Deseret News | Experiencing Egypt

Experiencing Egypt

5,000-year-old culture has much to intrigue modern-day tourists

By Wade Jewkes
Deseret News

Published: Sunday, June 29, 2008 12:12 a.m. MDT

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The number-one attraction in Egypt is the Great Pyramids, but there is much more to see in this country where recorded history dates back more than 5,000 years, and the pharaohs shaped their legacies by erecting temples and monuments that ooze with inscriptions marking their quest for the afterlife.

Tombs were stocked with writings and symbols indicating life would continue, but they were also stuffed with treasures that were believed somehow would go with the departed. Unfortunately, most golden valuables have been plundered to the point where modern-day archaeologists are happy to find the former because very little of the latter remains — having long since been lifted by the tomb raiders.

So, if your intrigue runs to culture study and what motivated this civilization, there is much to be found from the fertile valley of the Nile to the desolate Valley of the Kings. If you are fascinated by riches and wealth, well, there is that, too.

The famous King Tut tomb went undiscovered until an Englishman, Howard Carter, discovered it in 1922. It is believed that grave robbers perhaps overlooked this tomb because Tut was merely a "minor king." The Cairo Museum houses his "minor" riches, which are nothing short of stupendous. His coffin alone weighed 242 pounds made of solid gold. His throne is gold leaf plated and contains many semiprecious stones. In total, 3,500 items were discovered in his tomb. The thinking goes that Tut was a boy king dying at 18 years old and thus the kings living to old age would have had much more wealthy tombs had they not been robbed.

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The tomb of the most famous king, or Pharaoh, Ramses II, was discovered in 1881, and although the riches buried with him were long gone, his mummy was found intact and rests on display in the Cairo Museum. He has a very prominent, long, thin, hooked nose set in a long, narrow, oval face with a strong jaw. He was large for an ancient Egyptian, standing some 5 feet 7 inches tall. His mummy's gray hair had been dyed red, and modern technology has proven that in his youth he was a redhead, which was not a common trait of ancient Egyptians.

New discoveries are being made every year in Egypt, and recently around a hundred mummies were discovered in a desert oasis west of Cairo. It is believed that possibly as many as 10,000 more may be found, and excavations could take decades.

But the old monuments offer much to the casual tourist. And the mummies present a preservation of the human body unlike anything found anywhere else in the world.

The Great Pyramids stand today as an engineering feat of epic proportions.

At the Giza Plateau, three pyramids lie perfectly aligned. With the Great Sphinx, they make up the necropolis complex that housed ancient burial sites from around 2600 B.C. This plateau stands on the outskirts of Cairo only 12 kilometers (just over 7 miles) from the modern city.