So our travels are over and I’m sure you thought you were done. But a few more things I learned have to be shared.
Obelisks
Obelisks from ancient Egypt. They are monolithic and consisted from a single stone.
Egypt has 5 standing ancient obelisks according to our Egyptologist Hassan. But Wikipedia shows they have 7. I think maybe Hassan was limiting the count to those above 50 feet, because then the numbers coincide. Regardless, they have been diminished from the original count. There are remains of 12-14 still in Egypt including the largest unfinished one in a quarry in Aswan that is 137 feet tall (the tallest). Egypt’s count includes 2 in Cairo, two at Karnak and one at the Luxor Temple.
So where are the others?
There are 4 in Rome alone. One from Heliopolis (from 1300 BC) was moved to Rome by Augustus to celebrate the Roman conquest of Egypt. It stands in the Piazza del Popolo. There is another in Rome in Piazza di San Giovanni. There is one at the Vatican and one behind the Pantheon in Piazza Della Minerva.
In the late nineteenth century, three were moved out of Egypt; one went to London (Victoria embankment), one to New York (Central Park) and a second to Paris – which was part of the pair at Luxor Temple and now resides at Place de la Concorde.
One is in Istanbul.
Sphinx
And then there is the missing beard of the Sphinx. it broke into 3 parts. Egypt has one part, France has another and London has the third. Egypt is eagerly anticipating opening their new museum – GEM – Grand Egyptian Museum- (which we saw being constructed in Giza) and they have asked to borrow the two missing pieces back to reconstruct the beard just for the museum’s opening. They were flatly denied; the other countries were afraid Egypt wouldn’t return it at the end of the museum grand opening AND they were afraid it would set a precedent to return other pieces.
Sounds a lot like the Greek’s antiquities that the British museum first took when they said the Greeks weren’t taking care of them. Then Athens opened a gorgeous new museum to take care of their relics, and still the Brits say no, they won’t return what they took!
Why the Egyptians believed in the afterlife
Everything they saw – came then returned. The sun left every evening and returned in the morning. The moon left in the daylight and appeared in the evening. The rainy season came once a year, left then returned – same with the summer. So their experience was one of observing cycles – leaving and returning. They believed the same would happen to them. They would leave earth but would return.
The experts
So I have learned so much, and yet I don’t hold a candle to Jordan.
Jordan had literally hundreds of questions, and the two Egyptologists, Eiman and Hassan, each answered every one of his questions. But then we arrived in Jordan, where our guide Michel was not much of a historian or an expert. One hour into our first tour, Jordan asked a question and Michel said he didn’t know the answer. Jordan looked it up and answered his own question and suggested since he was the guide, he should get tipped. So Michel paid Jordan a coin. Suffice it to say, after 3 days with Michel – Jordan had a pocketful of coins from the different questions that Michel couldn’t answer.
Our travel plans experts at home.
So our travel agent Marion who has done so many of our incredible trips has retired, but she referred us to another Virtuoso agent, Colleen. Colleen also did an amazing job in putting this trip together and I would be happy to pass along her info to anyone interested.
And finally hats off to Jim who coordinated everything with Colleen. I have always planned our trips, but this was not a location I particularly wanted to go to (I was wrong on that). I was dragging my feet to do anything, so Jim stepped in and did it all (well Colleen did it all actually) – but he worked with her to come up with the best of everything.
Thanks to all.
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