This is the occupation listed on King Ramesses II's passport. Why did he have a passport? Because they had to ship his mummified body to Paris for examination of a fungal infection, which led to the discovery that Ramesses II had a mandible infection and that his original hair color was red. Yep, Ramesses the Great, the most celebrated pharaoh of Egypt, was a ginger who died from dental problems.
I learned this by questioning our tour guide at the Cairo Egyptian Museum after returning from their mummy exhibit, which fascinatingly features the incredibly well-preserved body of one of the most famous rulers in history. I may be fairly cynical, but even I was fascinated by being only a few inches away from him.
The exhibit reminded me of Body Worlds, except replace the crazy artistic stuff with ridiculously important historical relevance. Honestly, the Egyptian Museum is a place you could wander around for 8 hours, then come back the next day and still find a hundred things you missed the day before. The King Tut exhibit alone could take a whole day to fully explore. And yes, that includes the King Tut Funerary Mask which you'll recognize below, along with the entrance to the museum featuring the Lotus and Papyrus plants of Upper and Lower Egypt.
The Museum took up most of our energy for the day. We did hit up the revolving restaurant at the top of the Cairo Tower for dinner. The food was meh, but the views were amazing. Unfortunately none of those pictures worked out, but here's the tower from ground level.
Tomorrow is a heavy tour day, including the Muhammad Ali Mosque. More to come...
No comments:
Post a Comment