View of central Cairo from my balcony
Egypt, 2010 Winter
Peering out of a dusty hotel balcony on the 16th floor, amidst a smog ridden metropolis, dotted with commercial billboards extolling their various Western incantations to their beggarly neighbourhood apartment blocks, I – a whimsical traveller in a blotched canvas, was in Cairo.
From the vantage point, I watched as musty auto-mobiles and shabby crowds wrestled for crossing rights in a chaotic checker board. A rampage of sirens and hollering beneath the unrelenting desert sun. It was loud, and coarse.
To witness this unfiltered landscape in this historical city, where the green aren’t verdant and the blue less iridescent, is to apprehend the wax and wane of civilisations, and the endless tides of time which has swept away Egypt and its ancient rulers, leaving a remnant sold and prostituted to curious vultures of upstart nations.
During my brief stay in Cairo over the Christmas period, I decided to pay tribute to the venerable great pyramids of Giza. Located somewhat at the edge of the desert, the pyramid complex is the only surviving wonder of the ancient world as described by the historian Herodotus, and I was to see it and uncover its magnificence.
The pyramid and the Sphinx from the temple floor
The pyramid complex consists of three pyramids built by the family of Cheops, a Sphinx of limestone, and a forgotten temple of mummification. The pyramids were made from limestone blocks shipped along the Nile river, polished and transported via ramps and slaves, then assembled in the shape of a pyre, rising high in an otherwise sandy wasteland. The great pyramid, like its lesser cousins, were once coated in a polished case of white limestone, and specific to Cheops’ taste, topped with a splendid golden tip. Once a beacon to the Pharaoh’s might, and a cause of contempt for the travelling Greek historian, today the pyramid is but a memento of former glories. Its casing stones long stripped for shanty towns, revealing an unguarded staircase to a barren crest, its emptiness an ugly reminder of the fickleness of humanity.
Having long admired the pyramid metaphysically, I was determined to intrude upon its interior and entomb within my physical presence. Luckily, this is an inexpensive temptation. For a mere 100 Egyptian pounds (roughly 11 Pound Sterling), I was granted entry to the sacred passage so sought after in times past, yielding only to the boldest of men, a frightful vault of the highest exaltation.
The passage way to the King's burial chamber
My ascent inside the necropolis was disquieting. With every step taken, the air became more stifling, and as the light receded, the climb to the burial chamber grew more treacherous and disloyal. I had thought my constitution resistant to such labour, yet my hands invariably grasped at the rotten railings for whatever meagre support they offered, each digit firmly wrapping around the ragged rod, its rise and fall a perfect intonation of my strained respiration. To imagine the audacity of the maiden robber! Working ceaselessly in this putrid veil, lust at his back, tenuous promises and eternal damnations at his fore, if the pyramid is a construction of boldness, such man must have the soul of giants.
Fortunately for me, the climax was as certain as it was swift, if not as disappointing. The burial chamber, found at approximately the centre of one-third of the structure, was a vacant chamber of polished granite. The lack of illumination an apt compliment to its deficiency in contents. No inscriptions, no decorations, and certainly no justification for this spat of infidelity from the open elements. The sole evidence of the room’s past functionality is a despoiled sepulchre, its serrated husk a choice backdrop for boisterous visitors queuing to make claim their photographic booty.
Upon my exit, I found my Egyptian guide missing. A while ago, in her moment of poor judgement, she had decided to follow me into this deadly trap of decay. And in true Victorian fashion, had fainted. What immeasurable power this wonder still holds! Fortunately for her, she was rescued and we both agreed never to venture this perilous hall way again.
Driving back to Cairo, I observed several poorly built dwellings, particularly the lack of roofs uncovering the supporting copper strips from their concrete shells. Like weeds these unsightly metal stems have outgrown their native soil, distending profusely their tanned metallic foliage, their points inclining at an angle like overgrown stalks bending in the wind. I questioned my guide, she told me that the poor Egyptians purposefully leave their houses exposed since the definition between taxable homes and bits of bricks is in fact the subtle difference of a roof. How absurd. Then, it dawned on me. The very pyramids I have just explored are no different to the endless clusters of roofless houses. It is in these paradoxical architectures we bear witness to the potency of governments, whose policy dictates and defines the lives of its citizens. Whether it be the expenditure of national treasure and blood in a gigantic morgue for a single despotic ruler, or the perverted fashion of roofless shelters that pervades through the suburbs of Cairo. As my taxi sped past these grotesque ghettos, I remembered a line from Walden which serves well for a concluding remark, it goes something like this, “Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polish their manners? One piece of good sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon. More sensible is a rod of stone wall that bounds an honest man’s field than a hundred gated Thebes that has wandered farther from the true end of life.”
The next day, I left for the city of peace – Sharm el-Sheikh.
May be continued…
The 26th Dimension 