In addition to the Pyramids at Giza, the World Heritage Site includes three additional areas, all of which we explored on Friday. The first on our day tour was Saqqara, where we learned the architect (among many other titles) Imhotep designed the first pyramid for use as a tomb. Previously, the Egyptians used mastabas, which look like a series of small rectangular tombs underneath of which are deep chambers where mummies and their artifacts were buried. The site includes both mastabas and the Step Pyramid – the first of the burial pyramids. There is also a museum on site where we saw a very well-preserved mummy; the head and feet were intact and sort of creepy. 
As we walked through the mastabas, we came across a wall whose façade still had hieroglyphics intact. That was so amazing and we were fascinated to be standing before such a living piece of history not in a museum. Further along, we were able to enter three tombs and the amazement grew as we walked into the chambers and saw the hieroglyphs, plenty of which still had their colorful paint. We were again awestruck and just looked in wonder among the painted history and story of the person buried within the tomb. In each chamber we could see the different stories being told as we noticed more sea animals in one and more land animals in another, and in the third was a mix of the two. We spent a good amount of time just taking in the fact we were standing in these ancient tombs from nearly 5000 years ago and where Egyptian scribes left these stories for eternity.
If that wasn’t amazement enough, our next stop brought us to Memphis, once the capital of the Old Kingdom, where several statues, sarcophagi, and stelae are kept. You’d think we had seen enough after 7 hours in the Egyptian Museum, but we still looked in awe among the carvings and artwork of the Egyptians. We saw an enormous statue of Ramses II that is largely still in great condition with its hieroglyphic etchings deep and strong. Finally, we journeyed on to the site of Dahshur where there are 3 more pyramids. We were able to crawl into the Red Pyramid through a narrow 65-meter downward slope (from about 1/3rd of the way up the outside); we made our way into the pyramid which smelled putrid with a sense of the death and decay and was also extremely hot within. We found ourselves in a tall pyramid-shaped room from which we climbed a set of stairs into another pyramidal room where we saw a large open hole of rocks, presumably from the walls. Hmmm…Well, it was interesting to crawl into a pyramid, though a bit claustrophobic and eerie.
Another pyramid of note at this site is the Bent Pyramid, which looks as though something amiss happened in the construction phase between working on the bottom and then the top. There are some hypotheses floating around as to why this occurred. Off in the distance stands a rather odd-shaped structure that our driver did not know anything about and to which we were unable to travel, it’s called Amenemhat III.
These sites are further from the city limits than Giza, so they are in the desert, and it was hot!Though, it appears today simply turned hot in Egypt as we heard it was also fairly high temperature in Cairo as well. Glad to know we are heading out before it gets much hotter; we’ve been rather lucky with the temperatures thus far and are happy to keep it that way since we know hot and humid days are in our near future!
Al Hub as-Salaam!
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