A Middle East Expedition

The ticket to the Egyptian Museum is a souvenir worth keeping. The Egyptian Museum is one of the world's great museums. In 1835, the Egyptian ruler Mohamed Ali got sick and tired of Europeans stealing valuable artifacts from the pyramids and tombs along the Nile, so he banned the export of all antiquities.

The best example of one of the stolen items was the Rosetta Stone. The granite stele marking the coronation of Ptolemy V in 196 BC was written in three languages - picture hieroglyphics, cursive hieroglyphics, and Greek. It enabled modern scholars, for the first time, to translate the ancient Egyptian language.

The stone was found by one of Napoleon's soldiers in 1799. When the British defeated the French, the stone was taken to London where it rests today in the British Museum.

Ali's successor, Said Pasha, hired a Frenchman to build a place to house all the antiquities he expected to be recovered. This became the Egyptian Museum in 1902. It wasn't long before all 107 rooms on the two floors were overflowing.

I purchased this photo of the mummy of Rameses I since photography was not allowed in the museum. For the past 10 years the Department of Antiquities has been renovating, expanding, and reorganizing the building. But because it is a greater attraction than the Pyramids of Giza, they must keep it open in spite of scaffolding, hammering, and dust.

Mohamed Ali, our guide, not the 19th century ruler nor the boxer, bought our tickets, and we filed through the metal detectors, x- ray machines, and physical inspections by armed guards with earphones attuned to sharpshooters on the roof. No bags or cameras were allowed in. As we waited our turn, I heard languages from around the world, saw T- shirts promoting every celebrity known to man, and gawked at tattoos peeping out from under socks, panties, and bras.

The museum was organized chronologically, which made it easy to follow the endless progression of pharaohs down the Nile. Since we only had three hours in the dusty place, Linda and I decided to pick a few rooms on which to concentrate our attention.

The Egyptian Museum in Cairo is one of the world's great museums. The Royal Mummy Room contains the remains of scores, maybe hundreds, of Egyptian royalty from 1650 BC to 945 BC. To my untrained eye, they all looked the same - dark leathery skin, orange or yellow hair, hooked noses, and tattered shrouds.

The Tutankhamun Galleries shocked me. I had seen the King Tut exhibit in New York, but here were the "Russian Doll" boxes that originally held the Boy King's sarcophagi. Four huge containers, one inside the next, were designed to frustrate grave robbers.

I particularly liked King Tut's short, curly wig that was kept in a special blue and orange inlayed wooden box. Linda was repulsed by the canopic jars that held Tut's internal organs. This was necessary for mummification and, according to the religion, the organs would re- enter the body in the next life.

The Animal Mummy Room shocked us both. They killed and mummified the pharaoh's favorite animals so he would have them in the next life? There they were, ready for their master's command - dogs, cats, crocodiles, birds, jackals, and sheep.

Jimmy Carter's autographed menu hangs on the restaurant wall in Cairo. At the appointed time, we filed out under close surveillance and were bused to a falafel restaurant for lunch. President Jimmy Carter visited the restaurant while trying to get the Arabs and Jews to follow the peace accords. His autographed menu hangs on the wall. Then, under police escort, our bus headed for Port Said where we would board our ship and enter the Suez Canal.

Next week:

Cruising the Suez Canal