.

A cluster of icons
We have an idea to contribute to the New Zealand job summit; that is if the recession is still on. We learned on Wednesday that it took more than 20,000 workers to build the pyramids and carve the Sphinx on the Giza Plateau, just on the outskirts of Cairo. Such job-creation could be replicated at home, better by far than a national bike track or working a nine day fortnight.
It is hard to know quite what to expect when coming face-to-limestone-block with an icon, or in this case a cluster of icons. The famous Pyramids of Giza (Cheops, Hephren and Mycerinus) and accompanying Sphinx are magnificent. The only remaining of the original Seven Wonders of the World, they are accessible to tourists in a way that would not be imagined of such important treasures in any other country. Within minutes of arrival at Giza we joined hundreds of other tourists clambering all over some of the 2.5 million limestone blocks that comprise the Cheops (or Great) Pyramid for the “we’ve been there” photos. There are no restrictions and people roam the whole area at will.
It is difficult to imagine just how big the pyramids are and how complex the engineering feats must have been to construct them or, for that matter, simply transporting blocks of such size the 600 kilometers from places such as Luxor to Giza. Until the building of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Great Pyramid was the tallest man-made structure in the world, quite a lasting feat for an ancient civilization.
What surprised us was the number of pyramids in Egypt. There are over one hundred of them, all on the West bank of the Nile, with the ones at Giza being the best known. Those we saw included a number of small pyramids for various queens and the original stepped pyramid, for King Zoser at Sakkara.
At Memphis, a museum has been constructed to house monuments to King Ramsis II and for other relics from the ancient Egyptian capital. Again it is hard to comprehend how such huge statues and treasures could be built from single pieces of rock, let alone be transported to the sites where they lay.
But the day was not all pyramids and other precious stones; we learned how papyrus is made into paper and adorned with traditional Egyptian and Islamic painting and we visited a carpet-making school. It is described as a school because children, from the age of six, are put to work learning how to weave the most exquisite carpets but, as well as learning the craft of carpet-making, these children apparently have lessons in the more traditional academic pursuits. It is astonishing to see the accuracy of and speed at which carpet-weavers work and interesting to learn that is can take as much as three months to weave a single square metre of fine silk mat. We were of course pleased to learn that New Zealand wool is used in some of the carpets and that Marty has champagne tastes, or so the factory owner told Kaelene when he picked, as his favourite, a silk carpet on sale at the discount price of $NZ50,000.