#33 More Pictures

1. Yaya playing at the Sea of Galilee overlook.

2. The roasted vegetable plate at the kibbutz.

3. The Third Century White Synagogue at Capernaum contrasting with the black stone foundations of the surrounding homes.

4. The city of Nazareth.  You can  just make out the dark gray conical dome of the Church of the Annunciation above the trees and the long red roof in the upper right center of the picture.

5. The city and port of Haifa.  The golden dome on the right is the Baihi temple and the larger ship on the right is the Prinsendam.

 

#33 Jerusalem-Galilee, Israel

Pictures:

1. This is the Judean Wilderness or Desert.  Colorful but barren.

2. This is the Jordan Rift Valley and the Jordan River.  Notice that both sides, Israel and Jordan have the same set up.  All that land over the river was desert last time I was here.  It's not a good picture but it was taken through the tinted window of a moving bus.

3. The Jordan River.  Not really very impressive as rivers go, but important nevertheless.

4. This is the marmot competing with the catfish for food.  An odd sight for sure.

5. This was taken while climbing the eastern slope of the Golan Heights.  Again through the tinted window of a moving bus.

 

 

April 22 – Jerusalem-Galilee-Haifa, Israel.  We are heading north today to see the Golan Heights and Galilee.  First the drive took us east out of Jerusalem over the crest of the Judean Hills and into the Judean Desert, called the Wilderness in scripture.  And wilderness it is.  I've been on lots of deserts in the USA, South America, Asia and Africa and if you don't include sand deserts, saharas, this is the most desolate, vegetation free place I've ever seen.  California has both high and low deserts but each of them supports some shrubs and small plants.  The Judean Desert supports none of these except in some isolated wadis that may occasionally have some small plant life.  It's so deep in the wadi that you can't see it unless you are on top of it. 

 

In deserts that get marine moisture, like the Namib in Namibia, support a great deal of tiny plants, lichens and the like.  It's fun to take a flat rock with some colored spots on it and apply a few drops of water.  A miniature forest sprouts up in seconds to absorb the moisture.  This happens at night when the marine fogs from the Atlantic Ocean sweep inland.  The lichens expand to catch the dew and then contract into the hard colored spot of daylight to retain it.  Since the Judean Desert is not next to a large body of water it doesn't get the benefit of marine fog for water so I doubt that there's much in the way of even these small plants.  The few time I've been out in it I didn't see any evidence of them.

 

The line of demarcation between the Judean Hills and Desert is almost like a razor's edge, sudden and complete.  When you descend from hills and reach the town of Jericho it's almost shocking to see this circle of green in the gray, tan and ocher landscape.  Jericho has a sweet water spring and that's the reason the town is green even though it's located some distance from the Jordan River. 

 

Since ancient times there have been two trade routes from Asia to Africa and both cross Israel north to south.  One was along the coast, the Via Maris, and has more hospitable weather.  But it's hillier and was densely populated for the time and thus more difficult and hazardous to cross.  Each little kingdom might want a duty on your goods for passage if not the goods themselves.

 

The other trade route, The King's Road, followed the Jordan Rift Valley and therefore the Jordan River.  Here the weather could be very hot and dry but the river was a constant source of water for both the people and the animals.  When you turned west to enter the valley that leads to Jerusalem you leave the river behind and have to climb the hills from the desert side.  The spring and resulting oasis of Jericho was a day's journey from Jerusalem at the base of the valley you traveled in to get there.  Caravans would stop there to rest, feed and water the beasts of burden before beginning the long climb up to the city. 

 

We didn't enter Jericho as it's in a Palestinian Zone and our guide couldn't go through with us.  Thirty years ago we wouldn't have had any choice as the only two-lane road to the river from Jerusalem went directly through town.  The new four-lane highway bypasses it and turns north after it's past the zone.

 

After turning north we're traveling in the Jordan Rift Valley at times very close to the Jordan River.  Most of the valley is below sea level and the Dead Sea is the world's lowest site, about 1600 feet below sea level I think.  It's the border between Israel and Jordan and it's not very wide in most places.  Since both sides of the river are now green the valley looks so much more appealing than it previously did.

 

We stopped at a spot along the river where they've developed a baptism spot for pilgrims to Israel.  It's a gift shop and restaurant with a couple of areas where curving ramps lead down into the river.  The ramps have handrails to mark their dimensions.  A small group of people was gathering at one of them and the leader seemed to be preparing them for a service of some kind.

 

There was one unusual sight that caught my eye.  Some people were at the edge of the river feeding pieces of bread to some small muskrat like animals that were about the size of a regular loaf of bread.  They seemed to be having a good time.  The odd part was that large catfish were coming to the surface to get some of the bread.  It was a race between the muskrats and the catfish for each new offering.  I had never observed mammals and fish competing directly for the same food source before.  Odd!  We're about half way between the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee and the river is really more of a stream, not very wide or deep.  Yet it's south of here where the bulk of the water is taken out for irrigation.  I'm pretty sure water management is a big issue here.

 

As we continued north we headed up the eastern side of the Golan Heights.  This area was Syrian before the Six-Day War of 1967.  From its advantageous position over Galilee, the Syrians would shell the farms and villages of northern Israel with some frequency.  This would be an intolerable situation for any country so during that war the Israeli's not only took the Golan Heights from Syria but also the Sinai from Egypt and the West Bank from Jordan.  This removed the artillery threat from the heights and greatly increased Israel's security on all its borders except Lebanon.

 

The road up the heights was steep and winding.  Observation posts and prior gun emplacements were still in evidence along the route.  Atop the Golan Heights is a large very fertile plateau that the Syrians never used for farming.  The Israelis have turned it into orchards and fields of fruit and vegetables.

 

We stopped at an overlook for Galilee but it was very cloudy and started to rain just as we began walking out to it.  It wasn't raining hard but it was enough to obscure the view of the Sea of Galilee and the surrounding areas.  We could make out the city of Tiberius directly across it from our position.  Yikes!  In the last thirty years it's grown from a fairly small village on the shore of the late to a large city that extends up both sides of the valley just inland from the original town.

 

As we descended from the Golan Heights it was about time for lunch and we pulled into a little restaurant harbor area near Beit Saida right on the Sea of Galilee.  The lunch was excellent.  The appetizer was roasted/grilled vegetables that were absolutely perfect.  A mix of small yams, purple onions, tomatoes, eggplant, wood ear mushrooms, a small green squash shaped like an Anaheim pepper and leeks.  The plate was worthy of a master's still life, and delicious to boot.  It was served with soft crust loaves of bread and four little relishes or dips to eat with it, hummus, a ratatouille type cold chopped vegetable relish, shredded carrots and onions and some sort of lentil mix.  I was full after the first two courses but the main course was a small steak that was also good.

 

Our next stop was the city of Capernaum, also right on the sea and the home of several of Jesus' disciples including Peter, Andrew, James, John and Matthew.  It was here and in this region that Jesus spent most of the three years of his teaching.  It's very likely that he taught in the synagogue here and that's part of what we are stopping to see.  This was a prominent town in the First Century.  Goods that came through Syria and wanted to take the Via Maris cut across Israel north of the Sea of Galilee and that where Capernaum is located.  The synagogue building that is seen today partially reconstructed is from the Third and Fourth Centuries but excavations under it have disclosed the ruins of an earlier structure, probably from the First Century.  About 150 feet away they have discovered the buried ruins of a Byzantine octagonal church that was said to have been built on the site of Peter's house.  I can't say much about the authenticity of any of these claims but that this is the site of the city of Capernaum is not in dispute. 

 

The synagogue is constructed of imported white marble while the homes and the prior synagogue were made of dark local stone.  The foundations of the homes and the synagogue make a great contrasting scene.

 

It's thought that Justinian probably built the synagogue that is partly reconstructed today.  It's richly carved with Jewish symbols and representations of local fruits, plants and trees.  The Corinthian columns are especially nice.  When I was here in 1982 I photographed two carved stones that I'm hoping to find again.  It may be difficult as the site is much more organized than it was back then.  In '82 we just parked our bus and walked into the ruins.  Now there's a parking lot and fence around most of the remains plus there's a fee to get in.  But work is being done on the site so I guess that's reasonable.  They discovered the Byzantine church and have reconstructed more of the synagogue, although some critics are saying they don't have it right.  I did find the two carved rocks.  One has a bunch of grapes and a wine jar with some leaves around the edge.  The other shows the ark on wheels. 

 

From Capernaum we went to Tabgha to visit the Church of Mensa Christi or the Primacy of Peter.  This little chapel, built right on the shores of the sea, commemorates two events.  First there's a rock inside that represents Peter, the rock on which Jesus said he would build his church.  Second, after his resurrection, Jesus appeared to his disciples by the sea and at breakfast with them.  It's really a plain little building but it simple styling is attractive.

 

We are now leaving the seaside and heading over the low hills towards the coast.  We are going to pass through two cities that are important to the story of the gospel.  Cana of Galilee is the site of the first miracle, turning water into wine at the wedding.  This was purely a drive by.

 

Nazareth is where Mary was living when she was told that she would give birth to the Messiah and where Joseph had his carpenter shop.  It's also the place where Jesus spent his youth.  We stopped on an overlook to see the city and the conical dome of the Church of the Annunciation. 

 

From there it was on to the coast and Haifa where the Prinsendam is waiting for us.  We stopped at an overlook here as well.  It's a large port city and very modern.  Yaya lives here and plays in a band in the clubs for which the city is known.  He did tell us that his gigs usually end when the riot police arrive.  He was kidding, as least I think so.

 

The worldwide headquarters of the Bahai faith is here and their golden domed temple set amid some wonderful gardens is a jewel of the city.  The Bahai are the newest monotheistic religion.  They split off from the Suni Muslims in the 1800s to adopt a belief in pacifism and peace with all people.  Haifa is built on the slopes of Mount Carmel a place rich in history for the Jews.  The mountain is now a nature reserve of which the local residents are very proud

 

It was good to be back on the ship after four days of overland broken only by one short night on board.

#32 More Pictures

1. The is the mosaic under floor of the Basilica of the Nativity from Constantine's church circa 332 AD.

2. St. Jerome, Mary and the cross from the Church of Saint Catherine of Alexandria.

3. The tympanum mosaic on the Basilica of the Agony with the deer on top.  The photo does not do it justice.

4. This is the ultra-conservative family I mentioned that belong to a sect that follows a somewhat radical rabbi.  The only things a bit unusual is that the man does not have a black coat on, his hair is much thicker on the sides and the wife's head is shaved.  Other than that they look pretty normal.  Well maybe the kid a year thing is a little different too.

5. That's the Dome of the Rock atop the Temple Mount from the Mount of Olives.

6. The Western Wall of the Temple Mount, men's side at about 10PM.  The white curtain on the right separates the men's side from the women's.  If you can see the small boy  on the right in the pale yellow, long sleeved jacket, his arms are spread out because he's dancing as part of a circle of men that were singing.  Somewhat unusual at the Western Wall because most gatherings here are somber, but since they are celebrating their liberation from Egyptian bondage I guess this is the exception.

 

 

#32 Jerusalem, Israel - Day 1

 

Pictures:

1. This is a typical scene in the old city of Jerusalem.  The bread from these carts is fantastic.  The street behind him is a shopping street.

2. This is the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  The ladder under the window on the right has been there since 1852 when relations between the denominations that share the building broke down completely.

3. These nuns had the best hat I've ever seen on a nun.

4. This is a display in a t-shirt shop in the Jewish Quarter.  Apparently not fans of our president.  How narrow minded of them!

5. This is the Basilica of the Nativity.  Looks more like a fort.  You can see how short the entrance is but comparing it to the seated men on the right.

6. These Armenian Priests were chanting as we left the Grotto of the Nativity.

 

Once again I feel I have to apologize for the wordiness of this entry.  I just can't help myself on some subjects.

 

April 21 – Ashdod-Jerusalem, Israel.  Well it's another two days of bus travel.  If I sound like I'm complaining, I'm not.  It's just that bus travel is not nearly so inviting to me as it was when I was 35.  I love the walking tours and the small van tours that we sometimes get but big buses are a pain.  That's what produces the somewhat negative feel to my prose.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with the sights I'm seeing.  The nice thing here is that we don't have a marathon bus trip to get to our destinations.  It'll be about half the time we spent getting to Cairo.

 

It has been 30 years since I have been in Israel.  I went there in 1968 when I was in the US Air Force, in civilian clothes of course.  Diana and I went back in 1982 with our church in Bellflower.  The pastor there loved Israel and led a tour there every other year for as long as he was able.  He had a hand-selected guide, critical to a successful trip and was able to organize the itinerary to his liking.  It was 16 days but with the 2 days of travel to and from you spent 2 weeks on the ground.  It was great!

 

This trip will be 2 days and it's going to be an interesting two days.  This is Passover for the Jews and Holy Week for the Christians.  The only group sitting this week out will be the Muslims.  Passover and Easter don't usually occur at the same time so this is the year of the double whammy.  Jerusalem should be packed with both Jews and Christians from all over the world.  I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of our stops were eliminated or shortened because it's going to be crowded, especially at the locations that have anything to do with Holy Week.  Unfortunately that's just about half of the old city of Jerusalem. 

 

I teach a class on the Feasts of the Lord in Israel and this week covers three of them and one of the most important ones, Passover.  The two other spring feasts are Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits.  For Jews these feasts celebrate their deliverance from bondage in Egypt, the fact that they were ordered to not eat leaven (yeast, often a symbol in scriptures for sin) for a week and the spring renewal of the earth and the bounty of food it supplies.  (That's way oversimplified but after running on and on about pyramids and pharaohs I'm feeling a little guilty!)  For Christians if means all that plus the events fulfilling prophecies of the Messiah who we believe was Jesus Christ.  Passover commemorates His crucifixion, Unleavened Bread his sinless life and his body sacrificed for us and Firstfruits His resurrection to eternal life with the Father, foreshadowing our future resurrection.  It's easy to see why this week is important to both religions.

 

The political nation of Israel was formed in 1948 after the British grew tired of managing the disputes between the Arabs and the Jews.  Palestine was a nation formed by treaty and not any sort of ethnicity or race.  Basically they are Islamic of one sort or another.  Our ever vigilant and mostly ignorant media has foisted the false dichotomy between Jew and Palestinian on us.  As one indication of how determined they were to reestablish a Jewish homeland in their historic real estate they wanted to select a language to unify them.  Even though Ancient Hebrew was an all but dead language without vowels, punctuation and the like they revived it, made the necessary changes and it became the national language of Israel.  Now that's determination.  They could just as easily selected one of the more common languages spoken by the people who immigrated starting in the early 1900s but that would not have served the purpose of forming a national identity to unify them.

 

Political Stupidity Note:  Jews are descendants of the Israeli tribes of Judah and Benjamin with Levites thrown in.  As a people they have been know since ancient history.  Palestinians are people who happened to live in this area as the result of its long-term occupation by the Ottoman Empire when the British formed the protectorate of Palestine in the last century or thereabouts.  Not exactly an apples to apples comparison.  They are ethnically and religiously not significantly different from the residents of Jordan, Syria, Lebanon or Egypt, countries who banded together to drive the newly formed nation of Israel into the sea in 1948.  Their combined military might should have crushed the new nation in a matter of days.  Instead they had their butts kicked soundly and didn't really try again until 1967 when again they had their butts kicked even harder and lost a lot of land to the Israelis, the so-called West Bank, Gaza and the entire Sinai Peninsula.  They traded the Sinai back to Egypt for a peace treaty and so far that has worked well.  With the current problems in Egypt we'll have to see if that trend continues.

 

They returned the so-called Gaza Strip to the Palestinians and that has not worked nearly as well.  It's probably significant that, although they are brothers ethnically and religiously, the aggressors in the 1948 war did not allow them to assimilate into their society and that's why they insist they have a right to a nation of their own.  This is like all the illegal aliens in the USA demanding that we give them land for a nation inside our borders.  Just a little bit too silly a concept for serious consideration and yet somehow the UN and now unfortunately the USA seems to think is a good idea for the Jews of Israel.  Most Palestinians just want to go about their business in peace.  Unfortunately they are the true definition of a 'silent majority.'  The are unwilling or unable to control the radical minority among them that is constantly sending young men and women as human bombs to harass Israel.  I'd have a lot more respect for them if the religious leaders went as the human bombs themselves instead of sending children.  To misquote Nathan Hale, one of my favorite American patriots, "My only regret is that I only have a few hundred children's lives to lose for my country."  I doubt we'd remember the phrase has he been that much a coward.

 

The short message is that if the Islamic countries had been successful in any of their wars against Israel I doubt that the UN or USA or anyone else would be entertaining the idea of portioning any part of the Muslim victor's land to make as home state for the Jews.  And secondly, if Israel ever agrees to a separate Palestinian state inside the borders of what is now Israel we will know they have finally lost their minds completely. Can you imagine a separate Mexican state in and around Saint Louis or Atlanta?  As a friend of mine in the Air Force was fond of saying, "Sooner or later there's gonna be trouble!"  I warned you about reading the italics and now you know why.  I've been relatively calm on this trip so there haven't been many.

 

Israeli ingenuity and inventiveness never fails to impress me.  Every port we've been in all over the world then the ship nears the pier the sailors toss a light line to the handlers ashore and they pull the heavy lines that keep the ship in place across by hand, often requiring two or mover men to get the heavy wet rope up to the pier from the water.  These two line handlers ere having none of that hard, wet work.  When the light line came across they put it on the far side of the large cleat from this small pickup truck.  One man tied the line to the trailer hitch of the truck and drove away from the cleat until the heavy line got to it and the second man flipped the spliced in loop over the bollard and the ship could winch away until we were positioned correctly.  Amazingly easy and efficient.

 

As you would expect security here is tight.  They have created a perimeter of cargo containers around a large section of the pier closest to the ship and security people are in evidence both inside and outside this area. 

 

We departed the ship and began driving across the Maritimes, the section of Israel along the Mediterranean.  This coastal zone is warm and gets more rain than the other zones of the country.  As you begin to climb into the hills you get to the foothills of the Judean Hills.  Here it's cooler and a little less rainy.  Atop the Judean Hills it's still cooler, Jerusalem, at the very top, gets snow in the winter. 

 

Practical Note: That's why we are almost certain Jesus was not born in December; no shepherd in his right mind would be grazing his sheep high in the Judean hills in December.  December twenty fifth coincides with a pagan celebration and since many of the early Christians were slaves it was safe to have Christmas at that time because their masters were otherwise occupied.  His actual birth is much more likely to have occurred in late spring.  The date of the birth and celebration are of little importance.  The important thing is that it happened and that we remember it.

 

When you cross the ridge of the Judean Hills the change is immediate and drastic.  The eastern slope of the Judean Hills get almost no rain.  In the Bible this area is referred to as the Wilderness.  It isn't a sand desert but it is almost completely free of any sort of vegetation.  Anywhere you see anything green is either the location of a spring or irrigated.  At the base of the Wilderness you are in the Jordan Rift Valley and the site of the Jordan River.  Like Egypt, where anything near the Nile is green and anything not is parched Sahara, the Jordan River valley is as green as anything you'll ever see.  Date palms, banana trees, olives, citrus, figs and all sorts of fruits and vegetables are grown here.  There are also large ponds for aquaculture.  There are several species of fish they farm here.  Since the river is now the border between Jordan and Israel the treaty between the two has allowed them to cooperate on using the river's water.  The Israelis taught the Jordanians their farming techniques and the two parties agreed on how to use the water.  Last time we were here the treaty had not been signed and you could tell where the river ran from miles away because the Israeli side was green farmland and the Jordanian side was desert. 

 

Back to the bus.  Our guide's name is Yaya and he's carrying his trumpet to play as we tour.  It will be our signal to gather to return to the bus as well as our rallying point for moving to the next location on a walk.  As we drove across the coastal plane it was very clear that the Israelis have spent a lot of time and money on infrastructure.  Last time we drove from the coast up to Jerusalem it was on a two-lane road.  Now there's a four-lane divided highway that seems to be taking the same route for the most part.  There were some scattered small villages on the way that have now grown into respectable towns with most of the new construction being condominium or apartment buildings.  With the huge influx of Russian Jews after Glasnost and Perestroika, Russian is now one of the top three foreign languages spoken in the country.

 

When we arrived in Jerusalem it was all but unrecognizable until we got to the walls of the old city.  These had not changed since Suliman the Magnificent had them built in the 1500s during the Ottoman occupation.  However everything outside them was different.  Our bus dropped us off at the middle of the western city wall, not to be confused with the Western (Wailing) Wall of the temple mount.  We walked along the wall until we got to the Jaffa Gate where we entered the old city.  Our guide gave us a restroom break here and since I didn't need one I immediately looked around for something to do. 

 

Standing nearby was a small group of police officers.  Here in Israel they look more like infantry soldiers, armed to the teeth, wearing flack jackets and carrying a lot of gear but the uniforms are gray/blue and not olive drab.  Four were in a small group but the oldest, and tallest, one stood a little off to one side near the security barricade.  I wondered over and said hello to him and he answered in English, pay dirt right off the bat.  We chatted a little about Israel and Jerusalem and he seemed both surprised and pleased when I told him I was here in 1968 while I was in the Air Force.  I would guess that was almost 20 years before he was born.  We chatted a little about the changes I noticed since 1982 and he told me that all the improvements around the Jaffa gate had just opened last month.  Two of his squad members were women, and very cute women at that.  I remarked that the female police officers were every bit as attractive as their counterparts in the Israeli Army.  He grinned broadly and told me that he had to agree as his wife was currently in the police but he met her when she was in the army.  On that note Yaya's trumpet sounded and we were off for our walk through the old city.

 

The walls of the old city as well as every building in it are made of or faced with Jerusalem limestone.  At most times this gray stone with a slight yellow or ocher tinge is not really very remarkable, but when the sun gets low at dawn or dusk (the golden hours landscape photography) it literally glows with a honey gold hue.  It's almost as though the stone has an internal light source.  Quite remarkable.  The law is, and has been for 50-60 years that if the building is not constructed with the stone it has to be faced with it.

 

Our first destination was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  After entering by the Jaffa Gate we walked down David Street and after some very Venice like twists, turns and small alleys we found ourselves outside the Church of the Redeemer, the Lutheran headquarters for Jerusalem.  It was built in the late 1800s on the side of a former Crusader church.  It's right next to the square of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher but we didn't enter as the guide was told the church was not open.

 

We waited around for a while and then decided to set off to see our next sight the Coenaculum.  It was originally constructed by the Crusaders but became a mosque under Ottoman control and Jews and Christians were not allowed in.  After the West Bank was added to Israel during the 1967 war it was opened up to visitors.  In Christian tradition this is the site of the Last Supper where Jesus instituted the rite of the Eucharist as part of his last Passover Seder dinner.  Seven weeks later on the day of Pentecost, Mary, the Apostles and others were gathered here when they received the Holy Spirit.  No one can be absolutely certain of many of these locations.  The commemoration of important events is the significant part, not where or when we remember them. 

 

The Coenaculum is certainly a small place.  It's located on Mount Zion just outside the Zion Gate in the old city wall.  Inside the structure still has the ribbed cross vaults typical of Crusader construction but with the niche indicating the direction of Mecca and the mosque pulpit.  It's an interesting space but not particularly impressive.  The traditional tomb of David and the church commemorating the Assumption of Mary are in the same area of Mt. Zion.  We also visited a historic and ancient Jewish synagogue.

 

As we were exiting the synagogue Yaya told us that the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was going to be open for a short time and we should go directly back there.  It's about half way across the old city so we hustled back to find that our way in was blocked by the police.  Undeterred, Yaya took us around a second way only to find it mobbed by people going the opposite direction.  I'll say this for Yaya he doesn't give up.  He said he knew one more way into the church square and I couldn't believe it when we found that direction almost deserted.

 

The same can't be said for the square itself.  It was pretty full but Yaya led us toward the church door, which was still closed.  Our little group gathered about 8 feet from the door and waited.  As we did the square started to fill up and people started cramming themselves into the space like sardines.  Eventually the door opened and to everyone's surprise there were people inside that needed to get out before we could get in.  It was a little dangerous as people started moving in one direction to provide a path and there was not sufficient free space for them to accomplish that.  For a while it was tight enough so that if someone had wanted to take a nap they would have had no problem staying upright.  About the time I was starting to look for a way to get us to a safe spot if real pressure started to build up.  The people in front of us started moving into the church just in time to prevent me instituting evasive action.

 

This church is sort of a United Nations for the Orthodox Christians.  The Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Apostolic, Coptic, Syrian and Ethiopian Orthodox denominations share in the management of the church building and its services.  Each has a small area for it's exclusive use and the other parts and the structure itself are treated as common area and all parties have to agree to any changes and that includes maintenance.  They have a strict schedule for use of the common areas.

 

Because all these parties have to agree on any changes in the common area nothing has been changed since 1852.  Consequently the exterior and interior of the church are in poor repair.  This fact has produced a most unusual sight on the front façade of the structure.  If you look closely you can see a ladder on the top of the carved molding and extending up to the window on the right.  That ladder has been there since 1852 because all repairs were stopped at that time due to the disagreement over what should be done.  Fortunately some of the shrines inside belong to only one of the groups and can be maintained.

 

The last five Stations of the Cross are inside this church.  According to church tradition, all the events of the crucifixion, preparation and burial took place here.  We were able to visit the Stone of Unction the traditional spot commemorating the preparation of Jesus' body for burial and the Sepulcher of Christ the small chapel within the church that is the traditional spot of His burial.  The other three stations are upstairs and it was packed with people and not moving.  We've been inside before so we headed out to the plaza to people watch and there were a lot of people to observe.  There were nuns and priests of various orders from places that still wear traditional habits.  Some of them are very pretty, others are just plain funny.  Eventually Yaya started playing his trumpet and we all assembled and filed out of the square.

 

On the way out we walked through the Jewish Quarter and some shops were open.  One t-shirt shop caught my eye.  It stocked some pretty funny shirts with a Jewish flavor.  One had a picture of an F-18 and said 'Don't worry America, Israel will protect you!'  Some other examples were, 'Guns n Moses', 'Israel, Uzi does it.'  But my favorite had a picture of our president with an Islamic beard and mullah's hat that said 'Obama Bin Laden'.  Priceless.  It also had several Russian leaders looking like Yasser Arafat.  We headed back across the old city to the Zion Gate and out to our waiting bus.

 

From Jerusalem we are heading south to the town of Bethlehem.  It's not very far in miles but it's quite a distance in culture.  Bethlehem is in what they call the Palestinian Area of Responsibility created by the Wye Memorandum of 2000.  Here the Palestinians are responsible for civil affairs, internal security and public order.  You may have seen this area when Israel was constructing a security wall between it and the Jewish area because murder bombings were getting to be a regular occurrence in the late 1990s.  Because Yaya is a Jew he could not go with us.  We dropped him off before we cleared Israeli security and picked up a Palestinian guide after we cleared through their security.  We got lucky; our guide was a Palestinian Christian.  When we got back to the ship some buses had gotten Islamic guides and they were nasty, not very informative and rude according to the reports I received.  Our guide was great!  We came here to visit the Basilica of the Nativity, the traditional site that commemorates Jesus' birth.  Bethlehem is home to many Palestinian Christians probably because of the presence of this site.  I feel a little sorry for them.  Because they are Palestinian the Israelis don't trust them although they are not hostile towards Israel and don't participate in the bombings and other terrorist activities.  They are a definite minority and just have to roll with the punches.

 

Our first stop was at a shop that deals in olive wood carvings among other things.  The workmanship was beautiful.  They had everything from small statues to huge nativity scenes and in various grades of detail and of course prices.  Diana bought some small manger scenes carved from olive wood and I got a fridgie. 

 

One nice thing about it being Easter is that the attention is focused on Jerusalem and not Bethlehem.  I've been in Nativity Square three times now and I've never seen it so empty.  We didn't have to wait to enter the church.  The entrance is called the Door of Humility and it's only 4 feet high and there's a step up immediately inside it.  There's no way to enter without bowing and quite a few people bump their heads as they try to bend over and also negotiate the step up.

 

Bethlehem is 'House of Bread' in Hebrew foreshadowing the birth of the Bread of Life in this city.  Both King David of the Old Testament and Jesus of the New Testament were born here.  The Basilica of the Nativity has a long history and is one of those 'traditional' sites that modern archeology is tending to prove is the actual site of the event it commemorates.  Early Christians revered this site so much that in 135 AD, just 60 years after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and only 100 years after the crucifixion, the emperor Hadrian dedicated the grotto to the god Adonis to eradicate the Christian veneration of the site.  There is no record of when this site was first identified as the place of Jesus' birth.  In 332, after Constantine had converted the Roman Empire to Christianity from Paganism, Christians were again allowed to come here to worship.  It has been a place of worship ever since.

 

Constantine built the first church, which was destroyed in the Samaritan revolt of the early Sixth Century.  Justinian built the present church in 530.  It looks more like a fortress than a church because he was taking no chances with further revolts and wanted it to be defensible.  The original function of the Door of Humility was to hinder Moslem invaders when they tried to enter the building.  It's one of the oldest surviving churches in the holy land because the Persian invaders destroyed most of them.  This church was spared because a mosaic on the façade of the church depicted the Three Magi visiting the baby Jesus wearing Persian clothing.

 

There are trapdoors in the floor of the church that can be opened to disclose mosaics from Constantine's 332 AD church.  Today Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Armenian priests, share the church.  Unlike the Church of the Nativity, here they get along fine and things can be kept up properly. 

 

The real treasure of the church is the cave under the apse of the sanctuary, the Grotto of the Nativity.  There are three altars in a very small space.  The primary one is the traditional site of Jesus' birth.  It's marked by a silver star with 14 points lit by 15 oil lamps representing the Christian communities of the world.  A little distance from this site is a marble slab marking the traditional site of the manger and another commemorating the visit by the Three Magi. 

 

Back up in the church we were exiting through the Armenian chapel some priests were praying led by a priest in a sliver robe and an Archbishop's hat and another man in a golden/orange robe.  The rest were dressed in maroon robes with a gold border at the hem and golden yoke over their shoulders and chest.  It was an interesting scene but with no flash I don't think my photo will be very clear.  It's dark in here.  They had a bottle of wine and a Dutch oven like metal pot before them so they might have been getting ready to celebrate communion. 

 

Right next door is the Church of Saint Catherine of Alexandria built in 1881.  It's atop the ruins of a Crusader church.  This is the site of the Roman Catholic Christmas Eve service that is broadcast worldwide.  They have a statue of Saint Jerome, translator of the Vulgate Bible, in the forecourt of the church.  He took the ancient Scriptures both Old and New Testaments and translated them from Hebrew and Greek to Latin. 

 

On the walk back down to the parking lot we passed a coffee shop named Stars & Bucks.  It's using the same green and white signs and circular logo that looks very much like Starbucks except there are four cups of coffee in the center and not the mermaid.  First time I was here in 1968 I saw a burger restaurant called McDavid's with a happy Hassidic man holding orange juice and a hamburger.  A cheeseburger could never be kosher because one of the rules is no dairy with meat.  I guess you could have a cheese vegiburger but who would want one? 

 

Back in the bus we exited the Palestinian Zone and returned to Israeli control.  The guides changed again back to Yaya and we continued back to Jerusalem where we'll spend the night at the Olive Tree Hotel. 

 

On the way we drove up the Kidron Valley between the eastern wall of the old city of Jerusalem atop the western slope and the Mount of Olives to the east.  We stopped in front of the Basilica of the Agony, also known as the Church of All Nations because so many countries cooperated in building it.  This church commemorates the night that Jesus spent praying in the Garden of Gethsemane just before His arrest.  Inside the church is a rock with a short fence surrounding it that is fashioned like a crown of thorns.  The roof of the church is covered with little domes that have stained glass windows at their apex displaying the flags of the countries involved in the project.  I did locate the USA's dome.  They were just starting a mass so I snapped a quick picture of the rock and left the building. 

 

The mosaic across the tympanum over the three-arched front façade is the highlight of the structure.  It's very colorful with a lot of golden tiles.  Jesus is in the middle with a group of men on the left and women on the right.  The men are a soldier, a king (with his crown set on the ground), a student, a musician and an old man dressed as a philosopher.  On the woman's side are a mother, a queen, and what appear to be three nuns or women in traditional garb that I don't recognize.  Some of each is looking up in worship and others looking down in sadness.  There are angels around and some geometric designs.  God is at the apex looking down on Jesus who is looking up at God and seems to be asking, 'Must I?'  The same question He was asking as he prayed that last evening.

 

Above the mosaic, at the roof's gable, there's cross between two deer that both face it.  Someone commented that it seemed somewhat odd but it's taken from Psalm 42:1 "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.  Metaphorically the deer are looking at the source of Living Water.  You just gotta love religious symbolism.  I'm sure that hundreds of things in every site go right over my head but it's like solving a puzzle to try to interpret what the artist was trying to show.  Sort of like reading Shakespeare, not for everyone I guess.

 

Up the side of the Mount of Olives we could see the golden onion domes of the Russian Orthodox Church of Mary Magdalene.  It's a pretty sight because the church is mostly white with a very pale blue roof. 

 

Directly across the valley is the Golden Gate in the Eastern Wall of Jerusalem.  The Muslims closed that gate during the Ottoman occupation and a Muslim cemetery was put in front of it.  The New Testament predicts that when the Messiah returns he will come to the Mount of Olives and enter Jerusalem through the Golden Gate.  The Muslims are trying to make it as difficult as possible for anyone to ever open the gate to make that possible.

 

On the way to the hotel we encountered a family belonging to a new ultra-orthodox sect of Judaism that I had not encountered before.  The man wore a fur hat but different in design from those I've seen before.  He had a long full beard and his side curls were also extremely long.  But what made me look twice and notice that he was different was his wife.  Her head, what I could see of it from under the scarf she was wearing appeared to be bald.  I asked Yaya about them later and he said that they were followers of a certain rabbi and that the women of that sect have to shave their heads.  They were waiting to cross a busy intersection and the line up was practically perfect.

 

After checking in and having dinner we drove up to the top of the Mount of Olives for a view of the old city at night.  They have lights on many of the monuments but especially the Dome of the Rock, a mosque that currently occupies the center of the Temple Mount.  There's another large more typical mosque on the Temple Mount against the southern wall but they built this one to make sure that the Jews could not build a new temple there and begin the process of ritual sacrifices as predicted in both the Old and New Testaments.

 

From the Mount of Olives we drove in a huge traffic jam to as near to the Dung Gate in the old wall as we could get.  From there we walked into the Jewish Quarter of the old city and to the Western (Wailing) Wall.  When the temple was active on the Temple Mount according to Jewish scriptures God dwelt inside it.  After 70AD when the Romans destroyed the city including the temple the only spot that remains is the Western Wall of the Temple Mount.  This became the holiest site in the Jewish religion and it's part of the reason they won't return the so-called West Bank of Jordan to that country or to the Palestinians.  At the start of the Jewish Sabbath, Friday at sunset, this place is mobbed.  It's 10 o'clock on Thursday evening and it's pretty busy right not.  Of course, it's Passover week so every day is a holy day but the first and last days are Sabbaths and have the additional 'no work' provision active. 

 

The men and women are strictly segregated here, men to the left side, women to the right.  There's a white curtain between the two sides.  Passover is a joyous occasion for Jews, celebrating their deliverance from Egyptian oppression and oppression in general.  There was a group of men in a circle dancing near the wall.  Everyone seemed to be in a happy mood.  As happy as the ultra-orthodox will allow themselves to show anyway.

 

One of the men on our tour uses a walker and really does not get around well.  All day he mostly stayed on the bus when we toured various sites and the old city.  He did get off for meals and at the hotel.  But he wanted to get to the Western Wall and had three small pieces of paper he wanted to put in the cracks.  It's traditional to put prayers or wishes in the cracks in the wall.  Darryl from the Shorex Office helped the man get near the wall using his walker but the crowd was pretty thick right at the wall and it was going to be hard to get space enough for the man to touch it.  Darryl had him park the walker and took him by the arm towards the wall.  One of the men praying there must have seen them coming and said something in Hebrew because the men against the wall parted like the Red Sea and allowed the man and Darryl to get right up to the wall where he delivered his prayer papers and stood for a short while before backing away.  Just like the Red Sea the men closed back to their original positions and the wall was once again completely covered.  It was a scene of such grace and kindness on the part of everyone involved that I was too much in awe to preserve the event in pictures.  It's these random acts of kindness that keep me from losing all faith in humanity.

 

After a long day of touring it was back to the hotel for a good nights sleep.

#31 Cairo, Egypt - Day 2

Pictures:

1. the center part of the wall is the height of the original.  The man on the donkey is about half way between me and the wall.  A normal size man is about 2/5 as tall as the entrance.

2. This is Zoser's step pyramid.  For some perspective there's a man standing just to the right just under an arm of the scaffolding in the center of the pyramid.  He looks like a little black stripe.

3. This is the Memphis Necropolis from Saqqara.  On the right in the distance is the Bent Pyramid and on the left is the Red Pyramid, respectively the first attempt and the first successful attempt at a true pyramid.

4. Right to left are, the Pyramid of Menkaure (Mykerinus) with its three small satellite pyramids, the Pyramid of Khafre (Chefren) and the Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) (aka the Great Pyramid). 

5. This is the Solar Boat discovered just recently at the foot of the Great Pyramid where it's building now stands.  It was found disassembled and was probably only used once to bring the body of Khufu across the Nile to his Valley Temple.  After which it was taken apart and buried next to his pyramid.

6. This is Khufu's pyramid, the tallest one ever built.  The structure in the middle is home to the Solar Boat display.

7. And of course, the Sphinx.  The body and head are out of one out of one large rock but the forelegs are made of stone blocks.  The little block of pinkish red stone between the forelegs is the stele placed there to commemorate the dream of Thutmose IV.

 

Author's Note: I'm afraid I get a little carried away about Ancient Egypt so I'll say ahead of time that the following may be TMI.

 

April 20 – Cairo, Egypt – Day 2.  When we awoke in the morning we discovered that we had a very nice view from our sixteenth floor window.  We are next door to the French embassy and have a great view down into the embassy's gardens.  Just to the left is the Nile River and it looks like we're looking towards the south.  No time to enjoy it as we are leaving the hotel to have breakfast on a Nile riverboat.

 

A short bus ride brought us to the dock.  Well not actually a dock.  There's a permanently moored ship that serves as a riverfront restaurant.  Our riverboat is docked on the water side of this ship.  Both are named Maxim.  The riverboat could hold about 5 times a many people as we have but there aren't any other groups joining us.  Just more evidence of the drop off in tourism here.  The ride up the river was pleasant and the food was good so today is off to a good start.

 

The mix of traffic in downtown Cairo is interesting.  Cars, trucks, semis, motorcycles, motor scooters, bicycles, ox carts, donkey carts, horse carts, horses, pushcarts and people all vying for space with each other.  No skateboards, roller blades, roller skates or scooters were in evidence so I guess personal wheels are not popular.  The reason is obvious; there are very few flat, smooth surfaces anywhere in the city.  It would be almost suicide to attempt using any small-wheeled mode of motion here.  There is a military presence in the town but it's pretty low key in most places, a strategically placed APC here and there and only a few tanks.

 

We are heading upriver, that is to say south, about 12 miles to Saqqara.  The Nile is the only major river in the world that flows to the north.  In Ancient Egypt the land of the living was on the east bank of the Nile and the land of the dead was on the west.  Ancient Egyptian Necropolises (One would think that should be necropoli (like paparazzi for multiple paparazzo) but since the word ends in 's' preceded by an 'i' it's not.) are almost always on the west bank and the dead had to be taken across the river for burial. 

 

Just to be on the safe side I'm going to copy some of my previous journal here but in smaller type in case you want to skip it. 

 

"Perhaps a little should be said about the development of pyramids.  In Egypt, the earliest proven pyramid builders, pyramids started out as 'mastabas' (Egyptian for table).  They were rectangular shaped rock constructions set atop desert graves likely to keep the wind from blowing the sand away and exposing the body.  Earlier graves had suffered this somewhat ignoble end.  This was the earliest Egyptian grave structure."

 

Successive royalty wanted more and more important and permanent grave markers so they began to construct multi-level mastabas with each level getting a little smaller than the one above.  When this structure gets to be at least three increasingly smaller mastabas one atop the other you have the mastabas successor, the 'step pyramid'.  It wasn't until the pharaoh Khufu built the Great Pyramid at Giza that the steps were filled in and the structure was faced with marble to create the smooth sided type we currently refer to as a pyramid.  His son, Kahfre's pyramid right next to his still has some of the facing stones intact at it's apex but all the facing stones of the Great Pyramid are gone.

 

Neither mastabas nor step pyramids have any internal features.  They are solid structures, whereas the later type starting with Khufu has internal chambers and passageways.  All the chambers and tunnels in mastabas and step pyramids are under the structure.  Their lack of internal features makes them much less technically challenging to build."

 

Saqqara is the place where mastaba became a true pyramid and I've wanted to visit this site for years.  You may have to forgive me if I go on and on about it.  Not seeing it was the only reason I was disappointed when our stop in Egypt was cancelled.  It's also the reason I'm very happy it was reinstated.

 

The first pyramid ever constructed was for King Zoser, the second pharaoh of the Third Dynasty around 2800 BC.  It was conceived, designed and built by Zoser's vizier, Imhotep.  You may recognize that name as it's been used in films many times to represent someone mysterious or threatening in mummy and other movies about Ancient Egypt.  It's believed that Imhotep may also have been a physician.  One of his major innovations was to build the tomb and funerary complex in stone.  Up to this point they had been constructed with sun-dried brick. 

 

The funerary complex he designed was large.  He selected a very large plateau in Saqqara for the location.  It was surrounded by a wall over 30 feet high that encloses an area of 182,000 square yards.  The entrance to this wall is in the southeast corner of the complex and very narrow, you have to go in single file and one way at a time.  Once through the entrance you enter directly into The Colonnade.  There are 40 columns, twenty on each side of the passageway, and between each set of columns is a statue of King Zoser proclaiming him king of both Upper and Lower Egypt.  This always seems backwards to me as Upper Egypt is south of Lower Egypt but it's at a higher elevation and is 'up the Nile'.  The Colonnade ends in a rectangular hall whose ceiling was supported by 8 somewhat shorter columns.  Most of the tall columns are only partly reconstructed.  They have completely restored two of them and the ceiling stones in between to let you see what it would have looked like. 

 

Since breaking with tradition was often seen as sacrilege back then he had the stones carved to simulate the older way of building.  For example, roofs were made of palm trunks, split in half and laid across the tops of the walls.  He had the stones of the ceilings carved to look like palm trunks.  The columns were carved to look like bundles of reeds. 

 

There are buildings on the northern and southern side of the complex.  The building on the south is interesting because it is inscribed with graffiti from about 1200 BC, the oldest tourist records in existence.  They discuss their admiration for the complex and its structures almost 1600 years after it was built.  Now 4800 years later, here I am.

 

The pyramid itself is on the northern side of the courtyard but to prevent animosity between the two kingdoms they also had a tomb on the southern side, a ninety-two foot deep shaft leading to second tomb chamber for Zoser.  There are two statues of him striding forward, one with the red crown and the other with the white crown. 

 

The pyramid is constructed of 6 increasingly smaller mastabas stacked one atop the other to a height of about 200 feet.  It's 400 feet by 360 feet at the base and took 20 years to complete (2663-2643 BC).  The burial shaft beneath it is the same depth, ninety-two feet, as the pit for the southern tomb and ends almost exactly under the center of the pyramid.  The pyramid is over the northern tomb because Zoser came from the Northern Kingdom, which is Lower Egypt.  While the exterior of the structure is stone it has a hollow center.  They would build a substantial wall to the size of that tier and then fill the center with stone rubble and mortar.  Then build the next level's walls and fill again.  The entire exterior was faced with Tura limestone from the eastern bank of the Nile but the casing stones are long gone with the exception of a few lone examples still in place.

 

Atop the entrance to the burial shaft was a funerary temple.  This structure was on the northern edge of the pyramid and directly in line with the funerary entrance in the northern wall.  This entrance was sealed after the body was inside leaving only the southeastern entrance for visitors.  So in addition to being the first stone structure and the first pyramid, it's also the start of the attachment of a funerary temple to the pyramid.  This will be expanded on later with the addition of the embalming temple and the causeway.

 

From the top of the Saqqara Plateau it's possible to see the Memphis Necropolis about six miles to the south.  Memphis (on the east bank of the river) was the first capital of Ancient Egypt for 1,000 years and an important religious and commercial center for 3,000 years.  The Memphis Necropolis (on the west bank of the river) has two very important structures.  Sneferu, the founder of the Fourth Dynasty, established the Necropolis.  Sneferu is the father of Khufu (Cheops) who built the Great Pyramid, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and the only one still standing.

 

It was in Memphis that the building of a true pyramid was first attempted.  Sneferu was truly the father of what most people think of as Ancient Egypt even though he was the founder of the Fourth Dynasty.  It's here where things really start to get interesting and we've known more about this era and later dynasties because there's more things reduced to writing of one kind or another. 

 

Having seen the works of the previous dynasty and wanting to improve on them he set out to build a smooth sided pyramid with a very steep angle.  The South Pyramid of Sneferu (aka Bent Pyramid) was started in 2597 BC.  The original slope of the sides was 54 degrees 27 minutes.  As construction progressed they discovered that the 619 x 619 foot base was not sufficiently strong to hold the weight of the upper structure and if building continued at that angle the structure would collapse.  They reduced the angle to 43 degrees 22 minutes and finished the pyramid.  Had they been able to continue at the original slope it would have been the tallest pyramid but it only reached 345 feet.

 

The Bent Pyramid is the first to have inner chambers and passageways.  It has three chambers connected by descending passageways.  The structure inside the pyramid is much like the tombs they used to dig under the previous step pyramids.  It also has a funerary temple like the Step Pyramid but here for the first time there's another temple on the Nile River to be used for the embalming rituals, usually called a valley temple.  A causeway that allows the spirit of the dead pharaoh to ascend to his final resting place connects these two temples.  The valley temple also served as the dock for the boat carrying the pharaoh's body from the east bank to the west bank.

 

Undaunted, Sneferu tried again this time building the North Pyramid (aka The Red Pyramid).  This one started out using the tried and true angle of 43 degrees 22 minutes and they put it on a larger, 724 x 724 foot base.  It's actually about 3 feet shorter than the Bent Pyramid.  The stone it's built from is very red in color and led to the nickname.  This was the first truly successful true pyramid.

 

Our drive back toward Cairo to stop at Giza was interesting.  Most of it was along water channels that allow for the irrigation of fields with water from the Nile.  These channels are usually full of garbage and discarded household items.  The guy in front of me in the bus kept sighting dead animals in the water.  I did see one dead cow but that was it.  Once in the city we drove past vendors with wagons and pushcarts selling artichokes, dates, bananas, oranges and a host of other fruits and vegetables.

 

When we arrived at Giza we went to an overlook point to see the pyramids from a distance.  From the overlook from right to left we could see, the Pyramid of Menkaure (Mykerinus) with its three small satellite pyramids, the Pyramid of Khafre (Chefren) and the Pyramid of Khufu (Cheops) (aka the Great Pyramid).  As I mentioned before I prefer the local names of things to those applied by the British so I'm using the Egyptian names instead of the (Greek).  It was an awesome sight.  Khufu's pyramid was in the early 2500s BC so it is almost 5,000 years old.  The others are all newer and were built in increasingly smaller size.  Khufu's is 480.9 feet tall, Khafre's is 470.8 feet tall and Menkaure's is only 216.5 feet tall.  From most vantage points Kahfre's looks taller but it is built on higher ground.  Khufu's was Kahfre's father and Menkaure's grandfather.  You can tell Khufu's Great Pyramid from Kahfre's because the Great Pyramid does not have any of the smooth casing stones left on it and Kahfre's does at the very top.  All three pyramids used to have smooth casing stones on each face making them totally smooth and impossible to climb.  Over the centuries these stones have been stolen and used for other purposes.  By the time Napoleon Bonaparte got to Egypt they pyramids look much like they do now.

 

Each pyramid has a Valley Temple that was on the west bank of the Nile.  It was to this temple that the body was brought by boat across the Nile from the east bank, the side of the living.  This temple was the beginning of the pharaoh's journey to the world of the gods.  Right next to the pyramid, and some distance away from the Valley Temple, there was a second temple, the Mortuary Temple.  It was here that the body was prepared in the process of mummification.  This process is fairly complex and requires a number of months to complete.  The riverside Valley Temple is connected to the Mortuary Temple by a causeway or processional that, in most cases, goes straight from one to the other.  The exception is the pyramid of Khafre.  His causeway runs at an angle from the pyramid to the river.  The Sphinx is blocking the direct route to the riverbank.  Our professor thinks that, while preparing to build the causeway they found the huge single boulder used to carve the Sphinx and decided to carve it into something rather than try to move it.  This meant that they had to offset the route to the Valley Temple to miss the Sphinx.  He thinks the face of the Sphinx was that of Khafre.

 

After we had some pictures at the overlook our bus took us down to the pyramids and parked in a lot between Khufu's and Khafre's.  Khafre's Mortuary Temple is still partly standing but the others are not in very good shape.  I walked the area admiring the sights and taking pictures.  I started with Kahfre's including the mortuary temple and then I turned around and took a picture of the Sphinx and his Valley Temple.  The sun was bad for that last shot but I wanted to preserve the relationship in my mind.

 

In 1954 they found a Solar Boat (not solar powered but in honor of the solar disk of divinity) while excavating near Khufu's pyramid.  It may have been the boat that carried him across the Nile, no one knows for sure.  It was in a great state of preservation and they built a special building to display it right next to his Great Pyramid.  Diana wanted to see the boat this time so we got tickets and went inside.  It's in an amazing state of preservation.  The way out took us past the three Queen's Pyramids that are on the east side of the Great Pyramid.  One is attributed to Sneferu's wife Queen Hetepherees the mother of Khufu.  The other two are to wives of Khufu, Queen Hensutsen (not only his wife but also his half-sister and mother of Khafre) and Queen Merityetes.  They are very small by comparison but I had to go through them to get to the east side of the Great Pyramid to get a good picture.

 

I have to admit that I'm having as tough a time describing this visit as I was the last.  I am still awed and on sensory and emotional overload from the sights I am seeing.  Maybe because I've always been interested in Ancient Egypt and have read so much on it but I don't think so.  It's just amazing in and of itself.

 

After about 45 minutes here between the two large pyramids we got back on the bus and drove to the valley parking lot to see the Sphinx and the Valley Temple of Khafre.  I thought I was on overload up the hill, but again this was that doubled and redoubled.  When you stand facing the Sphinx, it lines up directly with the eastern face of Khafre's pyramid.  You can see the causeway on the left angling toward it from the ruins of the Valley Temple.  It's giving me chills just thinking about the scene.

 

The Sphinx played a role in the later history of Egypt.  Remember all these pyramids and the Sphinx were built during the IV Dynasty (2620-2500 BC) of Ancient Egypt.  In the XVIII Dynasty (1580-1314 BC), pharaoh Thutmose IV legitimized his dubious claim to the throne by saying that he had a dream while sleeping between the paws of the Sphinx.  The god of the Sphinx, Horem-Akhet (Horus of the Horizon) came to him and said that if he kept the sand from overwhelming the Sphinx he would make him pharaoh.  He built the retaining walls and carved a pink granite stele 13 feet tall to commemorate his dream.  He placed the stele between the front paws of the Sphinx and I saw the top of it while we were there.  It's still in place.  The XVIII Dynasty has two other famous pharaohs, Hatshepsut (the only female pharaoh) and Tutankhamun, King Tut.  There's a small temple just next to the Sphinx that is currently under excavation and some reconstruction.

 

Just south of the Sphinx are the remains of the valley temple of Khafre.  There's little more than the large base stones still intact, but they form a sizeable plaza about 30 feet above the ground elevation next to it.  There are all sorts of people here from a multitude of countries.  The most interesting are the Yemeni women.  They wear a robe with a head covering attached that has a small slit in it for them to look out through.  They wear all black including black gloves so you can't see their hands.  Seems like it would be oppressively hot inside this outfit but since they're from Yemen I guess they're used to hot.  It was a grand sight and I took at least 60 pictures of various aspects of the Sphinx.  On the way back to the bus a young boy approached us selling envelopes of postcards.  The quality of them was not very good but both Diana and I were so taken with him that we bought some.  Later Diana told me that she would have just given him the money but it seemed more appropriate to let him conduct his normal business.

 

From Giza we went to the Mina Hotel for a buffet lunch.  The main part of the hotel is in what used to be a private villa right next to the pyramids.  The rooms are mainly in extended building going out from the villa.  I'm sure it's expensive and the lunch was very good.  The gardens surrounding the hotel are very pretty and the view of the Great Pyramid through the palms in front of the lobby entrance was spectacular.

 

After lunch it was time for the long drive to Port Said where we will rejoin the ship.  It won't be for long however because early tomorrow morning it's back on the bus for a two day overland trip in Israel.