We toured the Cairo Museum on July 12th, and flew 800 miles south to Aswan. Aswan is home to the Aswan High dam, which flooded countless sacred sites from the Upper Kemetic kingdom of Meröe, and others. The dam also displaced thousands of Nubians, who trace their lineage directly back to the Pharaonic period.
The Cairo Museum is located just across Tahrir Square, which was the epicenter of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 and 2013. After rounding Tahrir, we toured the museum. The Cairo museum is the home of over 120,000 artifacts. However, many of them are “in storage,” and not on display.
Nonetheless, it is a clearinghouse of ancient artifacts from the very long and illustrious Nile Valley Civilizations that have given the world so much, with little in return.
At points, I felt as if the spirit energies that inspired the creation of these artifacts were all around me. I was especially impacted by the findings of King Tutankhamen’s tomb. Tut’s tomb is significant mainly because it is the only known tomb to have been found intact. But because he was a minor king with a short reign (he died at 18), Tut’s mark wasn’t very relevant.
And that’s the point.
I began to wonder: if a relatively undistinguished king had such an impressive tomb, imagine what those of Rameses II, Khufu, or Djehutymes III (Thutmoses III), Hatshepsut and others of greater import might have contained.
Needless to say, the Cairo Museum requires a whole day (at least), and I’d like to get back to it during one of our off days.
Aswan is a beautiful place.
It is much cleaner than Cairo, and the people are nicer. And of course with their more Africoid features, they are also a better representation of the peopling of Ancient Kemet. Unfortunately, the Nubians of Aswan are also more marginalized and poor, due to Arab racism. They don’t receive adequate education – if they get any at all, nor are they represented in the national political and economic scenes in general.
But despite all of the roadblocks before them, they are a resilient, kind, dignified and proud people. Aswan felt like home.
Because it is.
