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The day of the pyramids.

What better way to begin a trip to Egypt than with the Pyramids?  Their image is so intertwined with that of the country that they are the international shorthand symbol for Egypt.  Eiffel Tower -- France.  Big Ben -- UK.  Complex election scandals -- US.  Pyramids -- Egypt.

When driving to our hotel in Giza last night, we passed through most of Cairo, crossed the Nile, and just as we entered the west bank suburbs noticed a light on the horizon.  What is that shape, behind the apartment buildings, that you can just barely make out from the highway?  Looks kind of like a big...oh...it's a pyramid.  They are just there, on the edge of town, surrounded on several sides by streets and buildings.  Apparently the city was originally going to build the new ringroad around the Pyramids until the UN objected and they chose to end it just a bit before you get there.  Our hotel sits a scant hundred feet from the entrance gate, practically at the foot of the Great Pyramid of Khufu.  While you certainly appreciate the view, it seems somehow sacreligious to perch so close to such antiquity.  But then the colored light show begins and you realize that proximity is the least of the sins committed.

As we arrive, there is a bit of activity at the entrance.  A wedding reception is just beginning, and the bride and groom are about to arrive.  They are riding white camels, and are escorted by musicians and horseriders.  It's a lovely procession to watch from afar, and the traditional dress and lovely camels are clearly as much a delight for their friends and family as for the tourists.

In the morning, we breakfast with a pyramid view , almost too close to appreciate its beauty.  At least the sunlight is natural.  The view is almost enough to compensate for the instrumental hits of Lloyd Webber collection played incessantly in the restaurant.

We begin our day by turning left, away from the Pyramids, and heading south along the canels of Giza to Memphis .  This early city is now destroyed, each successive layer burying the last until all that remains is a few intriguing mounds.  Unlike the other major centers of Egyptian government, little has been recovered here.  A few statues, a lovely sphinx, that is all that can be seen today.

From Memphis we return north to Saqqara .  This is a very early site, home to the first pyramids and other tombs of the first dynasties.  On the horizon to the south , you can see the ruined pyramid of Meidum and, closer, the pyramids of Dashur.  Turning to the north, you see the famous profile of the Giza pyramids.  The sky is an absolutely cloudless blue, fading ever lighter at the horizon to merge with the beige limestone of the hills.  The colors are stark -- the deep blue of the Nile, the green band of trees and fields by the river, giving way abruptly to sand and rock and sky.  All are softened by the dust in the air, giving it a feel of distance, almost detachment.

Saqqara has a number of mastaba-style tombs of the first dynasties.  The carvings on the walls are already at the stage that we think of as typically Egyptian.  The heiroglyphs, the sideways figures engaged in offerings and daily pursuits, the gods watching overhead.  The scenes are energetic, showing bird hunting, fishing, building and industry.  A picture of a happy and busy life is quickly formed, without any knowledge of the text.

The pyramid of Titi, a 1st Dynasty Pharoah, is now badly eroded above ground.  Below in the tomb are found the earliest representations of the Book of the Dead.  A series of myths, instructions, remonstrations, and half-remembered tales, these seem to have existed in some form during pre-Dynastic times.  Compiled here, they already seem somewhat confused and ancient.

We also see here the Step Pyramid of Djoser, designed by the great Egyptian engineer Imhotep.  (Yes, the same one that always seems to crop up as a villian in mummy films.)  This is the earliest pyramid design, created by heaping more and more layers on top of a standard mastaba tomb design.  The entire court here was designed by Imhotep, with wide open areas and a collonnaded corridor as the main entrance.  Camel drivers hover nearby, breathlessly hoping that someone will want to ride a camel for four hours to Giza.  We demur and climb back in our air-conditioned van.

Now we turn north once again toward THE pyramids .  Only about 150 years separate the early attempts at Dashur and Saqqara from the enormity, both in scale and effort, of Giza .  The Great Pyramid is not merely large -- it is stable, precisely aligned with the sun, perfectly symmetric, and so carefully designed that today one can climb to its heart without (much) concern.  The interior shafts are precise, straight and smooth.  The courses of stone create an illusion of vaulting in one interior chamber, a visualization of infinity much like a set of facing mirrors or a hall of endless columns.  Straight, smooth, precise, but sterile.  No grave goods remain.  The casing stones are gone, quarried as if this magnificent tomb was nothing but a convenient scrap heap.  Up close, the edges are jagged , each corner nibbled away by generations of human mice.

Surrounding the pyramid are several smaller pyramids for family members and pits containing solar boats for the spirit's journeys after death.  One of these was found almost intact, carefully preserved down to the rigging and oars.  The archeologists put it back together (it had been disassembled before storage, creating a giant boat kit without instructions or even a picture on the box) and it now has its very own boat-shaped museum on the site, just a couple of meters from the pyramid's base.

Today is a crowded day at Giza, as it is a national holiday and families have come out to enjoy the day while doing something educational.  The attitude of children to educational fun on a day off is universal.  Considering that you can see them from the highway, the Wonder of the Ancient World must seem rather boring compared to the other options at home.  The holiday itself is an interesting perspective on local history, as it marks the day Egypt re-invaded Sinai to take it back from Israel.  It is a day of obvious significance, and there are roads, squares, even towns named 6th October (or its equivalent, 10th Ramadan).  The US version of current events is such that it's easy to forget the history of aggression that created the current distrust.

Through crowds of tourists of all nationalities, locals, camels, horses, touts, antiquities police with constantly blowing whistles, we go to see the Sphinx .  It's so small, you think, compared to the pyramid sitting behind it.  Somehow it is always pictured in profile , out of proportion perhaps but huge and mysterious.  Here it seems almost an afterthought, a guardian of the mortuary temple for the far more important tomb behind.  In person, it becomes even more stark how out-of-place the head is on the lion's body.  Was there a different, larger head before?  How old is the base?  Was it here before the pyramids, some ancient lioness guarding the hills, only later recarved to protect the constructed hills of the pyramids?

The mystery of the Sphinx is partially resolved as we exit.  It seems to like fast food, staring directly at a joint KFC/Pizza Hut.  Never let it be said that the US has no interest in Egypt.

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