The Egyptian Museum in Cairo

The Sphinx outside the museum entrance
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The key to smart travel in Egypt is to start your day early – and get most of your sight seeing done before the sun gets at its high point. That way you’re back in your hotel around 2 or 3 pm and can either nap or soak in the pool and then head out again in the evening just before or around dusk.

Of course, this totally sucks if you’re not at all a morning person – especially if one of the perks of your “vacation” is supposed to be the ability to sleep in! I’m no morning person (and I am up late most nights – even on my vacation ) so waking up at 6 or 7 am each day was a bit of a bummer but it was a smart thing to do. And so, on our last day in Cairo, after a leisurely breakfast, we were ready and waiting for our tour guide at 8 am in the lobby of the Mena House. Our destination this morning was the Egyptian Museum in Cairo

The two galleries that fascinated me the most (aside from King Tut’s gallery) were the galleries exhibiting the papyrus collection and the Royal Mummy room with all the dead mummies.

This little kid appeared to be in charge of the office that was checking in our cameras at the museum entrance!!
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A serious history buff could easily spend a month at this museum and still not have enough time to study everything that’s on display. Fortunately, the average visitor can still get an appreciation of the splendour of the old and middle kingdoms of Egypt, the graeco roman influence and also understand the country’s importance in world history – with just a few hours at the museum in the company of a knowledgeable guide (and ours was an Egyptologist to boot).

There were two disappointments though. One, no cameras are allowed in the museum – which means, after your tour, you should really buy a museum guide book (with illustrations) or buy a stack of postcards to take back as those are the only photos you will have of the exhibits you saw. The second piece of bad news hit us as we entered the museum – there is NO air conditioning!! The place is huge and it’s packed with visitors – most of them following more or less the same route through the museum. This was going to be very uncomfortable.

Another shot outside the museum
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However, we quickly forgot about these minor inconveniences the minute we laid eyes on the enormous statue of Ramses II which is the first monument that greets visitors in the museum. It’s sheer size and detail make it majestic. In many ways, the experience is not unlike visiting the ROM (the Royal Ontario Museum) in Toronto where one of the first things to you see is the enormous totem pole at the entrance of the museum (I wonder if they’ve changed that layout though since the addition of the Crystal at the ROM. I should make a trip again soon to find out). Anyway, back to Cairo - this museum exhibits over 120,000 objects. For the most part, these are artifacts from the tombs of kings and members of the royal families of the old and middle kingdoms. These include elaborately carved wall reliefs, objects such as jewelry, furniture, alabaster casings, boats, sticks, and, in some cases, even items of clothing and footwear.

The gold mask of Tutunkhamun
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The two galleries that fascinated me the most (aside from King Tut’s gallery – which I will describe later) were the galleries exhibiting the papyrus collection and the Royal Mummy room with all the dead mummies. Te first one was humbling just from seeing all the literary wealth that this ancient civilization has passed down to us. Stories, words of wisdom, love letters – all written meticulously on papyrus sheets, thousands of years ago, in hieroglyphics. It was really quite amazing.

King Tut's innermost coffin - made of 110 kilos of solid gold!!
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Seeing the dead mummies, on the other hand, tightly wrapped in their linen casing and then covered in gilded wood – that was a bit spooky. There were so many of them - all just silently laying there while visitors like me poked our noses through glass cabinetry checking them out. To think, they all expected to be on some kind of journey in their afterlife and here they were instead, in a glass cabinet, enduring our unabashed scrutiny.

I didn’t know a lot about mummification so I was grateful to see that there’s a section in the museum that actually tells you (with illustrations) on how the ancient pharohs were mummified. The entire ritual is quite elaborate. What’s important to know is that, upon death, the body was first gutted and all the blood is drained and the organs are removed. The organs are then placed in separate alabaster containers – and these have such intricate designs and carvings – it’s quite a project. The body is then washed (or sponged) with water and then covered with salt and left alone for about 30 days. Then, the salt is sponged off and various oils and ointments are applied to the body before it is tightly wrapped in a criss-cross pattern using linen sheets. Then the wrapped mummy is placed in a second casing (often gilded wood) which is then painted or decorated with carvings. Generally, the dead person’s face is painted on this casing – so as to allow the soul to recognize the physical form it had discarded and lay claim to all the possessions that were left behind to allow the dead pharoh to make a comfortable journey into the afterlife. This is the reason why all tombs and mummies (including the sarcophagus) would have extensive hieroglyphics on them. They were either elaborate accounts of the dead Pharoh‘s life and his deeds – so as to enable the Gods to judge him and/or there were detailed directions from the “book of the gates” giving instructions on the journey into the afterlife. And the amount of time, expense and effort that went into the creation of each tomb, the mummies, the masks, the paintings, the possessions left in the tomb – reveal just how fervently this civilization believed in the afterlife.

Tutankhamen's funeral bed is made in the bovine form of the goddess Hathor with the solar disc between her horns. This is the bed on which Tutankhamen's coffin was laid.
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The most famous part of the museum is the entire section devoted to the contents found from the tomb of King Tutunkhamun – the child king of Egypt who was declared a king only at the age of eleven (I think) and who ruled for only a few years and was killed (although there is some speculation about the manner of his death) at the age of 18 or 19. No visitor to the museum leaves without getting at least a glimpse of the famous solid gold funeral mask of King Tut. It’s amazing in its detail and shines with brilliance. Two other items that dazzle visitors are the two inner coffins of King Tut – one of gilded wood set with semi-precious gems and the other cast of solid gold. Both have elaborate notations on them recording details about the young king. The body of King Tut lies in its tomb at the Valley of the Kings – which we will visit when we take our Nile cruise from Luxor to Aswan. Other notable objects are his couches, beds, walking sticks, hairs and his famous royal “lion” throne, named after the solid gold lion heads and legs on each side.

The Royal Mummies **shudder**
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I could have easily stayed longer and explored more (yikes, does that make me a history geek?) but the heat was getting to Missy and I could tell she was getting overloaded with history – so we decided to quit while the place still left a sense of awe within us.