About 20 km from Cairo there lays a city of Memphis. It was the earliest capital of a united Egypt under King Menes in about 3050 BC. Well, in fact, almost every big city in Egypt has been the capital at some time or another. There are number of pyramids and monuments around Memphis in such areas as Dashur and Saqqara. And the best thing about them – this sites have been opened to the public relatively recently and haven’t yet evolved into commercialised tourist attraction, like Giza. So when we arrived to Dashur, we found just a lonely bus and a couple of guards on their camels. No crowds, no hustle, such a peace and tranquillity! The most distinct structure at Dahshur is a Bent Pyramid.
It was built by the King Snefru – the father of Cheops. All the previous pyramids, that were built before, have a "stepped" design. But Bent Pyramid was the first attempt to make a "proper" pyramidal form. Unfortunately half way through the construction they realised that the calculations were wrong and it is impossible to carry on with the true pyramid design. At that moment the pyramid becomes a rather interesting rhomboid. It is also distinct for another reason: it still has much of its outer casing intact – so we can easily imagine how fantastic the pyramids used to look centuries ago – all in shiny white fine limestone casing, sparking under the sun!
Unfortunately, Bent Pyramid is closed to the public, but we did get inside another one in Dashur – the Red Pyramid.
Red Pyramid was built by the same king Snefru, obviously unsatisfied with the first attempt. It is considered the oldest true pyramid in Egypt. Beside this is the second in size to the Great Pyramid of Cheops (only about 10 meters smaller)
We’ve explored this Pyramid and I found it to be the most "depressing", causing an unexpected feeling of hopelessness and almost suffocation from heavy air inside. The descending passage was shorter then in Great Pyramid and ended with a "small" room…well, it was small only in perimeter. I looked up by accident and was amazed by the high sky-rocket cobbled stepped-looking ceiling of it. Can you imagine: even with some two million tones of stone above, this ceiling design is so strong that there are no cracks or structural problems even today!
The chamber itself has the same type of ceiling and excavated floor…I couldn’t stay long there. The fear of suffocation, not making it to the surface through the tiny passageway forced me out of it in a split second! Who knows, perhaps the spirit of the King still lives there and guards his Kingdom of Silence…
There are 5 main pyramids in Dashur and a dozen of small ones, but most of them half or completely ruined and closed to the public…So we just enjoyed the general view.
Then we went to Saqqara. It was the original burial site for the kings of the first two dynasties. My guide book says:
"The first tombs of the pharaohs were large, unimpressive, bunker affairs called mastabas. They were made from sun dried mud brick and most have long since crumbled to dust. This all changed around 2630 BC with the erection of the step pyramid. It was made for the pharaoh, Djoser and began as a normal mastaba, but was subsequently enlarged by adding one mastaba on top of another until it consisted of six terraces some 200ft (60 meters) high. The surface was originally encased in smooth white limestone which must have caught the sun light and reflected its rays…"
So there we stood – in front of the first ever attempt to build a pyramid: the Step Pyramid of Djoser.
Around it there was a whole complex of different tombs, temples and whatever else…what amuses me – that ancient Egyptians have seen death as a normal function and not as the end of existence. They treated dead people as if living people: they build "houses" and temples for them and their families and stuffed their burial chambers with the precious goods that might’ve come much more useful in the "proper life" above the ground…
How strange, don’t you think? Maybe we are blind to some knowledge, that they possessed? And maybe we don’t know what we are loosing by abandoning the idea of "life after death"…
Hmmm...in any case, I really did like it in Dashur, despite of hostile Red Pyramid. The whole place itself was quite relaxing and peaceful. And later we even saw a group arrived to meditate in the shadow of a shining Bent Pyramid…Something that would’ve been impossible to do in Giza.
Hustle
A few words about the issue of the hustling in Giza area…It is really that serious, that worth mentioning. I don’t know, but it seems to me that since the main income for the most Egyptians depends on western tourists, in the most touristy areas anybody who doesn’t look like Egyptian, has a "dollar sign" on his forehead. Honestly. I was under impression that everyone kept seeing me as an opportunity to make some money.
On our first day in Giza we’ve been literally "swept off our feet" by all those desperately wishing to sell us things we never wanted! Lots of post card sellers, souvenir’s sellers, unwanted guide service sellers, camel ride, donkey ride sellers, sellers of things I’ve never seen in my life and have no idea what are they…All these sellers can become quite annoying.
So by the end of our first day in Egypt we have learnt our first and most useful phrase in Arabic: "la shokran" – "no, thank you". I’ve found out by experiment, that if you keep saying "la shokran" long enough and even if you start to pronounce it while they’re only approaching you, before they actually offer you to buy something, then you can get rid of the hustler reasonably fast. So: how many "lashokrans" needed to be able to enjoy sightseeing? A LOT!
Kids
I thought this is well worth recording. It happened to me at Giza. I’ve been sitting in front of the Great Pyramid, enjoying the day, relaxing and absolutely unaware of the "Schoolkids Danger" then a few buses with the Egyptian schoolchildren arrived to the plato. It looked like their lessons have ended and they took the kids on the field trip.
They were absolutely wonderful kids! Nice and very inquisitive. And they study English in their school, I guess…So "naturally" (?!) once they’ve been let loose on the plato, full of foreign tourists, these smart kids immediately wished to test their English language skills.
It was very cute when few little girls came over to me, smiling and saying "hello. What is your name? where are you from?" they didn’t really get anywhere above this, but all the “fun” starts when the rest of the school bus notices that few of their gang have picked up a "victim" (me). So now imagine this scene:
Me – sitting on a stone, surrounded with a crowd of about 30 very loud, very excited and very pushy happy little monsters, all shouting at once "hello. What is your name? where are you from?" At first I was trying to reply to each individual question, wherever I managed to identify the direction it comes from, but later I gave up and just sat there, helplessly smiling, absolutely perplexed by the pressure of sheer friendliness.
I was rescued by the tourist police officer, who’s duties, apparently, to protect tourists from locals. Yes, that’s right. This is not that they think locals can be nasty to the foreigners, but if you’d seen what could happened, if they won’t keep those kids under control, you will not be questioning the ethics of police presence anymore. Just as never did I since I witnessed how the police officer broke up the uncontrollable mass of youth…with the help of rather thick cane and pretty loud yelling. (yes, children rights compainers, they do use canes on kids for real over there and to be honest, I can’t see any other means to deal with them)
That was a good lesson for me, this encounter. I’ve learnt to avoid places full of schoolkids and not even try to reply to their questions, as not that they were desperate to know my name, but simple they didn’t know any other phrases yet…(I still had a few "interesting" moments involving Egyptian kids, but this will be a story for later)