Cairo Overview Cairo Cairo is the ancient cultural capital of the world and the cultural center of West Asia and North Africa. Outside the western city center there are three ancient districts, the largest of which is Fatimid City, which contains most of Cairo's historical sites, such as the Shi Birs I Mosque and the Sardinburg. Between the old town and the Nile, there are three commercial and residential areas: Ismailia, Kasananar and Garden City. Anil Bridge is known as the Window of Cairo.
Konik Street, the main transportation line, is parallel to the Nile River. TV buildings, churches, municipal buildings, and restaurants stand tall on both sides. The transition area between the Old City and the Nile River, built in the 19th century, includes the National Library, the Museum of Islamic Art and the Abu Dhabi Palace Museum. There is a large mausoleum area along the eastern edge of the capital circle, known as the City of the Dead. Due to different formation periods, their architectural styles vary greatly. In the oldest area, there are 2 to 4 floors of brick and gray wood structures; influenced by the Western culture at that time, the areas built in the 19th century were mostly European-style stone buildings with gorgeous decorations, of which the former Caccini Palace is the most famous. Moreover, there are both high-rise residential buildings and low-rise villas with gardens in western and northern China.
There are pyramids and the Sphinx, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, standing in the southwest of the city; in the northeast, there is a minaret as Heliopolis (the place where Plato studied ); the new elegant Hilton Hotel on the west bank of the Nile is eye-catching. There are tens of thousands of general schools and technical schools. Cairo University, located on the west bank of the Nile River, has a long history, large scale and complete facilities. In addition, there are Azhar University, Ain Chams University, American University, and Helwan University. About 20 kilometers west of the Memphis ruins, the pyramid, one of the seven wonders of the world, is located on the barren and sand-covered Yeping. The majestic stone tombs of these ancient Egyptian emperors show visitors the dignity of their past tomb owners.
On the side of Tahrir Square in the center of Cairo, there is the Egyptian Museum, with a collection of more than 100,000 items. It is unparalleled in introducing Egyptian culture, especially antiquities from the Pharaonic period and the Greco-Roman period. After entering the gate, most of what you see are stones: stone figures, sarcophagi, stone tablets, stone pillars, there are many names. This is an Egyptian history book and also a "Book of Stones". Not far from this museum, there is Kylotta, an island in the Nile River, with a height of 187 meters. Climbing up this modern building, you can have a panoramic view of the entire city; the constant flow of traffic on the streets, the vaults of large and small mosques, row upon row of tall buildings, the extraordinary criss-crossing elevated highways, and the river with white sails fluttering like jade belts. Swinging into the sea, staying up all night.
The city has ancient Islamic architectural treasures such as the Sultan Hassan Mosque, Azhar Mosque, Saladin Castle, and Abedin Palace, as well as modern high-rise buildings. The mosque minarets scattered throughout the city give Cairo the reputation of the City of Thousand Minarets. The magnificent Cairo International Conference Center is a symbol of the friendship between the people of China and Egypt. Transportation: After arriving in Egypt, self-guided tourists with a driving license may wish to rent a car from a local car rental company for sightseeing. The rent is cheap and gas is cheap. Buddy Company, European Car Company, Avis Company, intermediary car rental companies, etc. I have made arrangements with the staff at Cairo Airport. For tourists who rent a car, purchasing insurance is necessary.
Traffic in Cairo is chaotic, with some roads crowded with trucks, donkey carts and camels. Be careful not to drive onto a one-way street. A pyramid is a type of structure usually used for tombs or rituals. Because it looks like the Chinese character for gold, it is called a pyramid. In fact, it has nothing to do with gold. Pyramids generally refer to the pyramids of Egypt. Other famous pyramids include Mayan pyramids, Aztec pyramids (Pyramid of the Sun, Pyramid of the Moon), etc. The pyramids of Egypt are the pyramid-shaped tombs of the emperors of the ancient Egyptian slave society.
One of the seven architectural wonders of the world. Large in quantity and widely distributed. The areas most concentrated are Cairo and Memphis, the ancient city west of the Nile River. 96 pyramids were discovered in Egypt, the largest of which are the three pyramids in Giza, a suburb of Cairo. The Pyramid is a Tomb
The Great Pyramid is the tomb of Khufu, the second king of the Fourth Dynasty.
It was built around 2690 BC and its original height was 146.5 meters. Due to accumulated weathering, the top has peeled off 10 meters, and it is now 136.5 meters high. Each side of the base is more than 230 meters long, the angle of the triangle is 51 degrees, and the bottom area of ??the tower is 52,900 square meters. The tower is made up of 2.3 million stones, each weighing an average of 2.5 tons. It is said that it took 100,000 people and 20 years to build.
The passage inside the pyramid is open to the outside world. The design of the passage is exquisite and the calculation is precise, which has amazed the world. The second Sphinx pyramid is the tomb of King Khafra, son of Khufu. It was built in 2650 BC and is 3 meters lower than the former, but its architectural form is more perfect and spectacular. In front of the tower are temples and other outbuildings as well as the famous Sphinx. The Sphinx refers to Hawera, whose body is a lion, 22 meters high and 57 meters long. One ear of the statue is 2 meters high.
Except for the lion's paws, the entire statue is carved from natural rock. Due to loose stones and more than 4,000 years, the entire statue has been severely weathered. In addition, the face was severely damaged. Some people say it was caused by the Mamluks using it as a target to practice shooting, while others say it was the traces left by the shelling when Napoleon invaded Egypt in the 18th century. The third pyramid belongs to King Menkaure, the grandson of Khufu, and was built around 2600 BC.
It was during the decline of the Fourth Dynasty that the pyramid buildings began to corrode. The height of the Pyramid of Kamula suddenly dropped to 66 meters, and the internal structure collapsed. To the south of the Pyramid of Khufu, there is a famous Solar Boat Museum. In those days, Khufu's son used a solar boat to transport Khufu's mummy to the pyramid for burial, and then dismantled the boat and buried it underground. The museum is built on the original site where the solar boat was unearthed. The hull is made of pure wood and tied with ropes. The Nile River originates from the Ethiopian plateau and flows through Burundi, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Zaire, Sudan and Egypt, with a total length of 6,700 kilometers.
It is the longest river in Africa and the second longest river in the world, with a navigable waterway of about 3,000 kilometers. The Nile has two upper reaches. The west one comes from the mountains of Burundi, and the north one flows through Lake Victoria, the largest lake in Africa. It is called the White Nile. It originates from Lake Tana in the eastern Ethiopian highlands and is known as the Blue Nile. The Blue Nile and White Nile meet in Khartoum, Sudan, and flow into Egypt. The Nile Valley and Delta are the cradle of Egyptian culture and one of the cradles of world culture.
The Nile River in Egypt is 1,530 kilometers long, with a valley of 3-16 kilometers wide formed on both sides. When it reaches Cairo, it splits into two branches and flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The alluvial accumulation of these two tributaries forms the Nile Delta, covering an area of ??24,000 square kilometers. It is the most densely populated and most fertile area in Egypt. Its population accounts for 96% of the country's total, and its arable land accounts for two-thirds of the country's arable land. Almost all of Egypt's water comes from the Nile River. According to the agreement signed by the nine Nile Basin countries, Egypt's share of the river water is 55.5 billion cubic meters per year. There are many cruise ships on the Nile River in Cairo. Among them, it is also called the Pharaonic Ship, which was built to imitate the ships of the Pharaonic period.
Go boating on the river at night, you can enjoy the beautiful scenery on both sides of the river, and you can also watch the famous Oriental dance performance on the boat. Saladin Castle was built in 1176 for the Ayyubid king Saladin to protect Cairo from Crusaders. There is the Muhammad Ali Mosque in the city. In the ancient castle, there is the Egyptian Military Museum, which displays weapons and equipment, clothing, famous battles, fortifications, and objects, imitations, models, pictures, etc. of the castle in various historical periods of Egypt. The Muhammad Ali Mosque was built in 1830 in 1246 AD. The entire building has the architectural style of the Abbasid Dynasty. Muhammad Ali (1769-1849), an Albanian, became the ruler of Egypt in 1805.
The towering Ali Mosque is built on a hilltop north of Cairo. The worship hall is square in shape, with a towering dome as the center of the hall. There are four semicircular halls around it corresponding to the main hall. There are four tall columns in the hall. There is a restroom in the center of the west side of the mosque, which is used by Muslims for small cleaning during prayer.
There are four chains around it
The Pharaoh Village is located on a small island in the Nile River in Cairo, covering an area of ??about 200 acres. In 1984, Dr. Hassan Radzhab, the first Egyptian ambassador to China, founded the center after discovering the papyrus papermaking process that had been lost for thousands of years. A large amount of papyrus is grown in the village, and there are workshops for making papyrus using traditional methods and painting papyrus paintings. In the Pharaoh Village, there are temples, manors, farmers and other buildings that simulate the Pharaoh era.
Specialized people wear ancient costumes to demonstrate scenes of production, life and religious rituals at that time, and to show the economic and social life of the ancient Egyptians thousands of years ago. The village has a model of the famous pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb and pyramid construction methods, as well as a photo studio, restaurants and shops. Montasa Palace, also known as Montasa Palace, is located in the east of the city, covering an area of ??155.4 hectares and surrounded by dense forests. This is a unique garden. Before 1952, it was the summer resort of the royal family. The waterfront is now open to tourists and anglers. In the garden is King Farouk's palace (now the Egyptian State Guesthouse). Built at the turn of the century by Khedive Abbas II, this Turkish-Florentine building served as a summer residence for the royal family.
The palace is not open to the public, so when looking at the appearance, be sure to pay attention to the frequently appearing theme letter F. It is said that a man who brought good news told King Fouad that the letter F would bring good luck to his family. Thereafter, he and his son Farooq named their offspring after F. Farooq, who married Nariman in 1951 but did not change her name. In January 1952, their son was born. He named him Ahmed Fouad, with the letter F in the second place. Six months later, Farooq was deposed. Katba Castle, formerly known as the Lighthouse of Alexandria, is one of the seven wonders of the world. This lighthouse was built in 280 BC and is about 135 meters high. After several earthquakes, it was completely destroyed in 1435.
In 1980, a castle was built on the original site using its stones and named after King Katba. In 1966, it was changed to the Egyptian Maritime Museum, displaying models, murals, oil paintings, etc. It shows the history of Egyptian shipbuilding and navigation 10,000 years ago. Together with the Cairo Citadel, it is known as the two largest medieval castles in Egypt. The Pompeii Pillar, also known as the Knight's Pillar, was built in 297 and stands in the southwest corner of Alexandria on the ruins of the Temple of Serapis. It is about 25 meters high, 2.8 meters in diameter at the bottom, and 2.3 meters in diameter at the top. It was originally established to commemorate the Emperor Diocletian who distributed grain here to help the victims. The foot of the column is engraved with words in his memory. Later, it became an indicator of HNA.
Savari means mast in Arabic. The Arabs occupied the city in 641 AD. Viewed from a distance, this stone pillar stands in the center of a colonnade composed of 400 stone pillars, resembling a sailing mast, hence its name. Over the centuries, Savari’s stone pillars have left many stories behind. During the Crusades, the Roman general Pompey (106-48 BC) was mistakenly thought to have been defeated by Caesar, fled to Egypt, and died at the hands of the Egyptians. His ashes were stored in an urn on the top of the column, so Europeans and Americans still call it the Pompeii Column. Walking through a sandy slope, under the scorching sunshine, I saw a majestic and dazzling huge stone pillar standing in front of me. There was nothing around me that could compare.
Several sphinxes are scattered in front of the pillars, which are getting smaller and smaller and lifeless. Pompeii's column base is plain and simple, and the pink column body is thick and smooth, with no trace of seams. It seems to have been taken from a boulder. Looking up along the pillar, the capital points to the sky, and the sky seems to rotate accordingly. Transportation: Alexandria is about 200 kilometers away from Rooibos. There is a train every hour from Cairo Railway Station.
It takes more than 2 hours to get on the train and pay for the ticket. Second-class carriages generally have seats and cost 36 pounds for a round trip. There are also air-conditioned buses to Alexandria from Cairo's Tahir Square, running every half hour. The fare is 20 Egyptian pounds and the journey takes about 3 hours.
Contact: Tel: 4825800 Address: Karmouz Opening hours: 9:00-16:00 Egyptian Museum In Egypt, there are many incredible legends circulating, which cast a mysterious black veil on it. When you come to Egypt, your first impression is of majesty. Those famous pyramids, how did people in the past build them so high and so magnificent?
This is a confusing question, but aside from these unanswered questions, we can feel Egypt's rich cultural and historical heritage. It is a kind of temperament emanating from nature, so ethereal and elusive. The Egyptian Museum is located in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt. It is a treasure house of ancient Egyptian civilization relics with a long history of more than 3,000 years. There are more than 300,000 cultural relics of various types collected here, but only 63,000 are on display, accounting for about one-fifth of all cultural relics.
Because this museum mainly collects artifacts from the Pharaonic period, Egyptians are accustomed to calling it the Pharaonic Museum. The Egyptian Museum is an ancient and luxurious two-story stone building designed and built in 1858 in Braq, north of Cairo, by the famous French archaeologist Mariel, known as the father of the Egyptian Museum. The purpose of building this museum at that time was to prevent the excavated Egyptian national treasures from flowing abroad. The museum moved twice, and in 1902 it moved to a new building in Cairo.
The front yard of the museum is planted with lotus leaves representing ancient Upper Egypt and papyrus, the oldest paper-making material in the world, representing Lower Egypt. There are more than 50 exhibition rooms in the museum. The first floor is displayed in the order of ancient Egyptian history. Here you can see precious cultural relics from the Old Kingdom period (2686 BC to 2181 BC) to the Roman rule in the 5th and 6th centuries. In ancient times, the exhibits mainly included statues unearthed from the tombs of kings of northern Egypt centered on Memphis, including statues of the throne of Kavre, cross-legged ministers, King Lakhtrip, and statues of Wang Feimin Feret, etc. The latter is a colorful image of limestone that still retains its vivid colors today.
In the Middle Kingdom, wood carving gradually replaced stone carving. The colorful wooden portraits of soldiers and priests on display are extremely exquisite. The New Kingdom, especially the period of the young Legalist Tutankhamen of the Eighteenth Dynasty (1584-1341 BC), was a prosperous era for Egypt. In addition to statues of Thutmose III, Ramesses II and Amenhotep IV, there are also kneeling and squatting statues.
The Greek and Roman exhibits feature different sculptures, combined with Greek realism. The second floor is the special exhibition room. There are coffin room, mummy room, jewelry room, painting room, funerary objects room, prehistoric relics room, Tutankhamun room, papyrus room, etc. More than 1,700 unearthed cultural relics are displayed in Tutankhamun's chamber. Among them, the golden mask, golden coffin and golden throne of the mummy of Pharaoh Tutankhamun are the most boastful cultural relics in any museum in the world. The golden mask, in particular, was made from gold plates as the king would have looked when he was alive. It is covered with rubies and has vultures and cobras symbolizing the rulers of Upper and Lower Egypt on its forehead.
These brilliant gold artifacts are a full reflection of the wealth of ancient Egypt and the huge power of the pharaohs. The mummy exhibition room in the southwest corner of the second floor is the most attractive part of the Egyptian Museum. There are more than 20 mummies of Egyptian pharaohs and their concubines. Mummies are mummies made thousands of years ago. On the lids and interiors of the human coffins in which the mummies were kept were depictions of patron saints or scriptures of the deceased. For example, the colorful wooden coffin lid of Astem Kabu is 205 centimeters high, and its eyebrows are inlaid with enamel, giving it a sense of elegance. Some mummies stored in the Egyptian Museum are more than 3,500 years old, but they are still well preserved, and some of them can still clearly see their hair and toenails.
The best preserved among them is the remains of Ramesses II (about 1317-1251 BC) of the 19th Dynasty of the New Kingdom. In the history of Egypt, Ramses II was the first person to conclude a peace treaty with the foreign enemy the Hittites, so the exhibition room where Ramses II's body is placed is called the War and Peace Exhibition Room. Luxor Temple Luxor is located on the Nile River more than 700 kilometers south of Cairo. The most striking monuments in Luxor are the Karnak Temple and the Luxor Temple, located on the east bank of the Nile.
Among them, Karnak Temple is one of the most spectacular ancient buildings in the world. Luxor Montebourg is a testament to Luxor’s glorious past.
It was built by Amenophis III, the 19th pharaoh of the 18th and 15th dynasties of ancient Egypt (reigned from 1398 to 1361 BC), to worship the sun god Amon and his concubines. and his son Luna. In the late 18th Dynasty, it was expanded by Ramses II, forming the scale that remains today. At one time, Luxor residents had their houses built on ancient tombs. Many people are digging in their own homes and discovering a large number of artifacts.
The black market was particularly strong at that time, and many cultural relics were lost overseas. Later, the Egyptian government made up its mind and found a batch of funds from Germany to relocate these residents to other places, thus curbing this phenomenon. At about 10 a.m. on November 17, 1997, six terrorists suddenly opened fire on tourists with submachine guns at the entrance to the Temple of Hatshepsut, a famous tourist attraction in Luxor, Egypt. More than 60 foreign tourists and Egyptians died on the spot, and more than 20 people were injured. On the way to escape, the murderer started a gun battle with the police who arrived after hearing the news, and was all shot to death. On the day of the incident, an organization calling itself the Islamic Group claimed responsibility for the incident. After the incident, the number of tourists visiting Egypt dropped sharply.
In order to save the pillar industry of the national economy, the Egyptian government established a tourist police force of up to 30,000 people to provide free security for tourists. Finally, tourist numbers returned to their original levels in 2001. Rising Nile waters threaten Luxor and Karnak temples. Due to heavy irrigation of nearby farmland in this area, the water level of the Nile River has risen, and the salinity of buildings has deepened in the past decade. Thousands of years old temples in Luxor continue to be eroded. In some areas of Luxor, the water level of the Nile River has risen by 1.5 meters. At the same time, salinization is eating away at the pigments used for columns and statues. Kard-Abdale Hadi, chief engineer of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the Aswan Dam, used to regulate the water level of the Nile, is an important cause of the problem.
Because the Luxor complex was completed 5,000 years ago, seasonal flooding from the Nile would wash salt away from the temple's pillars. These salts are formed during the dry season. However, after the Aswan Dam was built, the water level of the Nile remained at the same level for many years, allowing the temple to accumulate more and more salt. In addition, organic matter such as chemical fertilizers used in nearby sugar cane fields and rice fields also accelerated the salinization process. Stacked river water becomes a breeding ground for bacteria and fungi, complicating the protection of cultural relics. Egyptian officials tried to persuade farmers to change their irrigation methods to save the temple, but with little success. Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni announced on the 16th of this month that Egypt will immediately begin implementing a new rescue plan.
Farooq said that this was a decision made by the Egyptian cultural relics management department and the Swedish company SWECO after four years of in-depth research. The plan is to build an advanced drainage pipe system and a sewage recycling plant in the area around the two temples to isolate the temples from the river water. The program will take 18 months. At the same time, he revealed that the US Agency for International Development has decided to provide 50 million Egyptian pounds (approximately US$8.33 million) for the project. Hawass, secretary-general of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities, also said on the same day that due to the lack of a complete drainage pipeline system, the groundwater level in some Egyptian cities continues to rise, posing a threat to many cultural relics. The Luxor and Karnak temple projects will be an important part of the Egyptian government's efforts to protect and save cultural relics.
The current status of Luxor’s protection is not optimistic. A few years ago, during his study tour in Luxor, he saw with his own eyes a layer of white crystals on the surface of some temple buildings, which was a sign of salinization. It can be seen that this problem is not new. As an ancient country rich in cultural relics, Egypt's protection of cultural relics is limited to conditions, and many measures are difficult to put in place at once. But at least the Egyptian government is trying. Take the pyramids for example. Initially, the pyramids were always open to tourists.
Later, it was discovered that the paint on the murals inside the pyramid had faded. After research, it was believed that air humidity was caused by human breathing, so the opening hours of the pyramid were reduced to one hour a day.