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A GOOD start was to watch moonlight falling on great Khufu’s Pyramid from the comfort of famous Mena House. Nighclubbing and belly-shaking were on the entertainment list. High on the programme was sunbathing among the bikinis on the pooldeck and feasting in the dining saloon of the latest luxury tourist ship on Lake Nasser, far from the tourist and beggar crowds. Best of all, the intention was to find peace on the busy Nile, enjoying a quiet gin in one’s air-conditioned cabin as life slid by the one-way window. All of it was there, but . .
Instead of sybaritic, gentle sightseeing, the tour turned out to be a hectic journey of the mind. Engaging in the debate of who built the pyramids - the Egyptians, or a master race before the Egyptians, or aliens from outer space - was the least of it.
We shall come back to that, but there were better mysteries to speculate on, ranging from ancient Shakespearian-style dramas of power-lust and downfall of kingdoms; to intimations of serial killers and of violence caused by sexual eternal triangles. Allusions to these real-life state-opera dramas were written three or four thousand years ago on walls, tombs, on papyrus and on ostraca. The fascinating thing for today’s readers is that more and more of the forensic evidence is being uncovered as modern methods of archeological detection improve.
Apart from court scandals and gossip, Egypt holds the gravitas of subjects such as architecture; astronomy and art; of history and archeology of course, but also of femininity, gender-politics, mythology, ornithology and communication. And immortality.
Intimations of immortality in ancient Memphis or Thebes are not just about gazing at a sphinx and letting the sands of eternity trickle through your toes. As I said at the outset, focusing the mind on death in Egypt produces powerful weapons, and these also affect religion, philosophy , ethics, politics and law. (The tombs will tell you about the trial of accused by their peers - illustrating that a properly constituted jury system existed more than 3,000 years ago). There is an entire funerary temple devoted to the subject of medicine, for instance, as practised long before the Greek god of medicine, Asclepius, was born. The pharmaceutical formulae and secrets of that ancient, sophisticated medical science are carved in stone, crowding walls and columns two-storeys high. All these subjects, and many more, await your attention behind the blank faces of a thousand sphinxes.
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HOW CAN you, as a mere tourist, unlock some of the countless columns of information? Why would you want to?
To answer the second question first: The people who recorded this knowledge were unusually intelligent. They based everything they did on reason and logic. They believed that their very existence depended on good communication. They were the most self-assured, self-confident people the world has ever known. Because they believed they had all they wanted in this life, the mighty Egyptians did not bother to conquer other lands - until they were invaded by Mesopotamians riding chariots. Early Egypt had no horses, and did not use wheels which had not seemed necessary in a land of water and sand. They soon learned. Their philosophy of life-after-death made it imperative that they impose political and economic stability, so they subdued their restless neighbours.
Millennia later, much of the unwarlike but more relevant information Ancient Egypt offered mankind reached the Greeks, and the Romans, the Ottomans and the Hapsburgs, the French and the British. But none of the succeeding empires lasted more than a few hundred years. And none in that procession of civilisations was able to maintained the basic, natural ethos which the Egyptian rulers managed to apply for most of four thousand years. The pharaohs were taught to live by maat - or perish. The symbol of maat is everywhere in their ancient kingdoms. The symbol is of the goddess who emerged from the slime of chaos carrying Cosmic Order for the creation of the universe. Maat also signifies social order, justice and, at individual level, self-discipline - all elements of the key concept of . . . Balance. It was a concept taken up hundreds of years later by Aristotle, Socrates and others, and has often been preached in modern times, but seldom practised since the decline of Ancient Egypt.
Much else about Earth’s longest-surviving civilisation is lost, forgotten or neglected.
How to find some of it?
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