Egypt - My Heart's Land

I don't know what it is about the Egyptian culture but I just LOVE everything and anything even remotely related to it. I'd like to think that in one of my previous births, I was Queen Nefertiti FOR SURE (Ha!Ha!Ha!). Often referred to in history as "the most beautiful woman in the world", she was the chief wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep IV who took the name Akhenaten later.

If there is one place on earth I'd like to visit the most, its the valley of the Kings. My dad and recently my aunt have been the lucky few to step foot on one of the richest places (geographically and culturally) on our mother earth.

I am now the proud possessor of a papyrus bookmark (see picture) with the hieroglyphic script topped by the picture of none other that Queen Nefertity (read ME) (Ha!Ha!Ha!)

My ever so considerate aunt not only keenly told me all about the place but has also fetched loads of reading material as well. Can't wait to devour that!

Got to see the three Pyramids at Giza - of Khufu (made of approximately two million blocks of limestone, each weighing more then two tons), Khafre and Menkaure (their arrangement speculated to resemble the Orion belt) and the Great Sphnix of Giza undergoing restoration work up close.

The Sphinx with the Pyramid of Khafre in the background (see picture) is an iconic image of a recumbent lion with the head of a ram, bird, or human, invented by the Egyptians but a cultural import in archaic greek mythology. It was regarded as a unique demon of destruction and bad luck and was sent from her Ethiopian homeland (for the Greeks remembered the Sphinx's foreign origins) to sit outside Thebes and ask all passersby history's most famous riddle: "Which creature in the morning goes on four feet, at noon on two, and in the evening upon three?" She strangled anyone unable to answer. In fact, the word "sphinx" means "to strangle". Oedipus solved the riddle: man – he crawls on all fours as a baby, then walks on two feet as an adult, and walks with a cane in old age!

Not to forget Ramses II (see picture) who ruled for 67 years in 12th century BC and is traditionally believed to have been the Pharaoh of the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt (the departure of the Hebrew slaves from Egypt under the leadership of Moses and Aaron which forms the basis of the Jewish holiday of Passover). He lived over 90 years, had many wives and somewhere between 100 and 200 children. Got to see his sarcophagus as well which now rests in Cairo at the Egyptian Museum and the insides of a pyramid where photography is strictly prohibited mind you. Where would we be without cellular phones eh!

May peace reign in Egypt for now and forever.

P.S. - Did you know that Abraham Maslow and his much celebrated 'hierarchy of needs' theory was presented in the shape of a pyramid after an inspiration on visiting the Great Pyramids of Egypt?