Northern Palace at Tel Amarna

Flinders Petrie was a 19th century archaeologist who discovered, among many other things, beautifully painted palace pavements and frescoes at Tel Amarna--the capitol of the renegade Pharaoh, Akh-en-Aten. Petrie was very concerned about preservation, and was very much ahead of his time in this regard. At Tel Amarna he built a 250 square foot building over top the painted pavements and frescoes in order for tourists to see them from above without walking on them and destroying them. However, the Egyptian Department of Public Works never built a path to this exhibition building and the visitors trampled the nearby crops getting to and from the site. So, an angry peasant farmer, tired of loosing valuable crops to tourists, took to the frescoes with a hammer and chisel destroying them all. Unfortunately, there are many such stories of lost antiquities in Egypt--usually not by the hand of locals, but by the hand of a tourist or an antiquities dealer. Fortunately, Petrie had documented (he was a pioneer in many ways) the frescoes and pavements in both black-and-white and color drawings on a one-tenth scale before they were destroyed. These photos show all that remains today of the Northern palace at Tel Amarna.

Sunrise over the Nile

Our first morning in Minia, Lea and I saw this sunrise as we were walking to breakfast. The sun was just beginning to burn off the morning mist and fog.

Christmas in Egypt?

As you know, we've been home from Egypt now a little over a week. It's great to be back in our own country, our own beds, eating our own food, etc. In many ways, our trip seems like it was a long time ago.

So many things--big and small--about our trip come to mind throughout my day. One thing I've thought about is how they celebrate Christmas in Egypt. Yes, a Muslim country celebrates Christmas! :-0

We were really surprised when we arrived at our 5-Star hotel in Cairo--the Mena House--and it was decorated to the hilt for Christmas! They went all out. They must have had over a thousand beautiful and live poinsettias all over the place. They had a larger-than-life, automated Santa Claus right next to the front door. He would shake your hand, say "Ho, ho, ho!" and play Christmas carols! The hotel is quite large and every "common area"--like the various lobbies and in front of the elevators, etc.--had live, decorated Christmas trees! It was amazing. All the hand rails and crown moldings were wrapped in garland! I wish I had taken photos!

We thought that all of this decorating must be directed towards the Christian tourists, but then we discovered that almost all Egyptians celebrate Christmas. Most don't celebrate it in a religious sense (although there are Coptic Christians still in Egypt), but they celebrate the secular holiday of Christmas--Santa Claus, reindeer, elves, gift giving, etc. Throughout our three week journey we encountered Christmas decorations everywhere. It was one of those completely unexpected, yet delightful parts of traveling! :-) It's something that I'll always remember as a very pleasant and interesting surprise.