The "real" 8 November 2024
It feels like "tomorrow," but today actually started at breakfast and an oientation meeting with the group led by our lovely, articulate, and knowledgeable conductress Hend, a mid-thirties woman with an archeological education. Breakfast at this hotel is a major thing: three rooms filled with every imaginable kind of morning food and drink. As Hend explained earlier, all the food and drink in our hotels are safe, whereas any place we might choose for separate dining might be a bit risky, especially if we choose uncooked vegetables or salads that could have been washed in the local water.
At the orientation meeting, each of us introduced him-/herself, and Hend reviewed the two-week itinerary. Everyone in the group is interesting, friendly, articulate, and "left-leaning." Although "Michael" and I are the oldest at 82 and 81, respectively, the others are in their 60s and 70s. Three of the five men and seven of the ten women are singles. Lots of states are represented, from California and Utah to Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Florida--and, of course, Georgia. We have started off very well.
After a brief break we headed for the old Egyptian museum and spent a couple of hours there under Hend's guidance. She showed and told about key statuary, jewelry, furniture, and stone or clay documents like the Rosetta Stone and a tablet depicting the history of the early dynastic Egypt. I was struck by statues of three generations of pharaohs--father, son, and grandson; also by a statue of another pharaoh flanked by two goddesses. One of the latter was sculpted from stone in a way that showed she was wearinug a transparent costume. Before I saw that, I was under the mistaken impression that such ability chip stone so as to depict sheer fabric was an invention of Renaissance European sculptors. There was also a statue of King Tut, showing how boy-like he was, and several masks or paintings that were so realistic as remind the viewer how only in the post-medieval period did European humanists, having rediscovered Greece, leave pure symbolism behind in favor or more realistic images.
Although we saw a couple of sepulchers featuring the jars used to store the internal organs of mummies, the actual "mummy room" has been moved to another museum--not the new "grand" one we'll visit. And, incidentally, I didn't realize until today that the ancient mummifies kept only the heart and some of the abdominal organs in jars within the tombs. The brains, which were extracted through the nose, were thrown away as not important. To the ancient Egyptians, all the key functions that needed to be preserved for the afterlife were conducted from the heart and kidneys. Indeed, if the god Anubis weighed the heart in a balance opposite a feather, and the heart was heavier, the dead person's soul would not go to heaven. Only the lighthearted would make it to a joyful eternity. Hmmmm...not a bad myth to "take to heart."
At 5 today we will hear a talk about the status of women in Egypt, and we'll enjoy a "welcome" dinner at a restaurant after that.
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