This is the inner courtyard just outside the Alabaster Mosque. The ornate structure in the middle features several water spouts for ritual cleansing. Note the clock tower up above. Muhamed Ali, the Egyptian leader, not the boxer, who is buried inside the mosque, made a political trade with the French. He traded an obelish for the clock in the tower. The clock was delivered and it did not work. What a bad deal! The French offered to send a replacement, but Ali declared that he was perfectly happy with the one he had.
Interior view of the mosque. Lighting originally was by oil lamps. The carpets are donated by Iran.
Looking up from the floor of the mosque into the huge domes overhead.
This is the smaller of two pulpits in the mosque. Donated by King Farouk, who was deposed in 1952. The man in the blue was chanting towards the alcove next to the pulpit and the sound reverberated throughout the hall. We don't know if this was an acoustic demonstration or something more holy.
This is the koshary restaurant where we enjoyed lunch. There was no chance of any of us finishing our big bowl...even though we ordered the smallest one.
Due to the bluish lights in the restaurant, the color is not perfect in this picture. The koshary looked a bit more appetizing than this was was delicious. Everyone tried the straight tomato sauce. Jacob and Jim went one step further and gave the vinegar based sauce a taste. Jim took the ultimate challenge and poured on some of the hot sauce, which was provided in a big metal pitcher on the table. This must be the most popular sauce with locals. Jim reports it was quite warming, with "back of the throat" heat first and then a numbing of the lips. Perhaps it would be useful as an anesthetic.
The floor of the restaurant was layered with wood shavings. Why? That's a mystery. Maybe it's like the peanut shells at Texas Road House.
After campaigning for this for over a week, we stopped and our guide led Jacob to a fruit stand and helped him make some choices.
We're now in the old Coptic Christian area, built during the early Roman times. This quarter includes the Hanging Church, which is built on large cross-beams spanning the walls of Roman structures, the ruins of a Roman tower, the Ben Ezra synogogue (said to contain an original of the Torah), and several other churches, one of which is built over the spot where it is said Joseph, Mary and Jesus stayed during their time in Egypt.
The Hanging Church dates back to 600 AD, one of the oldest churches in the world.
This is inside the Hanging Church, which is undergoing extensive rennovations. The man on the scaffold is working on restoring a painting.
The woodwork in the church was exquisite, much of it including inlaid ivory.
Not every bit of the Coptic Quarter was quite up to code. I imagine there is a strict weight limit to who can step out onto this porch.
We moved on to the Pharaoic Village. It was good in that it helped bring to life various scenes from ancient times. This is a little vignette with the pharoh's daughter discovering baby Moses in the bullrushes.
This girl is demonstrating threshing grain by throwing it up in the air and having the wind take the chaff away. Note the "beehive" oven in the background.
I believe this was replicating Karnak Temple. It was interesting to see all the wall paintings in full, unfaded color. Obviously they did not duplicate all three kilometers of the temple.
A special museum was devoted to the King Tut tomb showing how it looked when first discovered. This is a view into the burial chamber, with the huge burial "boxes" and sarcophagus cut away to show the gold casket inside. The three boxes fit one over the other, were made of wood and covered with gold, richly engraved, of course, and fit over the stone sarcophagus.
The boxes nearly filled the burial chamber up to the walls. As Jacob would say, "they were meant to be that way". The wall paintings in this replica were missing the black spots we saw in the genuine tomb. These are believed to have been caused by bacterial growth, promoted by the heat and moisture exacerbated by the steady crush of visitors to the original. The Egyptian authorities are working to counter this growth by providing some air conditioning in the tomb (not a bad idea for King Tut's mummy, which is also displayed in the tomb) and also by limiting the number of visitors. They do this by charging a separate entrance fee which is steep, even in terms of the expensive entrance fees charged for other attractions.
Here's one more view of the burial chamber. We are giving you lots of views of this to make up for the fact that we were not allowed to take any pictures at all in the Valley of the Kings.
Craig and Jacob pose in proper older brother / younger brother position while we wait for our van at the Pharaonic Village. We were getting pretty tired by then, and we still had our dinner cruise on the Nile to go.
This was taken on the top deck of our dinner cruise ship. The food was pretty good (for Egyptian attempts at western dishes) and the Japanese tourists in our dinning room were almost as entertaining as the entertainment itself.
When in Egypt it is required to see a belly dancing show. There was also a lounge lizard singer, two guys dressed in sailor outfits that did little dances, and this amazing guy who wore a multi-level "skirt" who spun around a million times, with the skirt going up and down and, at one point, lighting up.
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