of Egypt IV --- The Egyptian Museum and Closing Thoughts

On my way back from the Pyramids, I had gone on Thursday, the last workday of the week, I decided to go for the overkill and visit the Egyptian Museum too. Overcrowded is an understatement, there were literally queues of people both inside and out, shuffling behind each other looking at the displays. Kinda put me off but anyway, it is the world's single biggest collection of Egyptian artifacts afterall. Built 1897-1901, the museum was opened to the public in 1903. It is said to have over 27,000 ancient Egyptian artifacts, and if you spend a minute looking at each of them, you will need 10 months to see the entire thing! If you're visiting the museum for a few hours like me, there are a few things you should make the bee line for:

1. The royal mummy chamber. There are actually two seperate chambers, and there is a additional ticket for visiting these, on top of your museum entry ticket, 100 Egyptian pounds which equals to a little more than a 1000 Pakistani Rupees. The two chambers together have fifty four mummies, the highlight being that of the Ramses III

2. The treasures of King Tut. Tutenkhamen the boy-king of Egypt, died at the age of 19. He was married to queen nefertiti. His tomb in the Valley of the Kings remained safe from marauders throughout the centuries and was discovered untouched in 1920. All the treasuers in the tomb now lie in the Egyptian Museum. You get completely awe struck by their magnificence and the lengths to which the ancient Egyptians went to before burying their king. Important are the mask of Tutenkhamen. It is an 11 kg solid gold mask which was said to have covered the head of King Tut's mummy. Also for display, one of the two guilded coffins, The other still lies in the actual tomb in the Valley of the Kings and contained King Tut's body until only a month or so ago when the mummy was moved to a climate control chamber to prevent further damage through exposure to heat and humidity. There are a gazillion things more, jewelery, statues, thrones, chairs, beds, boats, crockery, clothes and what not. Definitely worth the visit. By the way the jewelery can put today's internationally famous top designers to shame.

Sadly no cameras are allowed inside, so I consoled myself by taking pictures of the exterior.

Host to all touristing humanity in Cairo, the place was crowded

I don't know what the Latin says but if you look closely the year of start of construction, 1897, is on the left, and the year of finish, 1901, is on the right. On the top are the Egyptian flag and the flag of chief archaeological body of Egypt

Yup this is what it looks like, a thriving Lily Pond in the middle of sweltering Cairo afternoon heat. looks amazing

A close up of the lily pond

After spending some three hours at the museum, I went to the office, the P&G office in Cairo is in the Nile City towers at Corniche El Nil, spent another four hours winding work up, then got into a cab and headed for the airport. Cairo traffic is infamous and my contact in Egypt bundled me off to the airport three and a half hours before the flight. As is bound to happen in such situations, the roads were relatively uncrowded and I made it to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Chatted the two hours at the airport away with a South Indian business intelligence professional based in Dubai, who was heading back to Dubai from meetings in Cairo and as usual was surprised to see a Pakistani girl travelling alone and that too on business. Heck, whats the big deal?!. Broke my fast at the airport as well. Got into the plane, had gotten my upgrade to Business Class (yay!) and slept my way back to Karachi, which was of course punctuated by an 8 hour transit at the Dubai airport.

Egypt is a place where you shouldn't go for a few days or a week, but for a month maybe more. Cairo is just barely scratching the surface, there are so so many things to be seen in Egypt: Memphis, Valley of the Kings, Abu Simbal, Aswan dam, Al Fayoum Oasis, Bab Zuweila, Beit ul Suhaymi, Souq al Gamaal, Citadel, Dahshur and I'm sure many many more.