Pictures from Sakkara and Dahshur

This will be an entry devoted to the photo's taken at Sakkara and Dashshur.

These first photos, from Sakkara are from the Mastaba and tomb of Ti. Ti was not a royal, but this was one of the first non-royal mastaba constructions and dates to about the 5th dynasty. The first photo is of the Mastaba entrance way. Following that are some pictures of some hieroglyphs, which feature Ti where the figure is depicted as large, and the workers bringing forth offerings depicted in the smaller reliefs. His body would have been down into the tomb shaft. His body of course has been looted now, but we were not allowed down there nonethe less
When you move into another room of the mastaba there are 3 slots to look through and upon viewing the first, your gaze is matched with none other than Ti himself. His statue is staring right back at you.







Next we went to the pyramid complex of Teti, where I didn't take any pictures because we weren't allowed to. Actually we weren't allowed to take pictures most places since the flashes from cameras can damage the reliefs and paintings, but I snuck them in when I could- an act punishable by death here in Egypt. No, I'm just kidding, though I'm sure it could perpetuate certrain prevalent attitudes they have towards Americans who think rules don't apply to them. But seeing as though tourism is their main source of capital, I'm not really going to feel bad about it. They need picture takers there.

After Teti, we went to the actual entrance of Sakkara: this is what the entrance gate looks like, look at the people for scale:


Inside of the entrance wall/gate area, were some of the first collumns ever constructed, way way before Greece or Rome. After walking through the entrance you get to Djoser's Step Pyramid, the first Egyptian pyramid constructed. It was engineered by Imotep, he was a pretty sweet architect in his day: or as the brits say "brilliant!" The step pyramid originated as a Mastaba. The way tomb and offering constructions worked for the Phaorohs was that, as soon as they came into power, individuals would spend the Pharoh's reign constructing his pyramid. As soon as he died they usually stopped and stuffed him ( or her there was one female pharoh ). This is why a lot of Pyramids (like Menkaure's) are not actually completed. For Djoser though, Impotep build him a mastaba, and then since he was still alive, decided it was not good enough for his king, so he kept adding more mastaba's atop. Mastaba is basically arabic for bench.



Because my professor is the man, we were actually able to go inside the step pyramid, which is normally closed to the public. The entry ways were quite small, you had to crouch. Everyone made fun of me saying that these pyramid tunnels were ideal for me since I am so short. I can't really describe what it was like to go inside Djoser's step pyramid, but it seriously looked like a scene from a movie:



The best part by far was when we were allowed to go into a tomb and see a mummy. Unfortunately I really was not allowed to take pictures. But while we were letting it air out (it had been a long time since it had been opened and the smell was quite overwhelming) i took a quick picture of the hieroglyphs on the wall.



In order to see the mummy, you had to climb down this latter into the burial room, and only one person could go at a time. It was a little eerie, but totally awesome.

After Sakkara we went to Dahshur, land of the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid. After the step pyramid, the acient egyptians tried building the traditional pyramids with the angled edges. However, their first 2 attempts failed. The first one completely collapsed and the second, they realized half way through that it would collapse again and so they had to change the angle half way through:



Finally, after two failed attempts, those wicked egyptians (yes I hang out with a lot of brits now, the transformation of my accent will be featured in a different entry) finally got it right and built the first true pyramid not too far from the bent pyramid. It's called the red pyramid because the stone looks, well...red. I didn't take a picture of it, because I'm sick of pyramid pictures, DAMNIT! Seriously, i could take pictures for you guys all day long, but it is all stuff you really have to just experience your own. However, going inside the Red Pyramid, was pretty kickass. You had to climb up this looooong set of stairs to get to the entrance. I took a picture once I got to the top, it doesn't do the workout justice, but I moreso have it included to scare the piss out of Megan. Look how tiny the cars are.



Going inside the Red pyramid was awesome, but again, quite the work out, I am very sore today. I almost thought I wouldn't be able to finish it because what it is is a very narrow ramp that tunnels downward into the pyramid. It is very damp and very humid in there, it's actually quite difficult to breathe. Claustraphobic people could never complete this course in a million years. They aren't actual stairs, like I said, it's a ramp that just has little bar notches to step in. So the entire time you have to crouch very carefully, and you are super tense because you are maintaining your balance. Once we got down into the pyramid, I was dripping with sweat. It smelled of ammonia, quite strongly in fact, because of all the bats. After that, we climbed another high set of stairs to see the tomb shaft. And then we went back out. Climbing up the ramp was not nearly as hard as going down it though. I took pictures inside with my disposable so you will have to wait to see those ones.

This website has it documented pretty well if you are that interested. Keep in mind though, the ramp in the picture on this website is lighted (i'm going to leave that as lighted- just because I think it's funny for you to see how stupid I can be, but now I did say: kelly you idiot, that's lit) the ramp in actuality is completely dark.

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Travel/Egypt/Dahshur/AllPyramids/

That is the picture explanation of my trip and is going to bring me to the conclusion of this entry. I may choose to make things more anecdotal after dinner, but I'm pretty tired. There was sooo much more to the day than just traveling around though, so hopefully I do get an opportunity to share that with you, in addition to all the really awesome stuff I accomplished at the lab today.

Thanks for reading!

Friday is my next day off but I will be traveling once again! An all day excursin down to the Fayum.

Apologies for typos, and kelly nonsense, but i'm too tired to proof read.

Love you all!