Jenny and I were fortunate to be able to go to Egypt recently to see some of the amazing ruins dating back some 5000 plus years. The Egyptian Government, with the help of many other governments, have done a beautiful job of restoring some of these priceless work of arts: yes works of art.
In this posting I wanted to go to the ancient city of Memphis, which doesn’t exist today but there are a number of modern cities that lie within the old historical borders of ancient Memphis. The ruins are about 15 miles south of Cairo.
The Step pyramid or the Pyramid of Djoser is the oldest of the pyramids and built about a hundred years prior to the Pyramids of Giza. What started as a single step, ended with the six steps by the end of Djoser approximately nineteen year rule. It is easy to see how the pharaohs transition from the step pyramid to the true pyramids of Giza.
Shot taken inside the Temple of Djoser.
Ramesses II statue is currently in a temporary museum just outside of Memphis. The 32oo year old statue was reconstructed in Cairo in the mid-fifties, but taken down because of the deterioration from the city. This 83 ton statue will be moved next year to the new Grand Egyptian Museum due to be completed in Cairo in 2011.
Ramesses II statue in the open air archeological museum in Memphis. There are many statues of Rameses the Great in Egypt; he rule for over sixty years and lived to be over ninety years old. I will be discussing his Abu Simbel Temple later.
Picture taken in Cairo, not Memphis, but wanted to show this picture. As I indicated earlier, Egypt is a third world country. I saw this scene many, many times and of course more frequently outside of the big cities. It reminded me of some of the pictures I took in the early eighties in the interior of China.
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