Page 44 - ParentsWorld March 2020 flipbuilder

nurturing 21st century children

leisure &

travel

Excursions ex Cairo
Great Pyramid of Giza. One of the universally ac-
knowledged wonders of the ancient world, the Great Pyra-
mid of Cheops at Giza made with two million stone blocks,
stands 455 ft tall. The sphinx, together with the Great
Pyramids of the three Pharaohs — Cheops, Chephren The Great Sphinx
and Micernius — are sited here. The smallest of them,
Micernius, barely 66 metres tall, has three small satellite
pyramids of the wives of the pharaoh. The three pyramids
are arranged diagonally, in a way that none of them hides men, who died at age 18. The inner and outer coffins are
the sun from the other. Typically, each pyramid consists of displayed in this museum. Incidentally King Tut’s tomb
a funerary temple in the valley. was discovered on November 4, 1922 by Howard Carter,
The largest of the three and an engineering marvel, is after six years of hard work beneath the rubble of the
Cheops, the final resting place of the eponymous pharaoh tomb of King Ramses VI in Thebes, aka Valley of the
built 4,500 years ago. It took ten years to merely construct Kings.
the path along which the stone blocks were hauled, a work The embarrassment of riches discovered in Tutankha-
of no less magnitude than construction of the pyramid men’s tomb and on display in the Cairo Museum, is
with a cubic area of 92,315 metres, 1,847 metres wide at breathtaking. The sarcophagus retains its delicate paint,
the base and 137 metres tall, constructed of polished fitted even though it’s over 3,000 years old, and Tutankhamen’s
stone blocks decorated with animal carvings. chariot looks sturdy enough for a ride to downtown Cairo.
The Great Sphinx. Known in Arabic as Abu-el-Hol The immaculately preserved human remains in the Mum-
(“the father of terror”), the effigy of the Great Sphinx my Room speak volumes about the heights attained by
is sited a mere 350 metres from the Cheops pyramid. Egyptians in the art and science of embalming the dead.
seventy-three metres in length, this enigmatic colossus The showstealer is the mummy of seti, over 3,300 years
represents a lion with a human head, which some believe old with teeth, fingernails and strands of hair perfectly
to be a likeness of Cephren standing guard over his tomb. preserved. The art of embalming bodies and transforming
During the course of centuries, the body of the sphinx has them into mummies was believed to be of divine origin,
frequently been covered by sand leaving only its inscrutable traced back to the God Horus, son of Osiris and Isis.
visage (5 metres tall) exposed. And through the ages the The Great Citadel. Ancient Egypt accommodated fol-
riddle of the sphinx never ceases to mesmerise audiences. lowers of several faiths and persuasions. In old Cairo one
Particularly recommended is the spectacular son et lumiere can see traces of early Judaism and Christianity, which
(sound and light) show every night, when the Great Pyra- flourished in Egypt. The St. Sergius Church commemo-
mids and sphinx are beamed with laser lights and visitors
are transported 4,500 years back in time when the Great Mohamed Ali Mosque
Pharaohs made preparations for the after-life amid pomp
and ceremony, as they listed their most treasured posses-
sions to be interred with them.
Cairo Museum with Tutankhamen Treasure. Rare
is the visitor to this country of antiquity, who doesn’t visit
the Cairo Museum with its mind-numbing pharaonic
collection. situated in the city centre, Cairo Museum is
crammed with over 100,000 antiquities from every period
of the country’s history including masterpieces like the
statues of Cheops, Chepren, Mycernius, Ramses II,
Tutankhamen’s gold treasure and an eerie assortment of
mummies.
The museum’s piece de resistance, the gold coffin of Tut-
ankhamen made of 450 pounds of solid gold, is perhaps
the finest example of goldsmithing in history. Three coffins
were used to contain the body of young king Tutankha-

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