From the pyramids in a suburb of Cairo, Egypt, we went to see the adjacent Great Sphinx, a limestone statue of a mythical creature with the body of a lion and the head of a man, thought to represent King Khufu. It is 240 feet long and 66 feet high. The idea is that the combination of a lion’s body and a man’s head is to show that the king is both strong and wise.
From the Great Sphinx we then traveled this afternoon to the famous Egyptian Museum which is packed with 120,000 items thousands of years old. Sherif and Mark were our guides all day. They are standing with their wives in front of the huge statue of the Pharaoh who is thought to be the one who hardened his heart to Moses’s commands: “Let my people go.”
Most impressive was the display of King Tutankhamun, the young king who ruled Egypt 1334-1325 B.C. and took the throne at age eight or nine. As with other kings, he was buried in a pyramid with thousands of treasures and trinkets, which they intended for him to use in the afterlife. The difference is that the tomb raiders that ransacked other pyramids never found this one. It was discovered in 1922 and has given archeologists and historians a greatly expanded view into Egyptian history.
