Schwartz Illustrated

EGYPT JOURNAL ENTRY

September 9, 2001
ALEXANDRA AND CAIRO EGYPT (Continued)

The next stop was what I had been waiting for ever since I was a little girl...the pyramids!!! We were taken to the Giza pyramids. This is the only remaining wonder of the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World," exalted by the Greeks in the 2nd century B.C.! (Yes, I did get the previous line from my guide book.) In case you are wondering what the other ones were, I will tell you. They were the Lighthouse of Alexandria of Egypt, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, the Colossus in the port of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylonia and the Statue of Zeus by Phidias in the Temple of Olympia.

Now, back to the pyramids. If it weren't for the tourists, I would have felt transported back in time maybe 500 years. Many of the Egyptian men we saw still wore kaftans and there were camels everywhere. We spent a long time viewing the pyramids from afar just to take in the scene. Mona then led us to the pyramid of Khafre which is 137 meters high by 210 meters long. We were able to go inside the pyramid. Mike opted out of this adventure, but he did ride a camel! To get into the burial chamber, I had to walk in bent over at the waist most of the way. The day was not as hot as it could have been which was a blessing because the passageway got very hot and I was very aware of those people who had forgotten to apply their deodorant! When we arrived at the sarcophagus, our guide (not Mona - she didn't do the interior of pyramids) asked if we wanted to get in. The kids said no thanks so it was left to me to show what the Schwartzes were made of. It was a bit creepy if you want to know the truth and as I am laying in the box, Andrew grabs the cover and pretends to close it!

We regrettably had to leave the pyramids and drove to the Sphinx. The Sphinx is the likeness of King Khafre. The Sphinx is carved out of rock and is 21 meters high and 73 meters long. The pyramids loom up behind the Sphinx. No one knows how the pyramids were built but the historian Herodotus wrote in 455 B.C., "shifts of 100,000 men replaced each other every three months, working uninterrupted...it took 20 years to build the great pyramid."

We visited a shop where papyrus paper is made and sold with Egyptian art painted on the paper. We had seen papyrus at the Cairo Egyptian Museum that was 5,000 years old. The writing and art was perfectly preserved. The kids were captivated by the process of taking the papyrus plant and turning it into paper. The entire process takes 120 days. The papyrus plant was almost extinct, until someone found seeds and the plant is now grown again. We bought blank paper so the kids could make their own art that will last for 5,000 years!

	EGYPT JOURNAL ENTRY September 9, 2001 ALEXANDRA AND CAIRO EGYPT (Continued) The next stop was what I had been waiting for ever since I was a little girl...the pyramids!!! We were taken to the Giza pyramids. This is the only remaining wonder of the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World," exalted by the Greeks in the 2nd century B.C.! (Yes, I did get the previous line from my guide book.) In case you are wondering what the other ones were, I will tell you. They were the Lighthouse of Alexandria of Egypt, the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, the Colossus in the port of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylonia and the Statue of Zeus by Phidias in the Temple of Olympia. Now, back to the pyramids. If it weren't for the tourists, I would have felt transported back in time maybe 500 years. Many of the Egyptian men we saw still wore kaftans and there were camels everywhere. We spent a long time viewing the pyramids from afar just to take in the scene. Mona then led us to the pyramid of Khafre which is 137 meters high by 210 meters long. We were able to go inside the pyramid. Mike opted out of this adventure, but he did ride a camel! To get into the burial chamber, I had to walk in bent over at the waist most of the way. The day was not as hot as it could have been which was a blessing because the passageway got very hot and I was very aware of those people who had forgotten to apply their deodorant! When we arrived at the sarcophagus, our guide (not Mona - she didn't do the interior of pyramids) asked if we wanted to get in. The kids said no thanks so it was left to me to show what the Schwartzes were made of. It was a bit creepy if you want to know the truth and as I am laying in the box, Andrew grabs the cover and pretends to close it! We regrettably had to leave the pyramids and drove to the Sphinx. The Sphinx is the likeness of King Khafre. The Sphinx is carved out of rock and is 21 meters high and 73 meters long. The pyramids loom up behind the Sphinx. No one knows how the pyramids were built but the historian Herodotus wrote in 455 B.C., "shifts of 100,000 men replaced each other every three months, working uninterrupted...it took 20 years to build the great pyramid." We visited a shop where papyrus paper is made and sold with Egyptian art painted on the paper. We had seen papyrus at the Cairo Egyptian Museum that was 5,000 years old. The writing and art was perfectly preserved. The kids were captivated by the process of taking the papyrus plant and turning it into paper. The entire process takes 120 days. The papyrus plant was almost extinct, until someone found seeds and the plant is now grown again. We bought blank paper so the kids could make their own art that will last for 5,000 years! <go back one page \| to the next page >

	© All Rights Reserved, Mike Schwartz, 2001.