I've been gone for a while and have not had a chance to update my blog. However, today I am going to vary the style a bit and give my readers a chance to experience some of the sites we saw on our trip to the Holyland. First of all, I never envisioned the opportunity to travel to the Middle East, but when the Youth Pastor at my daughter's school started organizing it, we jumped at the chance and are very grateful for all the hard work he put into it to keep the group together and it was enhanced by some very good Christian guides. The Bible came to life.
We started our journey in Egypt to follow the path of Moses. As you might imagine the Pyramids are amazing feats of engineering. If you look closely, after 4000 years there has been a bit of "recycling" going on as it was an easy source of building materials for the locals since the Pharaohs were dead and nobody cared if parts were confiscated. Only one of the 3 pyramids has any remnants today of the limestone face that made it a perfectly clean structure and not the haphazard laying of blocks that we see today. Historians indicate that the top peak was a gold cap 10 feet tall which would have been an awe inspiring vision seen well beyond the Nile. However, today no golden cap remains and all three structures are missing at least 10-15 feet of material all the way around, from top to bottom. See the indent about 1/4 of the way from the top and follow it down to the ground. This is the rugged jigsaw block we see today.
These were amazing tombs for the most important Pharaohs and were most likely laden with treasure beyond belief. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know where to look to rob it and nothing remains today. However, we did have a chance to see the treasure of Tutankhamen at the Cario Museum. He was buried further south in a hidden tomb under tons of rock. This boy king reigned for 9 years and if the treasure were proportional, it would have been amazing to see what would have been in the great pyramids. We saw only the highlights on our short tour from King Tut and it was mind blowing. First of all, by the time Howard Carter found the hidden tomb (the ancient Egyptians got a bit smarter and decided not to advertise the location so much), he was greeted by a burial room with a huge golden box that had to be 15 feet tall, wide and deep. (It was wooden, with gold embossed around it). Then inside that box, was a second golden box. Then a third... and finally a fourth golden box. Inside that was the sarcophagus, made of wood with gold covering it. Then inside, was a solid gold casket weighing 232 pounds of Nubian gold which in today's value would be $5.2 million if melted down by itself but is so much more valuable for the exquisite artwork. Finally inside was the mummy with the famous headdress commonly seen above. This does not take into account, the 150 pounds of gold necklaces with precious stones on top of the mummy. Did I say this was amazing, but think what treasures where in the big pyramids shown above for the most important Pharaohs of the day.
In any case, all those treasures did them no good. We learned an interesting fact that it was the belief of the Egyptians that after death, the heart was removed and weighed. If the heart was light as a feather, the Pharaoh would have an after life. If it was heavy, it was eternal damnation. If the scale was balanced, then the Pharaoh was judged. Here is a copy of the depiction of the heart decision. The top row is the judgement. Our guide had us read part of the Bible where God made the Pharaoh's heart hard. Could "hard" be a reference to "heavy" which is what the Pharaoh would have feared? We may never know, but it is an interesting theory by our guide.
Some may not know this, but the Giza plateau is just across the Nile outside of present day Cario. We stayed less than 10 minutes from the Pyramids, but the elevated area is the beginning of the Sahara Dessert. The ancient Egyptians kept life and death separated by the Nile. Everything to the West was for death (tombs and dessert) and everything East was life and where they lived. As we traveled toward the Sinai out of Cario, we had to cross the Red Sea.... well actually go under it by bus. (We went under the Suez Canal since Moses wasn't around to part the Sea). Numerous scholars say that the parting of the Red Sea was actually the parting of the Reed Sea and due to a misunderstanding by translators. Where Moses started, it would have been more likely to take the Northern route across one of the lakes to escape the Pharaoh. Our guide had an interesting take on the momentous occasion. Since the Jews had spent close to 400 years in Egypt they would have known the customs and beliefs of the Egyptians. One was that Death was on the west side and Life on the east side and in order to get to "Life" one had to cross a body of water. So Moses used the Reed Sea (which is quite deep in parts) as a means to keep the Pharaoh's army from chasing them down in the open dessert and as a way to show the Israelites a symbolic means of going to a new "Life" out of the "Death" they were in by crossing from West to East. Perhaps this is right... perhaps it is just interpretation... but another interesting theory to consider.
Next part... Mt. Sinai at sunrise.
Some may not know this, but the Giza plateau is just across the Nile outside of present day Cario. We stayed less than 10 minutes from the Pyramids, but the elevated area is the beginning of the Sahara Dessert. The ancient Egyptians kept life and death separated by the Nile. Everything to the West was for death (tombs and dessert) and everything East was life and where they lived. As we traveled toward the Sinai out of Cario, we had to cross the Red Sea.... well actually go under it by bus. (We went under the Suez Canal since Moses wasn't around to part the Sea). Numerous scholars say that the parting of the Red Sea was actually the parting of the Reed Sea and due to a misunderstanding by translators. Where Moses started, it would have been more likely to take the Northern route across one of the lakes to escape the Pharaoh. Our guide had an interesting take on the momentous occasion. Since the Jews had spent close to 400 years in Egypt they would have known the customs and beliefs of the Egyptians. One was that Death was on the west side and Life on the east side and in order to get to "Life" one had to cross a body of water. So Moses used the Reed Sea (which is quite deep in parts) as a means to keep the Pharaoh's army from chasing them down in the open dessert and as a way to show the Israelites a symbolic means of going to a new "Life" out of the "Death" they were in by crossing from West to East. Perhaps this is right... perhaps it is just interpretation... but another interesting theory to consider.
Next part... Mt. Sinai at sunrise.
