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161.
The famous “King’s Chamber” is empty except for the mysterious “stone box”, which some think was a sarcophagus for a pharaoh’s mummy, but which is obviously too small for such a use.
The way they buried the old pharaohs, in coffin within coffin and sarcophagus inside sarcophagus make the idea preposterous.
I hop into the box myself but cannot lay down straight though I am only about six feet tall.
No, this lidless stone box is for something else besides a coffin, but I don’t know what!
If there ever was any thing else in this room--which was sealed and untouched until fairly recently--those contents were looted, dispersed and vanished long ago.
Even so--perhaps the vibrations set in motion by the very shape of the pyramid are still at work and perhaps being in this strange place is changing us somehow.
I have heard that the word “pyramid” refers somehow to “fire” and these geometric forms may be energetic in some currently unknown way. Well…
Previous treasure hunters have carved a big hole in one corner of the chamber and covered their work with heavy boards. I discover I can make a good loud drum sound by beating on the boards with my hands and so we four explorers chant “aummmmm” to a good rhythmic beat here in the heart of the great pyramid.
Maybe our echoes mix with some enduring vibrations left over from the great engineers who envisioned and built this place.
We’re here, Imhotep! The scattered pieces of Osiris are coming together again!!...
160.
We spend a day or so exploring the ruins of Karnak but the constant ferocious heat is getting to the Doc. She is not a born desert rat like I am so we catch the train back to Cairo,
In Cairo, we visit the pyramids again in the company of young VSO couple we meet at our pension hotel-- for another daytime visit.
Guides and guards swarm at the entrance hole into the Great Pyramid but somehow we manage to sneak by them and enter the mysterious tunnels and chambers all by ourselves.
Dim electric light bulbs hanging from open wires here and there provide a little light but the place is spooky enough for anyone. It is very old. Even the polished granite in the steep main corridor shows signs of wear. The high vault for sciences forgotten and the giant slide for equipment unknown stand empty, of course, as they were when the entrance was forced.
Wandering further into the pyramid, we find and climb a modern catwalk installed for tourists, then pass through a hole punched through a solid stone seal and emerge into a rectangular “time capsule”: the “King’s Chamber”.
I think: “it is older than I remember”, but know logically, of course, that I can have no memory at all of this place except in my imagination....
159.
And here are the mortal remains of the youthful king himself still encased in his golden sarcophagus. Tutankhamen is the only one of his peers to be at rest in his original tomb. I feel humble and strange to be in such intimate proximity to such a famous body and this is one of those human experiences that really cannot be described in words--at least not by me--but the tomb and it’s ancient occupant are certainly awe-inspiring, beautiful and unique.Out into the oven then back down into other cool underground tombs.
Some are painted with interesting murals, but all are empty. Obsequious guards offer to unlock more tombs for us to explore but we don’t have the necessary baksheesh and what we have seen for the regular park entrance fee was enough. ...
158.
In the morning we are up before dawn to catch the first ferry across the Nile. We want to visit the “Valley of the Kings” where the tombs of the pharaohs are located on the far side of the river and people say it is a short ride by bicycle from the ferry landing. So first we rent a couple of well-used bikes. Reaching the other side of the muddy river, we peddle down an empty country road flanked by empty fields. We pass between the much-ruined stone Statues of Memnon--which used to sing at dawn, they say, but are now mute. Kids come running from houses across the fields to trot beside us as we ride--yelling good-naturedly for “baksheesh”—the local equivalent of “cadeau”. The road turns left toward the hills. As soon as we leave the irrigated fields bordering the Nile we enter a short, very dry arroyo. Good heavens! This little dry gulch is the fabulous, world famous “Valley of the Kings”!Cyclone fencing surrounds the whole ravine. But before we can reach the gate into the “park” men and children offering imitation antiques and other touristic junk block our way. After a short but serious struggle we break through the swarm, pay the entrance fee and soon walk down a stone ramp right into King Tut’s famous tomb!It’s nice and cool!...
157.
Doc’s figure is slim and athletic and in the shapeless khaki pants and shirts she wears she can usually “pass” for male here though if we were in Europe or America where women are a bit more liberated she would probably be recognized instantly as an attractive young woman.
But Moslem women must dress like “women”, period, and there are customs and rules here defining correct female dress.
Veils are apparently not mandatory and some of the younger girls dress in a very provocative “western” style: mini-skirts and lots of make-up—but at whatever age they always look like females.
Since I do almost all of the talking and we both wear our longish hair in ponytails, I guess she is often mistaken for the “lean silent type” of young man here.Doc has traveled alone a lot and usually wears unsexy outfits like her present garb since she finds men-on-the-make: the traditional leering Mexican or groping Italian, boring. Frankly, I am so accustomed to liberated young women in America that I never even noticed how she was dressed. ...
156.
A railroad follows the Nile south to Luxor where many monuments built by the old people still stand and we want to visit them, so as soon as we can we are on the train rolling through cornfields and date palm groves. The villages we pass are made entirely of adobe and seem old and decayed.`````
Luxor, Egypt: There is a big train depot here for such a small town, decorated in the “Hollywood Egyptian” style of the nineteen-thirties when the discovery of King Tut’s tomb made this place a huge tourist hit.
The daytime temperature is beastly hot but we rent bicycles and peddle around in the early mornings and late afternoons.
The best ruins in Luxor have a “sound and light” show every evening with English commentary which we can hear standing outside the wall but our limited funds make the show out of bounds for us.
As we walk past the ruins, we hear folk music coming from a little house nearby and, finding us listening on the sidewalk, the residents come out and welcome us to enter and enjoy their Imam Hussein Festival. They merrily treat us to their holiday foods: okra soup, roast lamb, rice and bread and after smoking their ceremonial Marlboro cigarettes together, they lead us down the street to their tiny mosque where we sit while a man chants several chapters from the Koran very beautifully. Our English-speaking impromptu host has introduced himself as a student from the Institute of Language and Translation of Karnak. Doc is the only woman present in the mosque this evening perhaps, I think, because she is mistaken for a man.
Tall and dressed like a sahib or an archaeologist, she regularly wears “men’s style clothing” while in Egypt in order to be comfortable and to circumvent the Moslem customs relegating women to a very subservient role, which she declares is sexist and stupid. And, of course. As a liberated young American woman, she never wears make-up.
As a matter of fact her “male” costume and appearance may be the only reason we were allowed to go together inside the Mohammad Ali mosque in Cairo, but I am just beginning to understand some of the peculiarities of the Islamic way of life.
It was not too bad we missed the expensive sound and light show.
...
155.
Probably anything to do with tourists and the pyramids must have Egyptian bureaucratic approval, but since tonight is the full moon and we are in a hurry, we decide to celebrate the occasion on top of the “red” pyramid, Mankara, without getting any official permission.
We wait until sunset and then once again catch the Giza bus. The tremendous geometric mountains again loom in the bright moonlight. We cautiously sneak through the rows of ruined tombs in the sand to the side of the pyramid, which is in the blackest moon-shadow, and begin our ascent. The pyramids are built in tiers so the climb is fairly easy—like scrambling up a giant staircase.
A galloping horse below makes us freeze into the darkest of the shadows as we remember the rifles of the guards we met on our first pyramid expedition. When it is quiet again and we feel safe we continue our climb and in less than half an hour stand on the irregular stones at the apex of the pile.
Almost directly above us now, the full moon illuminates the ancient causeway below, used as we suppose, by devotees of Amon and Ra.
On my right are three much lesser pyramids and, on my left the huge silent pyramids of Korfu and Kephra and behind me; the desert. ...
