

These wooden battens are mooring spikes.

"We've got bigger fish to fry"

Our next stop on the Plateau was the slightly shorter pyramid of Khufu's son, Khafre. This pyramid can be recognized by the limestone casing stones that remain, ever precariously, at the top of the pyramid. Most of the ancient monuments have had their casing stones "recycled" in slightly less ancient mosques and palaces.

Khafre's pyramid has been robbed of almost all of its gleaming white limestone casing stones.

One of the Far Horizons tour members asked if Egyptologists knew where any of the limestone quarries were located. Professor Brier responded by leading us toward Menkaure's pyramid. Just north of the base of the pyramid, there is a field with square stumps of limestone. This quarry produced the lesser quality limestone that when into building the interior of the pyramids. Ramses-era heiroglyphs identify the quarry's overseer and his successor.

This quarry produced low-grade filler limestone for the Giza Plateau.

Professor Brier demonstrates how the Egyptian work gangs would have cut the limestone.

We trekked to the stop of a bluff for a photo op.

I don't usually go for staged pictures, but this one isn't too bad.

Professor Brier denies any type of eureka moment when he discovered the hidden room in the notch. A Napoleonic "N" on a wall in the room denoted that he wasn't the first person there. The rest of the group was amazed by Professor Brier's nonchalant reaction.

The day wasn't over yet! After a great lunch, we returned to the necropolis for a special tour inside of the Great Pyramid. The pyramid is open to the public; for 100 LE you can climb up, then down, then back up again to the Grand Gallery and the Burial Chamber. With Professor Brier at your side, you can also get the Inspector to open the Queen's Burial Chamber and clear out all of the other tourists. By now, you've already wiki'd the Great Pyramid, so you know that the Queen's Burial Chamber was the second chamber built for Khufu in case he died before the chamber at the top of the Grand Gallery was completed. Despite being called the "Queen's Burial Chamber," no one was ever placed in the chamber. (Actually, the very small pyramids of several queens can be found just a stone's throw from the Great Pyramid.)

The experience we had inside of the Great Pyramid cannot be described. Photography was not allowed, so I can't even show you the amazing carvings, corbelling, and architecture.

After crawling back out of the pyramid and returning to fresh air, we found that the Tourist Police had cleared the plateau. We were alone with the Great Pyramid. As we quietly walked back to the bus, I stared back at Khufu's monument as the sun set in the distance. For 20 years, a 3-ton stone was placed every five minutes by a work gang of 10 men. These men were at the heart of something truly wonderous, and I cannot help but think that I or anyone I know will ever be involved in something that can compare with the Great Pyramid.

Man fears time, but Time fears the Sphinx.