Today is Sunday and I start work tomorrow so I spent the day just familiarizing with the area around the hotel. I walked along the Nile River again and even in the daytime the river seems quiet and serene. There were a few tourist boats and a couple of sailboats but mostly I just saw occasional fishing boats out in the water using nets—something they’ve been doing here for over 3,000 years. I walked over to the Egyptian National Museum just to look around outside. As I imagined it was packed with tourists on Sunday but I did spend some time walking around the garden in front taking pictures of the antiquities. I plan to go back early one morning and set aside entire day to visit later this trip.
The Egyptian National Museum is considered a first-class collection of Egyptian historical artifacts which may seem obvious but for centuries Egypt was plundered by outsiders and many of the valuable antiquities ended up in museums around the world. Even today the famous Rosetta Stone is on display in London but many ma
jor museums are beginning to return the treasures that were stolen or bought in the past. Inside the museum are King Tut’s galleries, statues, royal mummies, jewelry and hieroglyphics. But many of the stone artifacts are severely damaged but still of great historical importance and they are placed in the garden in front of the building and I walked around today looking at them.
Later I walked back over to the Nile River and visited a small café for lunch and found some shops and also stopped at several major hotels getting brochures on day trips around the city and to the pyramids later.
Egypt is very conservative Muslim and evidence of that is every
where but there is also a very relaxed and tolerant atmosphere. Small mosques are literally everywhere but the old section of the city has several large and very old mosques that are open to the public. In addition, though, there are many Christian churches—here they tend to be Coptic Christian or Orthodox Christian very similar to the Ethiopian Orthodox Churches I visited last year in Addis Ababa. Coptic means “Egyptian” and like the Orthodox, both religions developed as Christian separate from Rome and the Vatican and therefore do not recognize the Pope. Both Coptic and Orthodox here are very much Old Testament religions and in practices are very similar to Judaism. There are also several Jewish synagogues here including the Ben Ezra Synagogue. Legends link it to Moses during his Egyptian years but the synagogue itself has been traced back to the 12th Century. Over the millenniums, Egyptian law has stated that any paper with the name of God on it cannot be destroyed and as a result excavations at the synagogue during the 1950s revealed a wealth of Jewish manuscripts, many of which are still being translated today.
Today was a relaxing and interesting day but tomorrow it’s back to work……..
The Egyptian National Museum is considered a first-class collection of Egyptian historical artifacts which may seem obvious but for centuries Egypt was plundered by outsiders and many of the valuable antiquities ended up in museums around the world. Even today the famous Rosetta Stone is on display in London but many ma
jor museums are beginning to return the treasures that were stolen or bought in the past. Inside the museum are King Tut’s galleries, statues, royal mummies, jewelry and hieroglyphics. But many of the stone artifacts are severely damaged but still of great historical importance and they are placed in the garden in front of the building and I walked around today looking at them.Later I walked back over to the Nile River and visited a small café for lunch and found some shops and also stopped at several major hotels getting brochures on day trips around the city and to the pyramids later.
Egypt is very conservative Muslim and evidence of that is every
where but there is also a very relaxed and tolerant atmosphere. Small mosques are literally everywhere but the old section of the city has several large and very old mosques that are open to the public. In addition, though, there are many Christian churches—here they tend to be Coptic Christian or Orthodox Christian very similar to the Ethiopian Orthodox Churches I visited last year in Addis Ababa. Coptic means “Egyptian” and like the Orthodox, both religions developed as Christian separate from Rome and the Vatican and therefore do not recognize the Pope. Both Coptic and Orthodox here are very much Old Testament religions and in practices are very similar to Judaism. There are also several Jewish synagogues here including the Ben Ezra Synagogue. Legends link it to Moses during his Egyptian years but the synagogue itself has been traced back to the 12th Century. Over the millenniums, Egyptian law has stated that any paper with the name of God on it cannot be destroyed and as a result excavations at the synagogue during the 1950s revealed a wealth of Jewish manuscripts, many of which are still being translated today.Today was a relaxing and interesting day but tomorrow it’s back to work……..
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