Come on in, the water’s fine. How fast can you swim? I can manage 5 miles per mile galloping along the bottom and 19 miles per hour on land.
It took me a while to get back to Africa after my Peace Corps assignment there from 1965-67. When my feet first touched African soil at Roberts Field in Liberia, Peace Corps was a baby of four and I barely qualified as a young adult at 22. That was 58 years ago. I always wanted to go back, but there was a lifetime of other things that needed to be seen and done…
A very young me as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Gbarnga, Liberia in 1967 with the senior class. I taught African History, World History and World Geography at Gboveh High School. My students took top national honors in Social Studies that year.
Peggy and I made up for our lack of African travel this year. In February we flew off to Egypt and boated up the Nile to celebrate my 80th birthday. It was an incredible experience, packed with ancient history and magnificent structures stretching back over 5000 years.
Peggy and I doing the tourist thing after we had just re-entered the world of the living from our trip deep under the pyramid of Khafre at Giza.
Now, we have just returned from a journey to the southern part of the African continent that included national parks in Botswana and Zimbabwe, Lake Kariba, Victoria Falls and Cape Town. It was equal to, if not more impressive than our Egypt adventure. Imagine a herd of several dozen wild elephants joining us for dinner by drinking out of a swimming pool located next to our dining table.
Elephants kept arriving to drink out of the swimming pool which was located about 20 feet away from our dining table at Iganyana Tented Camp in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe. One group would finish and another would arrive to take its place. This went on for at least an hour. I was kept busy with our iPhone taking photos. Best dinner show we have ever had!
Our recent trip started with a call from Peggy’s brother, John Dallen. Eleven years ago we took a delightful repositioning cruise with him, his wife Frances and friends Lee and Kathy Saaga, exploring the Mediterranean before sailing across the Atlantic back home. Since then, John has called several times with offers to join Frances and him in exploring the world. There were some great trips. But, as John likes to note, our travel styles differ substantially. If he is going to be out for six months, each day is carefully planned and reservations made, normally at four and five star hotels. If Peggy and I travel for six months, we have a vague idea of where we are going and make reservations a day in advance, if then. We once travelled for a year without making one. Our normal mode of travel is with a van or small travel trailer— or, putting our backpacks on and disappearing into the wilderness.
Frances, John, Peggy, Kathy and Lee in Santorini, one of the many places we visited in the Mediterranean.
This time, John made us an offer we couldn’t refuse. “Would you like to go on an African safari with us?” It took us five seconds to say yes. There would be hippos and lions and elephants to see, not to mention leopards, wart hogs, baboons and numerous other animals and birds. I will be featuring the places we visited and the wildlife we saw in our next several posts.
Today’s photos will give you a taste of what to expect. Peggy was traveling with her usual camera, a Canon EOS Rebel with a 20 to 300 mm Tamron lens. For Africa, I upgraded from my pocket Canon Power Shot to a different version, a Canon Power Shot SX 70 HS. Due to the miracle of modern technology it comes with a 21 to 1365 35mm equivalent lens and weighs just over a pound. It made it possible for us to capture photos like the hippo above.
The King of Beasts, proves his cat like nature by washing his face with a paw bath…While the Queen of Beasts just looks regal.It’s a croc! Is that a smile? Maybe he is dreaming of an impala dinner. “Wait for me Mom. I’m hurrying as fast as I can!” This baby elephant in Chobe National Park, Botswana was playing catchup. Gulp. Ostriches graze with their heads down and then raise it up to swallow. Obviously this guy had quite a gullet full. We came on him a couple of miles from the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa. The local bus? Given this photo, it may be hard to believe that the Cape Buffalo is the most dangerous animal in Africa. The birds aren’t getting a free ride, however. They are picking bugs off, which is much appreciated by both the birds and the buffalo.Would you believe my grey blue tongue is about 19 inches long?Have you seen any road or lion kill? I’m not particular about where it is or how long it has been there. We found this cute little fellow on Table Mountain above Cape Town, South Africa. I’m betting you probably don’t know its closest relatives. We sure didn’t. They are the elephant and the manatee. I’ll conclude today with this photo of Peggy, Frances, John and me on the Chobe River with an elephant backdrop. My next post will feature these elephants and many more we met along the way! John, BTW, has a travel blog you might want to check out at: dallen.posthaven.com. He calls his blog “Are We There Yet?”
Bone has been in many tough situations in his life; he can handle tough questions. Here he rests on top of a saguaro cactus in Arizona looking for border control agents. His lack of official papers, or even a birth certificate, can cause problems at times.
Q:Do you really talk? We’re speaking ethics here, Bone. Blogging is about transparency. That means honesty.
A. Are you crazy? Have you ever heard a bone talk? Of course I don’t talk. I just think out loud.
Q:Curt sometimes refers to you as he. Does this mean you are a male bone?
A. No. He makes assumptions, lots of them. He was showing me to a biologist at a writers’ conference in San Francisco and she suggested I have my DNA tested. “Just cut a small chip off of it,” she said nonchalantly. “You can determine its sex and breed.”
“Just cut a small chip off of it!” Outrageous! I am not some it to have chips cut out of. Besides, I lead a rich fantasy life and have no desire to know whether I am male or female. Call me she, he, or Bone, but never it.
Um, I think Bone is definitely a male in this photo. –Curt
Q: You have traveled all over the world and met thousands of people. How do they usually react to you?
A. With befuddlement. You should have seen the look on the face of the customs agent in New Zealand who tried to seize me as ‘animal matter.’ But emotions run the gamut. There was a Japanese man who got off a tour bus at Yellowstone National Park and wanted to hold me for good luck. Soon there were 40 other Japanese handing me around, oohing, and taking photos. I was thrilled. On the opposite side, I know a woman who refuses to touch me, like I have cooties. “I don’t know where Bone has been,” she states primly. Not surprisingly, there is also jealousy. “I want to be you and travel the world,” a good friend in Sacramento told me.
Some people act like I have cooties. This woman almost dropped me and then washed her hands! –Bone
Peggy and Curt’s niece, Christina, on the other hand, shows the proper way to treat me. —Bone
Q: What is your favorite thing to do?
A. Visit graveyards; there are lots of old bones there. My favorite grave is Smokey Bear’s in Capitan, New Mexico. I once stood on his tombstone for ten minutes trying to communicate but all I could get was something about ‘growling and a prowling and a sniffing the air.’ A close second is the grave of Calamity Jane in Deadwood, South Dakota. What a woman! These are difficult choices, though, when you toss in the likes of Hemingway, Daniel Boone and Billy the Kid. On the light side I once visited Ben and Jerry’s graveyard of discarded ice cream flavors in Vermont. My spookiest experience was a visit to the Capela dos Ossos, the Chapel of Bones, in Evora, Portugal, where an estimated 5,000 corpses were dug up to decorate the walls of the chapel. Those folks definitely have a skeleton in their closet, lots of them. The skulls kept whispering, “Join us, Bone.”I ran.
Bone has a special fondness for unusual graves. Here he hangs out with Billy the Kid in New Mexico. Has he been in a gunfight? Are those bloodstains on his vest?The camera broke when Curt tried to take a photo in the Chapel of Bones but here is my all time favorite sculpture at Burning Man, the Bone Tree.
Q: So, what’s your second most favorite?
A. Too hard; I am a dilettante dabbler, but here are a few.
Wandering, of course, anywhere and everywhere and by all modes: bikes, kayaks, rafts, skis, backpacks, sailboats, planes, helicopters, trains, cars, RVs, etc. I’ve been to all 50 states in the US and to over 50 countries worldwide.
Visiting wild, remote and beautiful natural areas. I started life wandering the Sierra Nevada Mountains, John Muir’s Range of Light.
Seeking out the strange such as ghosts and aliens (I’ve been to Roswell four times and Area 51 once).
Attending unique events like Burning Man.
Meeting weird people.
Bone backpacking on the John Muir Trail.
Bone and Curt and Tom Lovering at 10th and R Street Fox and Goose Restaurant in Sacramento. Tom owned the Alpine West backpacking and wilderness specialty store at this location when he and Curt discovered Bone in 1977.
Q:Tom Lovering and Curt ‘discovered’ you in 1977 when backpacking south of Lake Tahoe. You have wandered extensively with both. Which do you like best?
A. Eeyore, the jackass who can’t keep track of his tail. We’re traveling companions and he saved me from being strung up and buried on Boothill in Tombstone, Arizona. I’d robbed a bank, cheated at cards and hung out with women of questionable character. (This is what I mean by having a rich fantasy life. It’s also known as evasion.)
“I was in deep trouble in Tombstone. Wyatt Earp had arrested me for robbing a bank and Doc Holiday was checking me for weapons.”
My life as Bone was in serious jeopardy.
Odds were I was going to end up on Boothill, along with Billy Clanton.
But then the ever brave Eeyore came to my rescue! I hopped on his back and we went riding off into the sunset while leaping over large rocks.
Q:Which of your journeys has been most memorable?
A. I would have to say traveling the length of Africa in the back of a truck from the Sahara Desert in the north to Cape Town in the south with Tom. Almost falling off the back of a riverboat into a piranha infested section of the Amazon River would have to be a close second. I was perched on the back railing doing a photo shoot with Peggy. And then, of course, there was the 10,000-mile bike trip with Curt in 1989 and hiking 750 miles down the Pacific Crest Trail with him to celebrate his 75th Birthday in 2018.
Bone on photo shoot barely escapes falling off the edge into the piranha infested waters of the Amazon. “I was falling off when Curt leapt across the boat and grabbed me.”
“I was much smarter when I rafted down the Colorado. I wore a life jacket!”
“That didn’t protect me from pirates. The dreaded pirate Steve held a knife to my throat and demanded to know where I buried my treasure.”
Or Tom, Mr. River Safety himself, who took my vest off and wrapped me up in his hair.
Q:You are often seen scrambling over rocks in remote sections of the Southwestern United States. What’s that all about?
A. I’ve developed a fondness for Native American rock art. It resonates with my bone-like nature. It’s also another excuse to go wandering around in the outdoors. Plus, some those places might be haunted and it is a great place to look for UFOs. Some of the petroglyphs look amazingly like aliens. Finally, wandering in the desert is known to be good for the soul. Ask the Prophets of yore.
How can this guy and his strange dog not be aliens?
Here I am making tracks across White Sands National Park in New Mexico. It’s a great place to watch out for UFOs. BTW, I have visited visited 53 National Parks. –Bone
Q:Ah, being a born-again bone, do you have any insights into the great unknown?
A. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Q:Finally, and this may be a little sensitive, but do you always run around naked?
A. What kind of a question is that? Do you think I am uncivilized? For shame. I am the epitome of haute couture! A bow and arrow toting, card-carrying NRA member in Montana has designed and made me two leather vests. What’s more, a 90 plus year old woman in Kansas going on 20 with a crush on Johnny Depp and a room devoted to the Egyptian gods, has made me a kilt and several other outfits. Face it; I am hot stuff, clothed or naked. I may take up a modeling career.
My Bahamian/Canadian friend makes me a new vest in the wilds of Montana. –Bone
Bone, wearing his newly made kilt, fights off a ferocious sea monster in a scene straight out of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’
He caught me at a weak moment. Peggy and I had just re-entered the world of the living from our trip deep under the pyramid of Khafre at Giza and I was feeling a bit giddy. I’m not a fan of small, narrow, dark spaces. “You will look quite handsome in an Arab headdress,” the vendor told me. I looked at the white cloth and thought, to myself, “Ha, I can assessorize. It will match my beard.” He took our photo as Peggy and I did the tourist thing, using our hands to outline the Great Pyramid.
If you have ever been to Cairo, the odds are you have visited the pyramids and Great Sphinx at Giza. Over fourteen million people do every year. Located just outside the city, it’s an easy trip (depending on traffic) of just over 12 miles. Your journey back in time is a bit longer, some 4500 years. Of the three large pyramids, the Great Pyramid is the most famous. Considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, it was built some 2000 years before any of the other six. And, it has outlasted all of its younger siblings. Its longevity alone should earn its claim to fame, but consider this: Standing at 481 ft, (146.5 m.), it was the tallest human-built structure in the world for 4,000 years! That’s mind boggling. Or was that aliens who built it? Grin.
Seeing the pyramids is a must-do if you are visiting Cairo. They are located just a short distance from the city center. Cairo traffic may slow down your trip a bit, however…Here they are from left to right: The Great Pyramid, the pyramid of Khafre, and the pyramid of Menkaure. Perspective makes the pyramid of Khafre appear larger than the Great Pyramid in this photo. Cairo provides the backdrop. The tall buildings of downtown are barely visible through the smog.The Great Pyramid. One of the two entries can be seen on the right. People walking along the road on the left provide some perspective on size. This photo of the base of the Great Pyramid with the entry above, shows people walking along an established pathway. Peggy is one of them. People used to be able to climb the pyramids. Doing so now will get you a fine of somewhere between $639 and $6,390. I wonder if the amount is determined by how high you reach? Peggy, standing along the trail at the base of the Great Pyramid, provides a perspective on how massive the stone blocks used to build it are. It’s estimated that some 2,300,000 of these granite and limestone blocks were used in building the Great Pyramid with each block weighing an average 2.5 tons (2.3 metric tons). One of the all time great mysteries is how the ancient Egyptians moved the blocks into place. Answers have ranged from aliens (Twilight Zone music here), to greased ramps with hundreds of people pulling on ropes. More recent guesses have included ropes, pulleys and levers— simple machines to aid in the extensive human and possible animal power required. Another photo to capture the massive feel of the Great Pyramid. The pyramid was built in the early 26th Century BCE and took some 27 years to construct for the pharaoh Khufu. You might think that the Great Pyramid has given up most of its secrets by now, but on March 3rd of this year, scientists announced that they had discovered a new 30-foot hidden passage way using infrared thermography, 3D simulations and cosmic-ray imaging to peer inside the structure. The passage may very well be filled with ancient treasures. (Since I was celebrating my 80th birthday up the Nile near Aswan on the 3rd, I considered the discovery a birthday present.)The pyramid of the pharaoh Khafre is easily recognizable by the lime rock casing on top. All of the pyramids were once encased in lime polished to bright white. Seeing it at high noon must have been incredible. Blinding is another word. Over the millennia, the casing was repurposed/borrowed/stolen. Like the Great Pyramid and pyramid of Menkaure, Khafre’s pyramid was built during Egypt’s Fourth Dynasty (c. 2613 to 2494 BCE), which was considered the Golden Age of the Old Kingdom. We have several other photos of Khafre’s pyramid but the folding chair amused me. Not to mention the woman in black who seems to be hovering off the ground in a Flying Nun pose, and the herd of rent-a-camels waiting for customers. The blocks in the right foreground were once part of a temple associated with the pyramid. Peggy makes her way along the narrow passage under the pyramid of Khafre. Considering half of our journey into the depths was spent bent over avoiding rock/head collisions, this was actually roomy— until you met visitors coming from the other direction. Skinny was okay, but not so skinny could be similar to meeting an 18-wheeler going the wrong way on a one way street. The fuzzy state of the photo reflected my feelings about being under 4,880,000 tons of rock with the ghosts of a long dead pharaoh and possibly servants who had been killed to serve him in the afterlife. Can’t have the pharaoh fare for himself, right? If this practice was still in vogue at the time, it’s hard to imagine bumping into happy servant ghosts.And finally, we come to the Pyramid of Menkaure, the smallest of the three. It’s thought that the three smaller pyramids were for the pharaoh’s queens/wives/half sisters. If you look closely at the shadow side of the pyramid, you see a slice cutting down through it. There’s an interesting story. In 1196 CE, Saladin’s son, Al-Aziz Uthman, who was the Sultan of Egypt, recruited workmen to demolish the pyramids starting with Menkaure’s. Their challenge was they could only break up a couple of rocks per day. It was a slow process. After eight months, all they had accomplished was the slice featured above and they gave up. Apparently, the pyramids were as tough to tear down as they were to build, for which we can be thankful. Certainly one of the best known statues in the world, the Great Sphinx was built during the same time frame as the pyramids around 2500 BCE. Having the body of a lion and the head of a man, it was carved out of the bedrock where it now stands. Photos of it are often taken in conjunction with one or more of the pyramids. This one is the Great Pyramid. The missing nose was once attributed to Napoleon’s soldiers using it for target practice. Now it is felt that the nose was broken much earlier, possibly as early at the 3rd Century CE. Seen here in its entirety, the Sphinx was built in a direct line from west to east. It is 240 feet (73 m) long measured from its front paws to its tail and 66 feet tall (19 m) from the top of its head to its base. The Great Pyramid can be seen peeking out from behind the Sphinx’s head. And now for a Curt and Peggy special! Millions if not billions of photos have been taken of the Great Sphinx’s head, often with a pyramid thrown in for good measure. But how often do you find a picture of its tail with a pyramid. Classy, huh? 🤔
And now on to what 62.5 % of you have been waiting for: Camels.
Giza Uber…Pink tongue. Check out the symbol on the camel’s neck. Each camel, as far as I could tell, had its own unique tattoo. This one also had face decorations.“Getting down,” camel style. Again, note the neck decorations.Horse or camel? The foot print might prove a clue. Don’t you just love it when I post scat photos? That’s the nature boy in me. I—did—not–do—that!How a camel driver rides camels. Note the legs.How tourists ride camels.Remember the old saying, “Two ships passing in the night?” These are two camels passing in the day. Did you know that camels are often called ships of the desert because they carry cargo across long distances in the desert just like ships carry cargo across the ocean. They are uniquely fit for their role. For one, they can carry up to 400 pounds for 25 miles a day. They can go for several days without water and up to two weeks without food. Their leathery lips and mouth allows them to chomp down on delicacies such cactus and other spiny desert plants. Eyes, ears and noses are designed to withstand sand storms. Large feet help keep them from sinking in the sand. Wearing a size 14 shoe, I know something about the latter.Remember back when I posted my introduction to our Egypt trip and had a camel photo bomb me. Here he is to conclude my blog on the pyramids, Great Sphinx and camels of Giza.
Next post: Big Foot’s Big Foot and my wrap up on South Dakota.As you read this post, Peggy and I are off on another adventure, starting today (Monday, June 25). Once again, we are on a three month trip exploring North America with Serafina the trailer, Iorek the truck, Bone and Eeyore. We’ll keep you posted.
The ancient stone monument, the Pharaoh Djoser’s Step Pyramid, was built by the pharaoh’s vizier, Imhotep.
Whenever people think of ancient Egypt, one of the first thoughts that pops into to their minds is the three pyramids of Giza: The Great Pyramid, the Pyramid of Khafre, and the Pyramid of Menkaure, along with the Great Sphinx. They were in built Egypt’s early history during the Fourth Dynasty of the Old Kingdom between 2600 and 2500 BC and are the main focus of my next Egypt post— along with camels.
But today, I want to go back to their precursor, the Step Pyramid of the Pharoah Djoser, located in the Saqqara necropolis outside of Memphis. Built in the 27th Century BCE (2700-2600) during Egypt’s Third Dynasty, it is the oldest, complete stone building complex known in history. Its architect was Djoser’s brilliant vizier, Imhotep. If you ever watched the Mummy movie series, he was cast as the bad guy, intent on world domination and allergic to cats. But to ancient Egyptians he was a good guy, so good that he was eventually (with eventually being 2000 years Egypt time) given the status of a god complete with a portfolio that included major medical responsibilities.
Imhotep’s first layer of the pyramid was based on a mastaba, or eternal house, an ancient Egyptian tomb that was built as a one story, rectangular mud brick building with inward sloping sides where royalty from Egypt’s Early Dynastic and Old Kingdom period were buried. He then proceeded to build a series of five mastaba-like structures on top of the first one with each being smaller, thus creating the pyramid concept. The structure stands at 203 feet tall with a base of 410 by 357 feet. A maze like series of tunnels run under the pyramid that were used for the burial of Djoser, royal family members, and grave goods from royal ancestors. The latter included over 40,000 vessels.
This statue of King Djoser, found in a sealed room in the Step Pyramid, is made of limestone. He looks like one serious dude— not someone to cross. It now resides in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. It is known as the oldest life-size statue in Egyptian History. It would have been created to contain his ka, or life force after he died. The room contained small holes so the ka could wander over to the room where food offerings were kept and feast— if the priests hadn’t already eaten them. The Step Pyramid complex covers over one square mile and, in addition to the pyramid, incudes temples, colonnades, and a wall.And I should add pushy sales people who refuse to take “no” for an answer and often resort to trickery to bamboozle tourists. They come in droves around the pyramids and other major attractions. On the one hand, I recognize that these people are just trying to make a living off of people who can afford it. On the other, they can be obnoxious on a level of 10 out of 10. They are best ignored unless you really want to buy something. Given the slightest sign of interest, they’ll be on you like a tick on a dog.This beautiful temple was part of the Step Pyramid complex at Saqqara.It reached out toward Djoser’s Step Pyramid.The walkway through the temple was covered with stone columns that resembled log rafters.Looking back at the temple.I’ll conclude with this photo of Peggy and me in front of the Step Pyramid that was taken by our fellow traveler and friend, Steve Jones. I rendered it in black and white to give it an old-time feeling.
Next Post: We will travel back to South Dakota and the incredibly ambitious stone carving of Chief Crazy Horse. After 75 years, it may be a quarter finished.
Ramses II is one of the world’s giants in terms of ancient Egyptian history, the monuments he left behind and ego. This elegant 42 foot statue (from the knees up) is located in the Open Air Museum of Memphis. It speaks to his power.
The Open Air Museum of Memphis, near the modern town of Mit Rahina south of Cairo, is relatively small considering Memphis was established as the first capital of Egypt 4000 years ago by the pharaoh Narmer when he united Upper and Lower Egypt. It continued to serve as the capitol for over a thousand years. As such, Memphis would have been a bustling city filled with temples, palaces and tombs. Now it is mainly scattered ruins with most of its remains buried beneath villages and farms. The museum is well worth a visit however. First and foremost because of its huge statue of Ramses II, which was found lying in a swamp in 1820 missing its lower legs.
Ruling between 1279 and 1213 BCE, Ramses II is recognized as Egypt’s greatest pharaoh. He’s best known for ruling 66 years, expanding Egypt’s territory by fighting in multiple wars, and for building monuments, cities and temples throughout his realm. More ancient statues of him have been found than any other pharaoh. Peggy and I saw several as we made our way up the Nile. Then there is also the matter of the 90 children he was said to have fathered! As I noted in my heading, he was big— and he was bad.
Here, Peggy provides perspective on the size of the Ramses II statue at the Open Air Museum in Memphis. Visitors can both walk around the statue on the ground floor and observe it from the balcony above.A view of Ramsey II as seen from head to toe. He’s wearing the crown of Upper Egypt.This view of his face provides an idea of how beautifully he was carved out of granite with close attention to detail. Note the ear. The figure on his forehead is Wadjet, the female cobra god of Lower Egypt who provided protection for pharaohs.Ramses II was also protected by the dagger he wore in his belt. Most pharaohs are shown wearing one as a symbol of power. A cartouche, spelling out one of his names in hieroglyphics, is on his belt over his dagger. Another, spelling out a different name is lower on his belt. Pharaohs had several names, one, to stress their various positions and accomplishments, but two, also important so they wouldn’t be forgotten, a critical factor in achieving immortality. A cylindrical object in his hand also has a cartouche with one of his names as do two more on his wrist band. I searched for what the object he is holding represented but couldn’t find an explanation. It is obviously another symbol of power that several other pharaohs carry as well. My assumption is that it represents the chisel of Narmer that he used to smash into enemies’ heads, as I showed in my last Egypt post.Narmer doing his thing. The chisel is shown in his name between the two images of Hathor, the cow goddess.Could it be if one chisel was good, two were better? This statue of Ramses II is at the entrance of the Egyptian museum. Note he also has cartouches on his belt, shoulders and chest. Some of them were not his…His son and successor had one of Ramses II’s cartouches removed and his own added— a quick, easy and cheap way to gain recognition and entrance to the afterlife. The practice was not unusual. “Oops, sorry Pop, my chisel slipped.”Speaking of which, another large statue of Ramses II stands outside at the Museum of Open Air. It may actually be of the pharaoh Senusret I, taken over by Ramses with his names removed and Ramses added. When most people think of Egypt and sphinxes, they think of the Great Sphinx of Giza. Actually, there are hundreds if not thousands of Sphinxes. Consisting of the body of a lion and the head of a pharaoh, this one is located at the Open Air Museum. It likely represents the head of Amenhotep II or III with the carving estimated to have taken place between 1700 and 1400 BCE.A back view of the sphinx. It is 26 feet long (8 M) and 13 feet (4M) high, weighs in at over 80 tons, and is carved out of alabaster.
Memphis was an important religious center for the triad of Ptah, the creator god who gave shape to all things, his consort Sekhmet, the lion goddess, and their son, Nefertem, the god of blossoms and perfume. It was common for the Egyptians to create triads for their gods, not unlike that of the Christian triad of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.
I’ll conclude today with a statue of the triad that is located in the Open Air Museum. Ptah with his long, skinny beard is shown in the center. Sekhmet is on the right, and Nefertem on the left. (At least, I assume that is the arrangement.) Their arms around each other demonstrate their common bond.
Next Post: We will return to South Dakota where we will visit a museum that is crammed full of dinosaur bones in a chaotic but wonderful arrangement.
What’s not to love about Hathor, the Egyptian cow goddess of beauty, sensuality, music, dancing, wine, maternity and much more. She could change from a cow, to a woman with a cow’s broad head and cow ears, to a beautiful woman with cow horns and a sun disk. She could also take the form of a lioness, goose, and a sycamore tree! She was popular with both pharaohs and common people alike. Her beginnings trace back to the dawn of Egyptian history. She is even found on the Narmer Palette, considered Egypt’s most important historical relic, that dates back to 3,100 BCE and reflects much of the next 3,000 years of Egyptian art and history.
Today, Peggy and I are continuing our series on our trip up the Nile in March with Uniword Cruises traveling with our excellent guide, Sabaa. Once again, we will be mixing the mythology, history, and architecture that make Egypt such a fascinating place. All of the photos in this post were taken by either Peggy or me.
Of all the goddesses I have read about, Hathor is my all-time favorite. Peggy good naturedly agreed to pose with her. I think the side profile of Hathor looks a lot like George Washington. Another role, perhaps?Lacking a photo of Hathor as a cow, I decided to throw in a California cow I found while hiking down the Pacific Crest Trail and named Hathor. It’s only fitting that the goddess of motherhood be very pregnant like this big bovine is.
Gods evolve over time. Hathor is certainly an example of this. She probably started out as the local goddess to a pastoral tribe of nomads as they moved their cattle from place to place. Her responsibilities grew as the regions she was identified with expanded and she took on the role of other female deities. The most dramatic increase in her territory was when Narmer, the pharaoh of Upper Egypt conquered Lower Egypt around 3,100 BCE. (Lower Egypt included the Nile Delta where it flowed out into the Mediterranean. Upper Egypt followed the Nile south of Cairo as it climbed up to the cataracts at modern Aswan.) The unification of these two areas is central to much of the subsequent history of Egypt. Since the Narmer Palette showed the first phase of the unification, plus Hathor, it’s worth looking at closely. The palette is located in the Museum of Egyptian History, which was just outside the backdoor of our hotel in downtown Cairo.
This is the back of the Narmer Palette. Following is what I’ve been able to derive from the various interpretations.
Two images of Hathor are located at the top of the Palette look favorably down on the Narmer. You might say that she is offering her blessing, supporting his position as pharaoh. Such approval was critical in legitimizing the position and power of the pharaohs, who also claimed divinity and made sure gods were part of their family trees. The raised relief between the two images of Hathor spells out Narmer’s name in hieroglyphics, represented by a catfish and a chisel. The background, called a serekh, symbolizes the entrance to a castle and was used to show that this was a pharaoh’s name. Later pharaohs would use a cartouche to emphasize their names.
A number of other things are used to demonstrate Narmer’s power that would be common to future pharaohs. One, he is smiting his enemy. Pharaohs did lots of smiting. In this instance, Narmer is using his mace to pound what I believe is his chisel into the head of his unfortunate enemy from Lower Egypt. Two, he is much larger than anyone else. Three, the bowling pin shaped hat on his head is the white crown of Upper Egypt, the Hedjet. Below his belt, Narmer’s kilt features four more images of Hathor on top of columns, just in case there are any doubts about her support. His beard will be seen on all future pharaohs. And finally, he has one fine tail. It’s a bull’s tail that symbolizes pharaohs could take the shape of large bulls.
The small figure off to the left is his servant, who is tasked with carrying his sandals. On the right, Horus, the falcon god, is perched on a papyrus plant while he uses a rope to pull up another enemy out of the marsh by what appears to be a hook through his nose. That would hurt. Note how his claw and leg have become an arm and a hand. This likely symbolizes that Horus also supports Narmer’s military success over Lower Egypt. Two more dead enemies are shown on the bottom.
Here’s the front of the palette, which is packed with even more symbolism. Once again, Hathor and the pharaoh’s name are on top.
From left to right on the next level, we have the servant still faithfully carrying Narmer’s sandals. His flower may be the lotus, the plant symbol of Upper Egypt. It looks quite perky. Narmer is wearing the crown of lower Egypt here, showing the unification of Upper and Lower Egypt and the fact that he now rules over both. He is still carrying his mace. His right hand, however, holds a shepherd’s crook that will become another symbol of pharaohs— and, far into the future, popes. His catfish and chisel come next, announcing him. Below them is another servant carrying what appears to be wilted papyrus, the plant symbol of Lower Egypt. Compared to the perky lotus, are they mourning the defeat? Standard bearers come next followed by the defeated enemies. Their heads have all been cut off and are laid between their feet. This isn’t enough, however. They have also been de-manned and their parts draped over their heads. Not a pretty picture in anyone’s book— or blog. Above them, a barque, Ra the sun god’s boat, sails across the sky, which is a story for a future post.
The delightfully weird mythical beasts below with their long necks are called serpopards, a modern name concocted from serpent and leopard. Egypt adopted them from neighboring Mesopotamia. The round space in the middle is designed for grinding minerals used in makeup, possibly for ceremonial purposes in the worship of the gods. Could it be Hathor? The goddess of beauty was also the goddess of makeup. Below, Narmer has adopted his bull persona and is destroying the walls of a village or city where he is smiting another enemy.
Now back to Hathor.
Here’s Hathor in her form as a beautiful woman, smiling down on people entering the Egyptian Museum of History. The horns on her head display the sun disk. Wadjit, the cobra goddess of Lower Egypt, adorns her head while Nekhbet, the vulture goddess of Upper Egypt, soars beneath her, both providing protection.
One of my favorite myths about Hathor is how she served time as the Eye of Ra, which like the Eye of Horus, could wander around on its own. Unlike the Eye of Horus that brought good things, however, the Eye of Ra was an object of power and could bring devastation.
In the Book of the Heavenly Cow from the Middle Kingdom, Ra becomes angered by humans’ lack of respect and bad behavior so he releases his eye Hathor in the form of Sekhmet, the lion goddess, upon humanity to destroy it. Note the parallel here with the God of the Old Testament, who decides to flood earth and destroy humanity for similar reasons. The goddess in a passion of blood thirsty destruction descends on mankind killing everyone she finds and destroys their farms, towns and cities. At first Ra is pleased that humanity is getting what it deserves, but eventually becomes concerned (with the help of the other gods) that maybe he has gone too far, and soon there will be no humans left on earth. Who’s going to worship him? He decides to show mercy.
He asks Tenenet, the goddess of beer, to brew a large, potent batch, dye it red, and deliver it to where Sekhmet will see it. (Brewing a large batch of beer in Ancient Egyptian terms was indeed large. Vats found in Hierakonpolis could brew up to 300 gallons of beer at a time.) Sekhmet finds it, and, thinking she has found a huge cache of blood, drinks it down to relieve her blood lust, the whole batch! Glug, glug, glug—becomes drunk beyond imagination, and falls into a deep sleep. She wakes up in the form of the beautiful Hathor who henceforth does only good for the people of Egypt and becomes their most beloved goddess.
Another set of myths I enjoyed about Hathor was her relationship with Horus, partially because it reflects how myths can change and don’t necessarily need to be consistent. In at least one version of the Isis-Osiris myth that I shared in my last Egypt post, Hathor nurses the young Horus with her bounteous udders while he is hidden in the papyrus marshes of the Nile Delta. She also helps hide him by shaking a sistrum, an ancient Egyptian music rattle that sounds like rustling papyrus, and muffles any noise Horus may make. Need it be said that Hathor was also the goddess of the sistrum?
Another myth suggests that Hathor was the mother of Horus. So much for Isis. But maybe that’s okay, since Isis eventually takes over the role and form of Hathor, looking exactly like her. And finally, this gets a little kinky: Hathor becomes the lover/consort/wife of Horus. BTW, Hathor translates into the House of Horus, giving a whole new meaning to “I’m home, Honey.”
Now it’s time to wrap up this post with some photos of Hathor. Many of these images came from the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, which we will visit later.
This is from Hathor’s temple at Dendera. Ra, the sun god, has just completed his nighttime journey through Nut and is born again. His rays shine down on Hathor. Take a moment to look at the other images, like the snake emerging from the lotus.New hair-do?Same hair-do, more basic version.On a column: Big Hathor above; little Hathor below.Hathor looking a bit more cow-ish at Dendera. Grin. Check out the nose and nostrils! Same hairdo.And finally—an interesting trio, to say the least. Hathor is on the left, in her human form. Horus comes next. He is wearing the combined crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. And no, he is not overly excited to be in the presence of two beautiful semi-clad women. That’s a dagger in his belt. Isis is last. Note how Isis now looks like Hathor. Both are wearing the vulture goddess, Nekhbet, as a hat, and both display horns holding the sun disk from which the cobra goddess, Wadjit, dangles. The only difference between the two is that the object protruding from the sun disk above Isis is her crown.
Our next post will feature Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota. We will be back in Egypt the following week.
Today, Peggy and I are beginning our series of blogs on our journey through Egypt up the Nile River on a riverboat with the UniWorld Cruise company. We hope you will join us. As always, all photos are taken by either Peggy or me unless otherwise noted.
I was setting up a photo of the pyramids of Khafre and Menkaure when a camel head suddenly appeared in my viewfinder. Was I being photo-bombed? I quickly snapped the picture. A free photo of a camel at Giza is not to be passed up. Note the emphasis on free. Camel drivers and camels are everywhere. You are welcome to the take their photos, have your photo taken with them, or even go for a ride. All for a substantial fee, of course. Not paying is frowned upon.
Visiting the pyramids of Egypt at Giza is like climbing into a time machine. The Pyramid of Khafre on the left was built around 2,570 BCE and the Pyramid of Menkaure on the right around 2510 BCE, which makes them both over 4500 years old! The beginning of Egyptian history is traced back even further, to 3100 BCE, over 5000 years ago.
The Sahara Desert and the Nile River kick-started the process. 10,000 years ago the Sahara Desert wasn’t. It was a huge savanna where wandering herders grazed their goats and cattle. It is now thought that some combination of climate change and overgrazing changed the savanna into the vast desert it is today. The herders needed somewhere to go and the Nile River was their best option. The river provided a continuous source of water for thirsty stock. Its annual floods assured that there would be rich soil for farming. Increasing population along the river led to the creation of villages and towns, eventually leading to cities, kingdoms and even empires in a time period that extended over 3,000 years.
We took this photo from our boat to capture the ducks flying over the Nile River, but it also serves to illustrate the contrast between the green of the river and the reddish-brown Sahara Desert beyond that stretches all the way west to the Atlantic Ocean.
The pyramids speak to more than ancient history and the engineering marvels. They reflect the ancient Egyptians’ deep belief in the afterlife, magic, and the numerous gods who impacted their lives from birth to death— and beyond. This belief in the afterlife (plus the pharaohs’ exploits and claimed relationship to the gods) dominated the temples, tombs and monuments we visited as we explored the area around Cairo, made our way up the Nile, and visited the city of Alexandria.
There are numerous myths about the gods and I’ll be relating several as I go though my posts on Egypt. I find them both fascinating and fun. One thing to note here is that most of them have several versions. Five thousand years is a long time to keep a story straight. For example, today I am going to tell about one of the great founding myths, that of Osiris and Isis. Like most great tales, it is filled with murder, mayhem, adventure, sex, twists, magic and even a bit of humor. That Osiris was killed by his brother, chopped into pieces, put back together, and became God of the Underworld where he sat in judgement of the dead is generally agreed upon. The details on how he was killed, managed to get Isis pregnant with Horus afterwards, and was put back together vary with the teller.
The version that I am writing about was originally told by Plutarch in the second century AD. I first read it in a book by Joseph Campbell, Transformation of Myth through Time, over 30 years ago. I like this version because it has a Cinderella aspect to it, i.e. if the coffin fits, wear it.
This story starts with the goddess of heaven, Nut, and the god of earth, Geb. The god of air, Shu, separates Nut from Geb. Night and day are created by the sun god, Ra, who sails across the sky in his boat during the day, is swallowed by Nut in the evening, journeys through her at night, and is born again in the morning through a somewhat natural birth.
Nut the Goddess of the Sky is about to swallow Ra, the Sun God, in this photo we took in one of the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Night is about to begin. The symbols on Nut’s body represent stars. Hieroglyphs fill the space on the right, providing advice and spells to aid the pharaoh in getting through the dangerous underworld on his way to eternal life.
Nut and Geb get together and give birth to four children. The older twins, Osiris and Isis, are born first, and, in the tradition of Egyptian gods and pharaohs, marry each other. Osiris, with the help of the clever Isis, replaces Ra as the king of Egypt and gets the throne. Seth and Nephthys are born next and and marry each other. Now the fun begins. Osiris is the typical good son and represents order. Seth is the typical bad son and represents chaos. It’s Osiris that creates the trouble, however. One night he sleeps with Nephthys, claiming he thought it was Isis. (Joe Campbell notes that this isn’t paying attention to detail.) Whatever the reason, Seth doesn’t buy it. Would you? He vows to get even.
He builds a beautiful (and undoubtably incredibly expensive) sarcophagus/coffin made out of gold that is exactly fit to Osiris’s size. He waits until a great party is going on and everyone has consumed large quantities of beer (the go-to drink of the time) before showing up with his golden sarcophagus. “Whoever fits can have it!” he declares. Naturally everyone is excited to try, but nobody fits. Except Osiris. He’s just beginning to enjoy his triumph when 42 of Set’s servants rush out, slam the lid closed, wrap iron bindings around it, and throw it in the Nile.
End of story, right. A solid gold coffin can hardly be expected to float. Except it does. Osiris is a god, after all. In fact, it floats all the way to Syria where it lands and a tree grows around it. And what a sweet smelling tree it is. So sweet that the local king decides he wants to use it for a pillar in a castle he is building. Meanwhile, Isis, in deep mourning, is searching the world over for Osiris. She ends up in Syria where she stops for a drink at the community well and hears the story of the sweet smelling pillar from maids who work at the castle. “Aha, Osiris!” she thinks. She also learns that the king has a new son who needs a nursemaid. She applies for and gets the job.
Isis really likes the baby, nurses it from her finger, and decides to make it immortal by throwing it in the fire each night to burn away its mortality. While this is going on, she assumes the form of a swallow and flies around the pillar, twittering mournfully. One night the queen comes in on this scene and discovers her baby has been thrown in the fire and the nursemaid has become a twittering bird. Needless to say, she gets a little excited and screams. Isis immediately morphs back into herself, saves the baby, explains what she was doing, and asks the king if she can have the pillar. “Of course,” he says. (My thought is that he wanted to get the baby-burning goddess out of his life as quickly as possible.)
Isis gets a barge, loads the sarcophagus and heads home. Feeling lonely on the way, she opens the coffin, finds a quite dead Osiris, and climbs on in what seems to be a bit of Necrofilia. I’m not sure how it works, but she becomes pregnant (god thing again). Another version, which I like better, has her turning back into a swallow, flying over the coffin and being impregnated by magic. Immaculate conception is a common theme of Egyptian mythology. One myth I came across has the sphinx being born as the son of the lion goddess Sekhmeth after she is impregnated by a moonbeam from the Moon God. Explain that one to your husband. The Ankh, Egypt’s well known symbol of life and immortality, is also problematic when it comes to immaculate conceptions as well.
Having an ankh blown or shoved up your nose by a god was a great gift of life and immortality, highly desired by the pharaohs. Down around a woman’s midsection, it might have something other than a nose on its mind and be on its way to making a baby. It was known for making some women ankh-ious. (Sorry, my bad.)
Back home in Egypt, Seth has assumed the throne and will not be glad to have Osiris back, dead or alive. So Isis heads into a papyrus swamp where she hides out and gives birth to Osiris’s second son, Horus. Nephthys has already give birth to his first son, Anubis.
All goes well until Seth follows a boar he is hunting into the papyrus swamp and finds the dead Osiris. Infuriated, he tears Osiris into 15 pieces and scatters them throughout Egypt. Once again, poor Isis sets out to get her dead husband back. Anubis, who is a Jackal in his animal form, and Nephthys help in the search. They can only find 14 pieces. Osiris is missing his genitals. A fish has eaten them.
They stitch Osiris back together with the parts they have and Anubis embalms Osiris, turning him into a mummy. Meanwhile, Horus grows up and goes to war with Seth to avenge his father. In a horrendous battle, Horus loses one of his eyes while Seth loses a testicle. Not quite reciprocal justice (an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth), but close. Seth also loses the battle, however. Horus takes the throne and order is restored to Egypt while Seth is banned to the desert. Horus’s eye is magically restored and comes to symbolize making things whole and healing. It even brings life back to Osiris, who becomes god of the underworld.
People admire a sculpture of Annubis at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The sculpture was found guarding the tomb of King Tut. Egyptians considered Annubis’s animal form to be that of a jackal because of his close association with the dead. Jackals were known to hang out around cemeteries, probably hoping to dig up a free handout. Heh. Peggy and I brought home this tapestry featuring the Eye of Horus from Egypt. Nekhbet, the goddess of vultures, is shown on the right. Wadjet, the coba goddess is shown on the left. All three were frequently depicted in ancient Egypt. Not a bad trio. Nekhbet and Wadjet protected pharaohs and the Eye of Horus could heal them.
My next post on Egypt, two weeks from now, will feature more history, mythology, and photos of ancient Egyptian sites from around Cairo. Next Monday Peggy and I will take you on a drive through Custer State Park, South Dakota that will focus on some rather unusual and magnificent stone sculptures.
The Black Forest is legendary, a land of dark fantasy. The Brothers Grimm reportedly based their fairy tales on the region. We found beauty and humor instead.
We are wrapping up our Rhine River series today with a trip into Germany’s Black Forest. Our riverboat journey up the Rhine with Uniworld Boutique was special, no doubt about it. I’d highly recommend it to anyone. Given that we took our daughter’s family and son’s family (which included their five kids) along, Uniworld’s Generation Cruise was particularly appropriate. Riverboat trips can be expensive, however. One can also travel through the Rhine River Valley by car, bus or train. An advantage here would be having more time to stop and enjoy the scenery, towns and castles. All photos on this blog are taken by either Peggy or me unless otherwise noted.
Our impression of Germany’s Black Forest was of a scenic, bucolic area.
The Black Forest is world-famous for its cuckoo clocks and our trip into the Black Forest included a visit to one of its most famous shops, The House of Clocks. There are photos, of course, bur first I have two related Black Forest cuckoo clock stories that took place decades before our riverboat trip up the Rhine. One is my son-in-law Clay’s; the other is mine.
Clay’s is the most relevant. He had actually visited the House of Clocks when he was a child in the 80s. His dad was in the army and stationed in Frankfurt, Germany. Even more to the point, his dad and grandfather bought clocks from Adolph Herr, the owner of the House of Clocks, when he brought grandfather clocks to a Christmas Market that was held on Abram’s Army Base in Frankfort. As we headed into the Black Forest, Clay was on a mission to buy his own cuckoo clock from the House of Clocks and Adolph Herr.
My cuckoo clock story goes all the way back to1951when I was in the third grade. My town was so small that the grade school only had five rooms. My introduction to it hadn’t been great. First grade took me two tries. I was kicked out the first time. My mother had altered my birth certificate to get me in early. She was eager to get me out of the house. Obviously. The teacher had been teaching for decades and knew first graders, however. She became suspicious and mailed off to Oregon for my birth certificate. I was sent home. I was happy with the reprieve. My mother— not so much. The following September I became an official first grader. It was a tough year. Mrs. Young, the teacher, had decided that Marge Mekemson’s kid was a wild child in need of taming. She was right, but I’ve never done taming well.
The second grade went much better. Second and third graders shared a room and had the same teacher for two years. I lucked out. My second grade teacher, Ruth Jones, was my godmother. She was required to like me. And did. My attitude about teachers and school took an abrupt turn. I began to enjoy school, and, I confess, even became something of a ‘teacher’s pet.’ Miss Jones was married and became Mrs. Hall the summer between my second and third grade and went on a honeymoon to Europe. On the last day of third grade, she asked me to stay after school briefly. “I have something for you, Curt, and want you to keep the fact I gave it to you to yourself.” She was careful about showing favoritism.
The gift was a cuckoo clock she had bought for me the previous summer in Germany’s Black Forest. I had it for years. Visiting the Black Forest had been on my agenda ever since.
Clay, with his family, standing in front of the Black Forest House of Clocks. From left to right, our grandsons Ethan and Cody, Clay, and our daughter Tasha. They are standing in front of a giant cuckoo clock with 21 moving figures. Some action is about to take place in the scene above them to the left…If I were the two drunken revelers, I think I’d pay attention to the bar maid with the poised rolling pin and finger pointing “Out!”As might be imagined, the House of Clocks is packed with cuckoo clocks, each hand crafted.Adolph Herr, who owns and operates the Black Forest House of Clocks along with his son and grandson, represents 7 generations of clock makers dating back to the 1700s.The Cox family can also claim a generational connection to the House of Clocks. Cody and Ethan, show here with Adolph, represent four generations of Coxes that have visited the shop including Clay’s grandfather, father, himself, and his sons. This is one of our favorite photos of Clay. He is picking out a clock made by Adolph Herr, just as his grandfather and father did. The clock that Clay bought.A close up of the clock. Adolph Herr’s signature is on the back. And yes, it does make cuckoo sounds on the hour.
Grimms’ Fairy Tales are said to have been based on Germany’s Black Forest, so one way to think of the area is as a dark place filled with terrifying beasties. Well, we did run into two beasties and some of the trees were dark in appearance, but our overall impression was of a bucolic, scenic area. Our lunch stop included time to wander around in the woods for a time.
Peggy on on a dirt road into the Black Forest that we explored.The dark trees and brooding skies gave a clue of where the name Black Forest originated. I liked the lone tree. Windmills can be seen in the distance.Sunlight provided a brighter, more cheerful view of the Black Forest.A number of trails passed over the dirt road we hiked down. They demanded exploration and called to me. The one that really caught my attention, however, was the bottom one. It’s the symbol for the Camino de Santiago, the world renowned 500 mile trail that I associated mainly with Spain. What was it doing in the Black Forest? I learned that the Camino de Santiago includes a number of different pilgrimage routes that start throughout Europe and finish in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. I could have started my pilgrimage right there!Back on the road, we ran in to some strange beasties. Now, had we been driving through Scotland, this one wouldn’t have seemed so strange…The Grimm brothers would have fun with this creature, probably giving it long, curving fangs. To find one, however, they would have had to travel to South America and the high Andes.These modern, attractive homes seemed to fit well with the historic church into their Black Forest setting. We were in search of an older home, however, and found one built over 400 years ago.The Vogtsbauernhof farmhouse dating from 1612 is the central attraction of the Black Forest’s Open Air Museum.I was also hoping to see women wearing the traditional Bollenhut hat of the Black Forest, which was promoted on the the museum’s website. The hat consists of 14 pompoms, red for unmarried women and black for married women. I took this photo of a mural in Breisach, which claims to be the gateway to the Black Forest.It was not to be. Instead, we found a Volkswagen Beetle wearing a Bollenhut. Maybe it was waiting for a VW Van to come along and offer it a good time. We found this cute heifer wearing a Bollenhut at The House of Clocks.So, instead of seeing women sporting traditional hats, we wandered around the Open Air Museum checking out other sites such as this peaceful stream…A plump, sway backed horse. And my favorite…This donkey, which I will use to wrap up our trip on the Rhine River. Next Monday, it’s back to the small town of Custer, South Dakota and its fun and fascinating collection of colorful buffalo sculptures.
Peggy and I are coming to the end of the blogs on our Rhine River cruise. Today, we will take you to Breisach, Germany. Our final Rhine River post will be on the Black Forest. After that, it will be off to the Nile! All photos in this post were taken by either Peggy or meunless otherwise noted.
Breisach was the final town we visited on our trip up the Rhine. It had everything we had come to expect: Color, history, and a great cathedral. I’ll get to the naked lady and the bull soon. And no, it wasn’t a new take on Lady Godiva. But I will give a hint: Naked ladies on bulls are a European kind of thing.
The history of Breisach follows the history of the other towns we have visited along the Rhine, dating back to ancient Celtic times, becoming part of the Roman Empire, and then part of the Holy Roman Empire with several countries laying claim since. The city saw extensive damage in World War II as the Allies invaded it from across the Rhine.
A photo from Wikimedia Commons of Breisach being attacked by Allied forces in 1942. St. Stephen’s Cathedral is burning at the top right side of the picture. 85% of the town was destroyed by Allied artillery.Peggy and I went for a walk into Breisach to visit St. Stephen’s Cathedral. This is a view looking up from the town. Obviously, the cathedral, like the town, has been rebuilt since WW II.Our trip up to the Cathedral took us through Gutgesell Gate. Built in 1402, it was destroyed in WW II and has since been rebuilt. A sign on the side noted that Pope Johannes was arrested here in 1415. It was a time when three people were claiming to be Pope. The ‘official’ church position out of Rome was that Johannes was an antipope. It’s bad for business to have more than one Pope. It tends to confuse the flock and worse— split the donations.The steep walk up to the Cathedral past brightly painted houses was worth it on its own.Flower boxes added to the color.Toward the top, the road narrowed to a walking path. I found this old doorway and couldn’t help but wonder what treasures (or ghosts) might be found behind it.An intriguing coat of arms was found above the doorway.The view of St. Stephen’s that greeted us as we finished our hike up the path. Construction of the church started in the early 12th Century.We walked around the church admiring it from various perspectives.These pockmarks on the side of the Cathedral caught our attention. I wondered if they had been left from the artillery attack during WW II. Turns out that they were from an earlier bombardment from 1870. Apparently the church has a problem with avoiding the line of fire.This chamber challenged our imagination. First there was the fence with what looked like a cat sitting on top, which I found amusing. Then there was the strange sculpture inside…The stone mason makes sense. St. Stephans was the patron saint of stone masons. But what about the strange figure on the right? The dark side of medieval Christianity was, uh, dark.For example, the door to the Cathedral featured St. Stephens being stoned.The hill on which the church sits, gave us great views down into Breisach, as was shown in the first photo and this one.And then there was the bull emerging from the bricks……with a naked lady standing on top.
Of course there is a story. Similar sculptures and other representations of the bull and woman are found throughout Europe. An ancient Greek myth is to blame. The bull happens to be Zeus. And the naked lady? She’s Europa, a Phoenician princess who Zeus seduced. Zeus seducing a princess isn’t news. He had a thing for maidens. His challenge was that his wife (and sister) Hera, the goddess of women, marriage and childbirth, disapproved of such behavior. Zeus went to great lengths to hide his activities from her, one of which was to transform himself into various animals for his seductions. Perhaps you’ve heard the story of Leda and the swan, where Zeus became a swan and seduced Leda. One version of the myth is that she laid two eggs, one of whom hatched into the beautiful Helen of Troy. With Europa, Zeus became a beautiful white bull who met the maiden while she was innocently picking flowers. Naturally, she had to pet his gorgeous white flanks and climb up on top of him (what maiden wouldn’t), whereupon Zeus charged off to the Mediterranean Sea, jumped in, and swam to Crete, where he had his way, so to speak. Minos, the King of Crete, was one of three sons born of the union.
The founding of the European Union led to renewed interest in Europa, given that the ancient Greeks named significant portions of Europe after her and the Europeans could claim that a 2500 year old myth provided some justification for the union.
We found several other things of interest on the hill:
This scupture had me scratching my head, but I figured it would make an excellent home for a bird, or possibly a raccoon. Remember Mad Magazine and Alfred E. Neumann, the guy who always graced its covers? Now check out the dude on the bottom of the sculpture. I’m betting that the artist had a sense of humor. This impressive sculpture of a water wheel/clock represents what is inside of the building it is attached to…This is what the outside of the Water Wheel building looks like.We found this fellow outside of the building. He seemed to be having a bad day. Possibly he had been a bad boy and was contemplating his fate inside…A mural showed a prisoner being taken to the Water Wheel Building. It was used as both a prison and a torture chamber. Or, a prisoner might be assigned to operate the dreaded water wheel. Note the people screaming at the prisoner while others danced in the streets. It spoke to the times.The huge water wheel located inside the building. The stools and the person sitting on the other side of wheel provide perspective. I’m not sure how the wheel was operated but human hamsters come to mind. The well is located beneath the wheel. But enough on dark images and thoughts, I conclude today’s post with another windowsill flower garden in Breisach, and… Our riverboat, the River Empress, that was docked on the Rhine in Breisach. Next Monday, Peggy and I will return to our fall trip around the US. This time we will be in Custer State Park in South Dakota where the buffalo block traffic and the donkeys are bandits.
What better way to begin an Egyptian journey back in time than this ‘ship of the desert’? There was no lack of camels at the pyramids, or offers for camel rides, or camel photos— all for money, of course, preferably in dollars. The Egyptian pound had tanked and was worth three cents on the dollar. I caught this handsome face for free. The camel didn’t object and the owner was busy hustling someone else.
Peggy and I have just returned from our three week exploration of Egypt and invite you to join us as we explore the 25 million people mega-city of Cairo with its ancient pyramids, journey by riverboat up the Nile from Luxor to Aswan, and conclude by visiting the ancient city created by Alexander the Great. Along the way, we will wander through ancient temples, meet powerful gods and pharaohs, explore King Tut’s tomb, visit one of the most impressive mosques of Islam, stop by a factory where they pursue the ancient art of making papyrus, and have many, many more adventures. We were wowed by the history with its incredible temples, tombs and statues, impressed by the friendly reception of the Egyptians we met, captured by present day Egypt, and amused by the humorous stories our guide Sabaa shared along the way. Today’s post is an introduction, an appetizer if you will. The series will start in mid-April when I conclude our Rhine River trip. It wouldn’t do to confuse the rivers. Right? All of the photos in this post are by either Peggy or me unless otherwise noted.
Our tour company, Uniworld Boutique, put us up in the Ritz Carlton overlooking the Nile River while we were in Cairo. Peggy and I arrived a couple of days early and stayed a couple of days afterwords. This was the view from our window. We spent a lot of time watching the river traffic. No surprise. You are looking at the Cairo Tower on the left. It’s a major Cairo landmark with an amusing CIA story connected to it that I will relate later.The Cairo Egyptian Museum was out the back door of the Ritz, a five minute walk away. We did our first tour there and will take you inside. BTW, see the raised figure above the two heads…It’s of a rather voluptuous Cleopatra, the last ruler of the Ptolemaic reign in Egypt who had a child by Julius Cesar and a tragic love affair with Mark Anthony. She’s holding a lotus flower, a symbol of Upper Egypt. Focus guys.Among the thousands of treasures inside were these canopic jars made from alabaster to contain the lungs, intestine, stomach and liver of people being mummified.They wanted them on hand to use later. Alabaster, Sabaa, told us, is great for preserving organs. I’ll keep that in mind.Tahir Square was also located just behind the Ritz. Peggy and I walked over to check out the Obelisk. Plain-clothed police stopped us from entering the square. They were located at every entrance. It turns out that Tahir Square is the go-to place for Egyptians wanting to start a revolution. The police were there to discourage such activity. Nobody— but nobody— was going to make their way onto the square and start shouting slogans, including curious visitors.Cairo is a city of attractive mosques and the Alabaster Mosque is a jewel among them. I’ll do a full post on the Mosque. The inside is even more beautiful than the outside.We discovered this ultra-skinny cat outside vociferously warning a large dog to leave its few scraps of food alone. The dog wisely decided his dinner was located elsewhere. Who wouldn’t? The cat was obviously a descendent of Bastet, the cat god of ancient Egypt. Not someone to trifle with.From Cairo, we flew to Luxor where our riverboat, Uniword’s Tosca, was waiting for us to board.Our Upper Egypt trip both started and ended at Luxor. A week, or a month, could easily be spent exploring the area. On arriving, we visited the Temple of Karnak…The Temple of Luxor at night. It was opened specifically for Uniworld guests. Translate: We had it all to ourselves. Usually, we had to work to take tourist-free photos. We were greeted by a huge statue of Rameses II who was one of the most important pharaohs of ancient Egypt. That’s a cobra on his forehead.Several Pharaohs have their tombs in the Valley of the Kings outside of Luxor. Peggy is pointing toward the pyramid like mountain that was an important factor in the kings’ selection of the valley. BTW, the tomb of King Tutankhamun, where so many treasures were found, is at the base of the mountain. Peggy and I will take you into the tomb where King Tut’s mummy still resides. I’ll even show you King Tut’s toes. I’ll bet you can’t wait for that? They aren’t pretty. There’s a chance I might have to face the revenge of the mummy for displaying them.The folks on the Tosca, both our fellow travelers and the staff, were special. This is a photo of Steve and Carol Jones with our excellent guide, Sabaa at the Valley of the Kings. Steve and Carol, like so many of the followers of this blog, are world travelers. Both engineers, they quit their jobs at 45 and have been wandering the world for the past 20 years.A photo inside of one of the tombs we visited in Valley of Kings (not King Tut’s.) It was packed with hieroglyphs designed to guide and protect the dead pharaoh on his dangerous journey. The temple of Queen Hatshetsup, one of ancient Egypt’s most powerful Pharoahs, is located near the Valley of the Kings.Beards were an extremely important part of a pharaoh’s look, as all the statues, paintings and reliefs show. Even Queen Hatshepsut had one, as this bust from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo shows. It was fake news, but a beard none-the-less.A significant part of our journey was our riverboat trip up the Nile from Luxor to Aswan and back.Along the way, our journey took us past numerous villages and towns, all with their mosques and minarets, from which Muslims are called to prayer five times a day. We were able to watch fishermen and farmers plying their trade in much the same way as they have for thousands of years.And enjoy the scenery. This photo serves as a reminder that just beyond the narrow strip of rich farmland beside the Nile lies the Sahara Desert that stretches for 2000 miles to the west. The ripples are being made by our riverboat, the Tosca.On our trip up and down the Nile we stopped at temples. One was at Kom Ombo, the temple of Sobek the crocodile god and Horus, the falcon god. A museum there, features mummified crocodiles. Sobek was responsible for fertility and the creation of the Nile, among other things. Gods had several responsibilities— and forms. One of the most beautiful temples we visited along the Nile was the Greco-Roman temple of Dendera. Both the Greeks and Romans played important roles in the latter days of ancient Egypt. Among other things, this temple featured signs of the Zodiac on its ceiling. I’m thinking Taurus above. One of the must-dos in Aswan, was to go on a Felucca ride, a sailboat dating back to ancient times on the Nile. Peggy had to get her hands on the rudder. I noticed that the boatman didn’t take his hands off of it, however. Grin.Several feluccas were out enjoying the sunset in this photo which we took from an outdoor dining area of the Cataract Hotel in Aswan.We were enjoying high tea at the hotel.Peggy, being a great fan of Agatha Christie, had to have her photo taken in the Old-Catarack hotel, which was featured in Christie’s novel, “Death on the Nile.”An evening bird watching tour on a small boat included numerous birds and a very enthusiastic bird expert.A walk through Aswan’s large local market featured, among many other things, spices. The top three baskets on the right are buds for making jasmine tea.While at Aswan, we also visited the Philae temple…And flew up to the border between Egypt and Sudan to see the temples of Ramses II and his beautiful wife, Nefertari at Abu Simbel shown above. Abu Simbel was threatened to be buried under rising waters of the Aswan Dam and was saved by a world-wide effort by moving it rock by rock to a level above the water line. We finished off our Egypt tour with a visit to the city of ancient Memphis and to the pyramids at Giza. This features the Sphinx and the Great pyramid of King Khufu.Peggy climbed a short ways up the side of the Great Pyramid to demonstrate the size of the rocks used in building the pyramid…And we both journeyed far under the pyramid of King Khafre, sometimes bent double because of the low ceilings.One of our major stops in Alexandria was at Greco-Roman era catacombs. This gruesome twosome, a crowned snake on the bottom and Medusa on the top, were guarding the major tomb against grave robbers.
I know this has been long for an introduction, but believe me when I say it hardly touches on our experience. On Monday, Peggy and I will take you back to our fall trip around North America, this time featuring Grand Teton National Park, where the description ‘grand’ hardly covers the mountain range.
Wandering through Time and Place 