Land of the Pharaohs, here we come!: Tahir Square & the Egyptian Museum

October 16, 2012 - Today I finally got to Tahir Square and the Egyptian Museum. This trip has been postponed a few times so I was pretty excited to finally be going. I went with Chris, Adrian and George an Egyptologist and Tour Guide.

We arrived in good time and parked. This is the first thing George pointed out:

The buses that were burned during protests last Friday.

I had no idea this even happened. Tahir square is not the place to be on the weekend (for now at least). This was a good reminder.

From the parking lot, I got my first glimpse of the square:

Then we rounded the corner and there it was. The Egyptian Museum. So very large and pink.

3000 year old artifacts just hanging around outside the museum

They are building another museum to house all the artifacts that are currently milling around outside and in storage rooms. They have so much stuff and finding more all the time, that they need more space.

I was told that during the Revolution, the Egyptians formed
a human chain around the museum to keep looters away.

Gold Leaf covered designs in the gate.
Even the gate of this place is amazing.

Front entrance of the Museum

From the side.

One of the statues outside the Museum

Hieroglyphics on the side of the statue

Imagine carving this?!

Standing back from the statue you can see a government building
that was burned during the Revolution. George thinks it will stay
just like this - as a reminder of what happened.

Finally it was time to go in! You can not take your camera with you but you can take your cell phone. I thought I might try and sneak in a photo or two but once in there I was afraid to even try - there are guards watching you all the time and as a tourist with light hair I stand out. No way I was getting in trouble from armed guards. I'm such a rule follower. I was very quick to discover that the museum does NOT have air conditioning in 90% of the building. George showed us the replica Rosetta Stone. He explained why all the hieroglyphics on the sarcophagus or coffin. How to determine if the statue is a king or regular person. We saw king tuts jewels, throne (which was stunning, my eyes teared up), his death mask and solid gold inner coffin. We saw a real mummy and a mummified crocodile that's probably longer than our apartment! I saved the actual mummy room for a time when Mike and the girls can come too. (it requires an extra admission fee) We stayed about 3 hours and I can't wait to go back (when it's cooler).

After the museum, we wandered around downtown Cairo for a bit, ate lunch and caught the metro back to Maadi. The temp was 35 degrees and I was ready to get out of the heat.