Hello everyone. For this post, we start out in the city of Cairo in Egypt. This is where we met up with a National Geographic Expedition and were introduced to our guide, Aki, who showed us around Egypt. He was great and taught me so much about ancient Egypt. My mom was happy about this because ancient Egypt is something the sixth graders at my school plan to study this year.
First, we traveled over to the city of Giza, where the great pyramids are found. This city is built right up to the edge of the desert. The second you enter the desert, it is just nothingness for miles, with the exception of the pyramids. The closer you get to them, the smaller you feel. The first pyramid we went to was built for the pharaoh Cheops and it was HUGE - the largest of all the pyramids. There are three big pyramids here and in order to get a really good view of all of them together, we went for a camel ride on the sand dunes.
First, we traveled over to the city of Giza, where the great pyramids are found. This city is built right up to the edge of the desert. The second you enter the desert, it is just nothingness for miles, with the exception of the pyramids. The closer you get to them, the smaller you feel. The first pyramid we went to was built for the pharaoh Cheops and it was HUGE - the largest of all the pyramids. There are three big pyramids here and in order to get a really good view of all of them together, we went for a camel ride on the sand dunes.
The next day we went to a different area where there were some more
pyramids. This is where we saw the Step Pyramid, which was built for
Cheops' father. It is the oldest pyramid/man-made stone tomb in the
world. We also went down into the tomb of a musician from ancient
Egyptian times and inside was one of the very few mummies in all of
Egypt that was never removed from its tomb. It was so cool because we
were some of the only people to be allowed to go into this tomb.
On our way to Aswan to go on a Nile River cruise, we stopped at a place called Abu Simbel. This is a huge temple made to honor King Ramses II. There are two temples there, one really huge one for Ramses II and a smaller one for his wife. Ramses had huge statues of himself carved out of the mountain and inside you see even more statues of him. If you ask me, he had a sort of big ego, because even in his wife's tomb, there were more statues of him than of her.
Later that day we boarded the boat and headed off down along the Nile. On the way, we stopped to look at another temple called the Temple of Horus. This is the only complete temple from ancient Egypt. Horus is a god with a falcon head and a human body and is the god of the skies. It was really cool to see a complete temple because most of the temples we saw were just remains.
The next day we sailed to the city of Luxor, where the Valley of the Kings and Queens are. On our way to the Valley of the Queens, we drove through some small villages that will not be there in a month. These people's houses are built on old tombs that archaeologists will start exploring, so they are being moved to a different location. Once we got to the Valley of the Queens, we saw the tomb of one of the king's sons. The reason a boy was buried in the Valley of the Queens was so he could be closer to his mother. Inside the tomb, the colors were so bright and almost every wall had hieroglyphs of pictures of the king introducing his son to the gods. It was so cool to see the tomb of this small boy and it felt strange because the other tombs we'd seen were for kings.
Speaking
of kings, we headed to the Valley of the Kings to see King Tut's tomb!
Going to this tomb is really special. When you get inside, you go down
a stairway and into the main chamber, which is tiny! The tomb is only
about the size of a hotel room. Inside the main chamber we got to see
the mummy of King Tut and if you look over opposite to the mummy, you
can see the golden outer sarcophagus that the mummy was found in. On
the wall behind the sarcophagus you can see paintings of King Tut, the
gods, and the high priests. Seeing King Tut's tomb was probably one of
the coolest things of the whole trip.
The
last highlight of this trip was going to a different part of the valley
where the workers who made the tombs had lived. This was a cool because
they actually opened a tomb especially for us, which had the most
amazing untouched colors you will ever see in a tomb. On the ceiling
there were hieroglyphics and along the walls there were pictures of all
the gods and the man's family sending him off to the after-life. On the
back wall was a picture of the man buried there. Seeing this and King
Tut's tombs made the entire trip for me.
Take a look at the light show we saw while we were in Egypt!
That's all of the highlights for Egypt, so goodbye for now.
On our way to Aswan to go on a Nile River cruise, we stopped at a place called Abu Simbel. This is a huge temple made to honor King Ramses II. There are two temples there, one really huge one for Ramses II and a smaller one for his wife. Ramses had huge statues of himself carved out of the mountain and inside you see even more statues of him. If you ask me, he had a sort of big ego, because even in his wife's tomb, there were more statues of him than of her.
Later that day we boarded the boat and headed off down along the Nile. On the way, we stopped to look at another temple called the Temple of Horus. This is the only complete temple from ancient Egypt. Horus is a god with a falcon head and a human body and is the god of the skies. It was really cool to see a complete temple because most of the temples we saw were just remains.
The next day we sailed to the city of Luxor, where the Valley of the Kings and Queens are. On our way to the Valley of the Queens, we drove through some small villages that will not be there in a month. These people's houses are built on old tombs that archaeologists will start exploring, so they are being moved to a different location. Once we got to the Valley of the Queens, we saw the tomb of one of the king's sons. The reason a boy was buried in the Valley of the Queens was so he could be closer to his mother. Inside the tomb, the colors were so bright and almost every wall had hieroglyphs of pictures of the king introducing his son to the gods. It was so cool to see the tomb of this small boy and it felt strange because the other tombs we'd seen were for kings.
Speaking
of kings, we headed to the Valley of the Kings to see King Tut's tomb!
Going to this tomb is really special. When you get inside, you go down
a stairway and into the main chamber, which is tiny! The tomb is only
about the size of a hotel room. Inside the main chamber we got to see
the mummy of King Tut and if you look over opposite to the mummy, you
can see the golden outer sarcophagus that the mummy was found in. On
the wall behind the sarcophagus you can see paintings of King Tut, the
gods, and the high priests. Seeing King Tut's tomb was probably one of
the coolest things of the whole trip.The
last highlight of this trip was going to a different part of the valley
where the workers who made the tombs had lived. This was a cool because
they actually opened a tomb especially for us, which had the most
amazing untouched colors you will ever see in a tomb. On the ceiling
there were hieroglyphics and along the walls there were pictures of all
the gods and the man's family sending him off to the after-life. On the
back wall was a picture of the man buried there. Seeing this and King
Tut's tombs made the entire trip for me.Take a look at the light show we saw while we were in Egypt!
That's all of the highlights for Egypt, so goodbye for now.
I'm writing for my son. He's 5. Our family love's you and your brother's blog. This is a fantastic idea. We get to travel the world and see it's wonders through your eyes and words. Well done! Tell your parents and everyone at National Geographic that this is simply the best idea I've seen. Hope you two publish a book of your adventures!
Hi Global Bros ... wow Tut's tomb, very cool. LOVE the photo of you two on the HUGE blocks of stone, amazing. Today is our first nice spring day (75 degrees). It has been raining for what seems like two weeks straight. Everything is in bloom. I continue to follow your adventures, how very fun for you! I agree with "Littlewelsh" you should publish a book of your exotic adventure around the world! PS - I would buy an autographed copy! Hugs, Deb~la.
I LOVE EGYPT!!!
tuts toumb is so cool i wish i could go with yall
i love to study the egyptaion gods. i bet you had an great time.
I really like the info about Egypt. It was fun learning about Egypt and the different pyramids there are. I liked the picture that kind of reflects the pictures through glass of the walls. I can see now there really are different cultures. I liked how they dress in Egypt. I would like to go to Egypt and reserch more about the Egyptians.
I am a sixth grader in New York and we are studying Egypt right now in class.
one thing i really like in your blog was the paintings because, they are very colorful.
Another thing that was cool was the Tumb Of Tut Ankh Amun was the sighn was in arabic and it was in english also.
So that is what i really liked about you'r blog.
One thing I really liked in your blog was the picture of the tomb because it was something new for me to see.Another thing I thought was cool was the Arabic on the sing because I speak Arabic.
We are studying about Egypt right now in class. One thing I really liked in your blog was that you traveled to Egypt because it has unique places, for example Cairo. Another thing I thought that was cool was the great pyramid because it has 3,000,000 rocks.I also liked The first pyramid for the pharaoh Cheop,because it was huge.
We are studying Egypt in class right now.
One thing I really liked in your blog was the paintings because they are very colorful.
Another thing I liked was the tomb of Tut Ankh Amun. There was a sign that was in Arabic and in English.
The tomb of the king was the size of a hotel room and I did not know that before.I learned the place were the mummy is kept can be called a sarcophagus.
i'm studing egypt in class so when our teachers asigned this to ME i was like awsome
Hi!!!My Name Is Sabrina And Im Doing A Project On Mummies Do You Have Any Information To Give:):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):):P