Architecture of Egypt

The Pyramids of Egypt (and our house)

The pyramids of Egypt are world famous, as well they should be.  They were built about 5,000 years ago, before cranes, dump trucks, and the modern equipment of today.  Unlike many of the buildings built today, however, they were built to last!  It is estimated that some of the larger pyramids used up to 100,000 workers to build - and most of that was slave labor.  The more elaborate tombs were built for the Pharaohs.  The most famous pyramids, and the largest pyramid, the Pyramid of Khufu, are in Giza, near Cairo.  The architect Imhotep came up with the idea of the pyramid.  Before that people were buried in "mastabas", which were described as "bench-like".  Imhotep stacked the mastabas and gradually made them smaller as they rose.  This was supposed to symbolize a great staircase for the soul to get to the heavens.  The pyramids held the mummified remains of the Pharaoh, their favorite items or pets, and many other treasures, foods and items that were going to be needed in the afterlife.  Because they were so full of gold and treasure, many of these tombs have been raided and looted.  Many have been buried deep in the sands of Egypt and are still being discovered to this day.  Amazing to think of the treasures that are waiting to be discovered. 

The Great Pyramid of Evanchik

We took a cue from good old Imhotep and tried our hand at building a pyramid.......out of sugar cubes!

For the project you will need:

• sugar cubes.  1 box.

That's it.  We made our pyramid starting with 8 cubes across on 4 sides.  We took one away with each level and we had a good time building it.  I thought this was a great math lesson, a good lesson in architecture and a great excuse to eat some sugar cubes.

Sugar cubes made a pretty good building material :)  Now I'm thinking what else we can use them for......hmmm, the Parthenon? the Great Wall?

On the Menu : Egyptian Food

The Unofficial Dish of Egypt :  Koshari

Every website I went to looking for recipes from Egypt had a variation of Koshari (many different spellings too), so I figured we had to make this dish, right?  But I wasn't very excited about it.  It basically sounded like a bunch of carbs with tomato sauce on top - how exciting could that be?  Turns out it tasted very different than I expected it to taste and I found it pretty yummy.  But more on that later, first a brief history of food in Egypt....

Since ancient times, the people of Egypt have eaten lots of fruits and vegetables, some grown in the fertile soil along the Nile River and some traded in the ports from vessels travelling the river.  They had dates, melons, and figs, wheat, barley and beans.   The wheat was made into breads and porridges but the barley was mostly for the favorite drink of the people - beer!  The Egyptians so loved their beer that they even had special beer jars that they put in the tombs of the dead so they could enjoy a pint or two in the afterlife! 
In later years, Turks and Arabs have both ruled Egypt for periods of time and the food of the land took on the flavors of the Middle East.  Many of the recipes are identical to those you'd find in many surrounding countries so it was hard to find one that screamed out Egypt.  However, one dish is supposedly loved throughout the country.  It's vegetarian, spicy, and has healthy onions, lentils, garlic and tomatoes - it's called Koshari and is served in the nicest restaurants and the lowliest food cart by the side of the road.  Now it is served in my house.

Koshari

For the recipe you will need:

• 3/4 cup lentils
• 3/4 cup uncooked rice
• 1 cup elbow macaroni
• 2 T oil
• 1 large onion sliced thinly
• 4 cloves garlic- minced
• 1 can diced tomatoes (I used pasta sauce)
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes (or to taste)
• crispy french-fried onions (not pictured)

1. Cook lentils according to directions.  Cook rice according to directions.  Cook pasta according to directions.  Easy but used all my pans - luckily my husband does the dishes :)
2.  Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat.  Add onions and cook til carmelized.  Add garlic, tomatoes and pepper flakes. Simmer for 10-20 minutes.  I cooked the onions separately with half the garlic since I knew the hubby and kids wouldn't eat them.  I also didn't have any canned tomatoes so I used pasta sauce and left some not spicy for the kids.
3. To serve layer the pasta, rice and lentils in a dish.  Spoon on some of the tomato sauce.  Put some carmelized onions on top and sprinkle the crispy onions on top of that. 
 

I thought this was a pretty good dish.  The pepper flakes and garlic jazzed up the sauce and the onions and different textures made it really different.  My husband tried it and liked it (without the onions) and my kids ate it without any sauce, or onions, or lentils.  Basically, they had rice and pasta. 

Field Trip!

A Field Trip to the Egyptian Museum

It's field trip day, YEAH!!!  There haven't been too many field trip these last few weeks, so we were due for a fun one.  I wasn't sure this was going to be classified by my kids as a "fun one" but they really enjoyed it.  We went to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, CA.  I had never heard of this place before and wasn't sure if it would be kid-friendly, but I figured the few adults that were there on a Wednesday afternoon at 1pm would just have to deal with it.  Didn't matter anyway because the kids REALLY enjoyed it and were very well behaved.  Plus, the 2 middle school field trips that were also there totally drowned us out :)  We saw real mummies of people and animals - did you know they mummified animals too?  There was a replica of an underground tomb that you walked through (spooky and fun) and lots and lots of ancient artifacts.  There were models of tombs and temples and examples of items used by everyday people.  The kids got a "Passport to Ancient Egypt" that they stamped in every exhibit and they seemed genuinely interested in the displays.  Did we read every description and see every display case?  No, but I usually gloss over a lot of the small details anyway.  Did we have a great experience and learn a lot about Ancient Egypt? Totally.  My daughter even came home with her passport and wrote me a note using the hieroglyphics chart on the back of her little book.  My camera kept messing up (I know what I want for Christmas) so I missed a couple of good pictures but here are a few from our day!

The museum from the outside. A very beautiful building with gardens surrounding it.

Some of the statues guarding the entrance.  Sheep or rams I guess.

 

A heart scarab- put over the heart of a mummy to protect it in the afterlife.

A model of a pyramid.  Sorry, I can't remember which one :)

One of the many statues of a Pharoah.  They all had the same pose.

Canopic jars that held the removed organs of the mummy so they can be re-used in the afterlife.

A real Mummy!!! Not a pharoah - just some regular guy from thousands of years ago.

Another mummy, this one unwrapped a little more.  Kids handled this better than I expected.

A golden statue like the type that would have been in a pharoah's tomb.

 Cats were sacred in Ancient Egypt which, unfortunately for them, meant they got mummified too when their owner died. The one on the left is a mummy.

 

 The wooden coffin from a mummy - apparently only the kings got the fancy golden ones.

The kids riding the Sphinx.  I swear we didn't see the "Please Keep Off Statue" sign until after!  A beautiful day in Ancient Egypt or, as my daughter refers to it, "Agent" Egypt :) 

The Scarab Beetle

Got dung?

What?!  Dung, you know, poop.  Why, you may ask, do you need that?  Well, in Ancient Egypt, the lowly dung beetle, or scarab beetle, was one of the most important symbols.  To understand why first we need to learn about the beetle.  Dung beetles find a nice ball of poop and roll it along the ground to its burrow, then the female lays its eggs in the ball.  The eggs hatch and the larvae eat the dung (ewww).  Then the larvae form a pupa and finally emerge fully formed from the ball of dung.  Metamorphoses in action.  However, ancient people had no science to understand this, so it must be the work of a god. They thought the beetles were just springing out of the ground and gave them the name "Khepera" or "Khepri", which means "he was come forth".  As the scholars tried to explain more of the way the world works, they associated the scarab beetle with the sun, it went something like this.  The (invisible?) scarab god would push his ball (the sun) across the sky and bury it (sunset), the ball would undergo its changes and re-emerge from the west the next morning.  Repeat daily.  I guess people back then didn't question the scholars too much because this story is pretty implausible, but it does explain why a beetle, basically a smelly, poop-covered cockroach was such an important symbol in Egypt.  We decided to make out own scarabs - minus the dung.

Art Project: Sacred Scarabs

For the project you will need:

• paper plates- I found some oval shaped platters to look more beetle shaped, but round would work too.
• black paper for legs and pincers
• paint and brushes
• glitter if you prefer a sparklier insect

1.  Paint your scarab whatever color you choose.  There are many different colors of beetles.  Not even sure what color it "should" be. They have wings so we painted a line down the back.
2.  Cut out legs and pincers.  the pincers go on front - shaped like big parentheses ( )  The front legs are longer and have a little crook (see picture) and the two sets of rear legs are just straight.  6 legs and 2 pincers per scarab.  I cut them out for the kids, but older kids could do it.
3.  Glue on legs/pincers and some eyes - I cut eyes out of paper or you could use googly eyes.  My son's scarab had 3 eyes and a "nose" but my daughter and I only used 2.

There, now all you need is a big ol' ball of poop.  We are using ours as part of our Halloween decorations outside.  They are going to be the giant spider's dinner. 

Week 12!! Egypt

Egypt: the Ancient and the Modern

Wow, it's already week 12!! We're a quarter of the way through our journey and still going strong :)  I took an extra day off this week to celebrate my anniversary in LA so today's post is a little late.  Sorry.  In honor of the upcoming holiday (Halloween), I thought we would do some countries with a little spook in them.  Egypt might not come to your mind first but there are many creepy things to learn about - mummies, scarab beetles, and tombs to name a few.

Egypt is a country where the ancient culture and the modern culture are very intermingled.  You might just as easily see people in jeans and a t-shirt listening to their ipod as you would men wearing galabayya, the traditional long cotton robe.  Many of the women the traditional garb of Islam in public but at home are wearing the latest fashions.  The ancient culture of Pharaohs and gods is what draws the tourists and that is what they give you - at souvenir shops and marketplaces.  Tourism is big in Egypt and they should be very proud of their past - it was AMAZING!

Who hasn't seen a picture of the Great Pyramids? or the Sphinx?  I don't think many people.  Egypt has one of the oldest and most impressive cultures of any country, with more than a 51,000 year and 6000 years of recorded history there is much to learn about.  The Egyptians were the first to have a government and, because they also had one of the first written languages, they were the first to invent paper- papyrus made from the reeds growing along the Nile.  They built huge tombs and temples for their kings and gods, real architectural accomplishments considering what they had to work with. 

But can all of you find Egypt on a map?  Did you know it was on 2 continents?  It is.  Egypt is a transcontinental country - big word.  Most of the country is in Northeastern Africa but a small land bridge, called the Isthmus of Suez, connects it with the Asian continent, the Gaza Strip and Israel.  Pretty cool, I thought so anyway.  The Isthmus of Suez is also where the the Suez canal was built which makes it much easier for the boats and ships to get from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea.  You can find the capital city of Cairo located at the latitude and longitude of 30.05ºN / 31.22ºE.  As is the case with most of the major cities, it is located alongside the Nile River.  Actually 99% of the population of Egypt lives near the Nile River, the rest of the country is desert and has VERY LITTLE rainfall.  The Nile was and is the lifeblood of Egypt.  Before the Aswan Dam was built, it flooded regularly and this flooding replenished the soil and made them fertile and rich.  The people travelled on the river and shipped their goods along it.  Camels were also used but I know I'd much rather float down a river then ride a hot, stinky camel all day.  Today, the camels are used in Camel races and for the tourist industry, but the Nile is still used much as it was back in the ancient days (only with more modern boats). 

The politics of Egypt are a topic all on their own.  The country has been in wars, political upheavals, and unrest many, many times over the centuries and even in recent times.  But this blog is for family fun, so let's leave all that elsewhere and learn a little about the good old days of Ancient Egypt....