Incredible Field Trip!

*This is a photo-and-information-intensive post, worthy of being split up into several posts like the Sinai/Dahab trip, but it is all going to be in one. Be prepared.*

On Friday (27 March , Oliver, Jessica, and I went with our friend Rachel's (I think our friend Heather pretends to be in the class, too, but isn't) Egyptology class on a field trip. The trip was to the Fayyum, Dahshur, and possibly some other places that I have forgotten (may have gone to a rest stop in Beni Suef..?). And did I mention PYRAMIDS??

We went to Dahshur first. It was an hourish bus ride south. If you cannot tell by the map, Dahshur is right along the Nile, so it is very green. We drove

From the bus:
The professor said that palm trees are good for holding soil because of their deep roots.I believe this was a sign for a natural gas company:

The point of going to Dahshur was to see the Red Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid.
This is the Bent Pyramid, from the bus:
I recall the professor saying that while constructing the pyramid, they decided to change the angle. They realized that the angle it was on track to be was not able to be supported.

(Red Pyramid in the background):
We climbed some rocks next to the pyramid, this was the [amazing] view from them
The Red Pyramid is your standard pyramid-shape.
This is from the bus:


Tourists are also allowed to go into it.

The path:
It is much steeper and higher than it appears in this picture.

A look back from the top of the stairs of the Red Pyramid. The white buildings look like the Skywalker family's moisture farm on planet Tatooine in Star Wars (yeah, that just happened):
Going into the pyramid, you have to crouch and go down these semi-light stairs. The term 'stairs' implies much more than what was really there. It was important to hold onto the railing..

Inside the pyramid, there is lots of dust and the lighting is odd, so most of the pictures turned out horrendously. This one is nice, though. It is showing how the pyramid is supported:
Staircase up to some tombage:

One of the few pics that came out- it was a passage that you had to slightly duck through:
Have you ever wondered what the inside of a pyramid smells like? I had written down, "stale, musty, with a splash of Windex"

After the Dahshun pyramids we went to the Meidum Pyramid. I do not know where Miedum is, or if that is even that name of the place it is in. It could be the name of something else, like the Pharoh.. Wikipedia says "the pyramid at Meidum" so it must be the town. Although there was not too much there.. From Dahshun, it was another hourish bus ride. That seems long, but the professor would talk the entire time about all sorts of random-but-relevant information, like how charcoal is made. That may have actually made the hour long bus ride longer for some people, but I enjoyed it!

Shots from this bus ride:

Picture (propaganda) of President Mubarak with the face scratched/torn out:
The Meidum Pyramid collapsed at some point, leaving just its inner core standingWe were allowed to go into this one, too.
Oliver making the trek up:
To get in, it was a similar set up as the Red Pyramid (narrow, semi-lit stairway). Again, very few pictures turned out.

Heather coming up the stair ladder thing:
At about the time you hit these stairs, you feel a very sudden and very sharp increase in the temperature.

As far as I could tell, this ladder did not go anywhere. I thought it would be fun if all of you reading this thought, even if for a split second, that we had to use it.

Coming out of the pyramid:
The mound thing is actually another tomb...

...which we got to go into...

...via graverobber-entrance:

It was an incredibly narrow passage going downhill...
(this picture is actually going up hill, coming out of the tomb, but same passage)

Once you get to the bottom of the narrow passage, you have to go down this rickety ladder:

After the rickety ladder, you have to crawl through this slit:

Upon crawling through the slit, you will find yourself on a wooden plank:
(incredibly blurry, sorry, but you can make out what is going on)

Then, you will find yourself into the tomb room (I feel like there is a more proper name for it than that):

The tomb was not impressive at all, but that was not the point. The main attraction was the process to get to the tomb. After viewing it, we had to go back up the same way.

The professor (he is also the vice-provost of the university, that should probably be pointed out) awaiting everyone to come out of the tomb:
He is awesome. His hat is awesome.

Next to the pyramid, lush greenery meets arid desert

After this, we went to the Hawara Pyramid. Hawara is just outside the city of Fayyum.

The Fayyum is an oasis, if you could not tell from the map earlier. According to the handout, "there is substantial archaeological evidence that the Fayyum was the sit of some of the earliest Egyptian experiments in food production - that is, agriculture and animal husbandry."

The handout the professor gave us says "the surviving structure looks like a vas, dark hill of mud":

You could go into this one, but it was almost all underwater inside. You go about 10 steps down and you hit the water.Where the water comes from
Also, right next to the pyramid was the site of "the Labyrinth". The first century AD Greek geographer Strabo described it as "a work comparable to the pyramids... occupies [in size] more than a stadium..." Today, it is nothing- literally:
It is no more. It has ceased to be.

Onto Karanis!
Karanis was an old (established 285-250 BC) agricultural village. It was eventually abandoned as it lost its agricultural ability (there is a term for this..). It is an excavation site now.

gotta love the hat


2000 year old art work over a 2000 year old bath:

Before heading back to Cairo, we stopped by Lake Fayyum (I think this lake has another name it goes by):
It is turning into a hot vacation spot, we were told.

One more thing I wanted to discuss - Tourist Security.

Everywhere we went, we had armed guards. The bus had a police escort along with some professional security guard on the bus. The pyramids had plain clothes guys with sub machine guns walking around. The village had soldiers standing around on top of the ruins. In wake of the 1997 attacks on tourists in Luxor, tourist agencies said they would not send people to Egypt if it was not secure. Tourism being a major part of Egypt's economy, they beefed up security. Now, tour buses are required to have armed guards. The professor said that the guards with guns do not know what they are doing, but the guards without guns are the professionals. It was more unnerving than securing having that much protection..

We were walking around the Meidum Pyramid and I just happened to notice a guy with a submachine gun walking next to me. It took me awhile to get a good picture of him- I had to shoot from the waist so he wouldn't notice:

The police escort for our bus:
The escort protecting us while we stopped to look at Lake Fayyum:

One of the soldiers at Hawara:
I think they just stand there all day long- in the desert, all day long.

Troops at Karanis:

This was the guy that rode around with us- he did not have a visible gun. I was quite terrified of him after the professor said that the guys without guns are the ones that know what they are doing:
The guard is the one in the middle, on the right wearing black.

It was an amazing field trip. I was to able to see things that otherwise I probably would not have tried to see. And I did not have to pay for any of it! Hooray AUC!