I hear you. You want to know
what I meant by that last sentence. You see, back in the 1800’s, two separate
hiding places were discovered in the Valley of the Kings, containing several
royal mummies in their elaborate coffins. There were also many non-royal mummies
present which included courtiers, high priests, and the like. These hiding
places, called royal caches, were actually the tombs of Amenhotep II and Queen
Inhapi which had been converted into mummy storage areas.
According to the history
books, by the Twenty-first Dynasty, many of the royal tombs had been looted and
some of the mummies had been damaged by thieves looking for amulets hidden on
the bodies and amongst the wrappings.
In order to prevent any more
damage, priests removed the mummies from their original tombs and relocated
them into these caches. They fixed them up as best they could, rewrapped them,
and returned them to their sarcophagi, but in doing so, they may have
inadvertently played musical coffins. It’s believed that some of the mummies
were mixed up and may not have ended up in their original gift boxes.
Ramses II was among those
found in one of the caches. Who knows, maybe some other chap is getting all the
attention at the museum, being hailed as Ramses the Great. Meanwhile, the real Ramses
is stuffed in a corner of the museum, somewhere, with a name tag cheerfully
proclaiming: “Hello, my name is Intef, Keeper of the royal goats.” If that’s
the case, then he’s been stewing for a long time and it’s no wonder that he’s
irritable and demanding attention by launching hexes on the unsuspecting
public.
On our return journey to the
ship, we pass by two enormous seated statues of Amenhotep III, the only remains
of a large temple complex that once stood on this site. Carved out of solid quartzite blocks, the
stone giants have passed the test of time—barely, with a D minus, I’d say—and
are still recognizable as two big sitting lumps, their facial features having
long since crumbled away. The legend asserts that in the year 27 B.C., shortly after Egypt became a Roman province, a
strong earthquake damaged one of the statues, shattering it from the waist up
and creating a crack in its bottom half. Hmmm. I can hear the wise cracks
already. From then on, in the early morning, it began to emit a sighing sound.
This was thought to be the
mournful cries of Eos, Goddess of the Dawn, for her son Memnon who was killed
by Achilles during the battle of Troy. Others postulated that the sounds were
Memnon himself, greeting his mother. To them, the fact that he was dead seemed
to bear no significance on his ability to operate his vocal cords.
This sighing phenomenon may
have had something to do with temperature differences within the stone,
evaporation of moisture, or a number of other theories. But did anyone ever
consider that maybe Memnon was just passing wind? It’s either that, or he was moaning
in distress—vocal cords operational or not—because he wasn’t getting enough
fibre in his diet. When will monoliths realize that fibre is everyone’s friend?
As they say: omit the fibre; prepare to suffer.
 |
| Rubik's Colossus. |
Anyway, a couple of
centuries later, a misguided dude by the name of Septimus Severus tried to
restore the statue by using sandstone blocks to rebuild its torso, giving it
the look of a human-figured Rubik’s Cube.
It became forever silent. Gee! Wouldn’t you, if someone turned you into a
stack of blocks? Ever since then, the statues have been known as the Colossi of
Memnon, good old Amenhotep having been almost forgotten.
Later that afternoon, we go
to the bazaar. Not the one we rode through with the indolent Jessica, but a
bigger one mostly for tourists. As with the previous souk, everything is for
sale. I’m particularly fascinated by the spices all heaped up in neat little
piles. One pile catches my eye. It’s a beautiful royal blue powder which I’m
told is called Indigo. Why it’s called Indigo and not Royal Blue, I don’t know.
I’m curious as to what it tastes like, and to what type of food it would be
added as I don’t recall eating anything blue.
I ask the vendor if I can
taste it. He looks at me as if I’m proposing to eat dog doo-doo. Maybe he
doesn’t understand my English. I mimic eating and point to the blue pile. He
cringes, shakes his head, and amid the guffaws of the other vendors gathered
around, explains that you don’t eat Indigo. You put it in the laundry to make
the whites whiter. Ah well, it all makes
perfect sense now. You call something Indigo when it’s actually royal blue and
sell it with the spices when it’s for the laundry. Yup, very logical.
I move on to the leather
vendor. With this bizarre kind of logic running rampant, perhaps he has nice
chandeliers for sale. No, he does indeed sell leather products. He invites me
into the shop and offers me a seat. I get seat offers all the time: ankle
benefit #3.
I tell him that I’m
interested in buying a couple of leather wallets for family members back home.
He nods vigorously and shows me purses and belts. Hmmm. I ask him if he has any
belts that look more like wallets. He nods more forcefully and shows me even more
purses. I alter my approach and ask him if he has any purses for men. I get the
dog doo-doo look.
Coming close to exasperation, I take out my own wallet and
ask him if he has anything that looks like that. He has a big eureka moment and
brings out a cascade of wallets. There are many fine-looking ones in the
proffered bunch. I select one and ask how much it is.
The bartering starts. He’s
high, I’m low. We go back and forth a few times, and settle on a price. He
assures me that he will lose his shop by selling me the wallet at that price. I
hesitate for a second, feeling a bit guilty, until I remember what Yasmin told
us before coming to the bazaar: “If the vendor agrees to sell you something, no
matter at what price, he’s making money.” I complete the transaction without
remorse. The vendor’s happy for me. Not for himself, he tells me, because he’s
going to lose his shop, but definitely happy for me.
I’ve come to the bazaar
prepared for shopping and carrying merchandise. I have a nifty nylon bag with a
long strap which fits nicely over my head and shoulder with the bag hanging in
front of me. It’s very roomy so that I can carry quite a few purchases, no
mutant appendages required. With my first purchase tucked into it, I continue
down the lane. As I crutch on by, one young vendor, sporting a wink and a smile,
looks at my leg and advises me to stop playing football. Ah! Humour. It
deserves a stop and a look at what this gentleman’s selling.
A few more chair offers and
purchases later, my nylon bag is full and quite bulky, making me look like I’m
wearing a baby harness loaded with twins. I decide to head back to our group’s
meeting point when I’m hailed by a friendly young man. He tells me I bought a
wallet from his shop and thanks me. I don’t recognize him. He points to the
store where I did indeed buy the wallet and says he’s the owner. The other
salesman is his associate. I tell him I’m sorry that he’ll lose his shop. With
a big smile, he shakes his head, tells me I got a good price, and offers me a
cup of tea and a chair so that I can rest a bit, another example of Egyptian
congeniality.
We chat for awhile, and
before long, other young men have joined the conversation, all eager to
practice their English. In addition to English, many of them speak French,
Italian, and German as well as their native Arabic. I’m duly impressed!
With my tea long finished
and my tour mates making impatient gestures and pointing to their watches, I
leave my multilingual entourage and head for the bus, for the return to our
floating home away from home.
A belly dancer awaits us in
the bar lounge after dinner. She has the undivided attention of most of the
male spectators. With their eyelids stuck in the wide open position—they’re not
blinking—they look spellbound.
I don’t understand this
obvious rapture since I don’t think the dancer’s all that spectacular, but
then, it may be more a matter of the veils and sequins she’s almost not wearing
than her dancing skills. I obviously don’t have the necessary talents to fully
appreciate the dancer—or the show—since all the numbers look the same to me: a
flurry of jiggling hips and heaving bosoms.
Concerned that the entire
evening may consist of one long hip-shaking dance, I’m pleasantly surprised by
the next performer. A gentleman wearing a long, elaborate robe, turban, and a
cool pair of black cowboy boots makes his entrance. He’s a Tanoura dancer,
something akin to the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey.
Without much ado, he starts
to spin like a human tornado. Holding a set of tambourine-shaped props, which
he arranges in different configurations and patterns, he continues to twirl
round and round, without pause and without turning green. Then, forever
pivoting, he raises and unfolds various layers of his costume to assume the
look of a colourful spinning top.
Nearly twenty minutes later,
the whirlwind is still whirling, not having stopped for a second. I’m amazed that,
at this point, he’s not unconscious or bringing up every meal he has had in the
past week. I try to anticipate what will happen when he does decide to come to
a stop. Surely, he’s bound to be so dizzy that he’ll start rebounding around
the lounge like a manic pinball, barrelling into tables, chairs, and tourists
alike. For that eventuality, I mentally formulate evacuation plans to get us,
innocent lounge patrons, away from the after-effects of the twister dance.
Before I can herd my
companions along a viable escape route, the Dervish stops dervishing. With a
smile on his face, he takes a bow, collects a rain of applause, and walks out
of the lounge straight as an arrow, without any pinballing of any kind. No way!
It’s got to be done with mirrors is all I can say.
In the privacy of my cabin,
later that evening, I turn on the radio for some inspirational music while I
plan the final details of my Machiavellian towel project. It has now had
several days to percolate and will be ready for deployment by tomorrow. Dum dee
dum dee dum dee dum . . .
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