Snofru* was a guy who liked to start a job. He built three pyramids, each of which had one problem or another which caused him to abandon them just before they were ready to use. Rumour’s that his third pyramid was called Gandalf are completely unfounded.
* Everything in Egypt has hundreds of different spellings. Snofru was also known as Snephru, Snefru and Sneferu. In deeply scientific fashion, I choose the spellings that appeal to me.
This is my last will and testament. Not really but the cab I'm in has already hit two other cars and we've just left the airport. Thankfully now the traffic…
I'm on holiday again, and have already had a week or so in Sydney and NZ. I've just landed in Dubai for the Middle East/Africa part of the holiday where…
Click on the photo to go to collateralmurder.com What occurs in this video and the diversity of reactions to it are both examples of confirmation bias, the brain's tendency to…
The substance of the following article by Simon Singh was printed in the Guardian last year. The British Chiropractic Association decided to sue him for his trouble. The offending paragraphs…
Because everybody just has to know and there aren't enough top ten lists on the internet. No order except for #1 1. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Mercy…
It depends on whether you're considering compass direction or fow. But I'm off on the overnight train to Aswan in a couple of hours. From there I will be doing/seeing:…
So after I came down from the roof it was time to head over to the sound and light show. I was pretty tired by now, but I’d had my expectations suitable lowered by my guide book and other travellers. But low enough for guys in Egyptian headdresses playing bagpipes badly? Tough call. But it happened, and it happened for nearly half an hour while they waited for it to get dark enough to begin the show. I’m afraid I was too overwhelmed by WTF to get any photos of that dismal performance.
The light show however when it started was a little more impressive.
You know how I told you about the dodgy tour and driver. Well Memphis was one of the places he raved about. Turns out it was because he wanted to drag me to a dodgy kebab joint where I paid 60 quid for a bad kebab and 20 quid each for beers.
Before that ripoff, we went to Memphis, once the capital of the Egyptian Empire, now a tatty museum where all the pieces not good enough to be in the British or Egyptian Museum are. Except for a huge reclining statue of Ramses II. That was ok.
South of Giza, just outside of Memphis is the vast necropolis of Saqqara, with many pyramids and mastabas and other ancient bits of rock. My driver was intent on just showing me the step pyramid but I was onto him by now and decided to have a good look around.
Having stayed outside at Giza, I was keen to crawl around inside the odd pyramid, and Saqqara offered a great chance to do this. I started off being accosted by an “Egyptologist” who wanted to show me around inside a couple of tombs. I took him up on his offer as he seemed quite knowledgable, unlike my horse guide at Giza who told me that the Great Pyramid was 500 metres tall.
So we wandered off and round a corner to this locked mastaba. A very desert looking guy shuffled up, produced a key and let us in. Turns out this was the tomb of twin noblemen, who’s high status was ensured because they were the King’s manicurists, as well as scribes and some other stuff, but the drawings and hieroglyphics on the wall were dominated by hands with neatly trimmed fingernails.
They must have gotten on ok as they were buried next to each other. You’re not meant to take photos but I grabbed a couple anyway since I knew I’d be paying for it in tips anyway.
