Skip to content

February 2015

Egypt Holiday 2014: Giza Plateau

Giza Pyramids The second site of the holiday was the pyramids at Giza, where we not only saw the pyramids from the outside but also got to go into the Great Pyramid, plus an Old Kingdom royal lady’s tomb nearby. The photos in this post are a selection from the whole set which is up on flickr click here to get to it or on any photo. You aren’t allowed to take photos inside the pyramids or other tombs, so these are all of the outsides and the surrounding views. (The plan of the plateau is one I found on Wikipedia with a licence that meant I could use it, if you click on it you go to it’s own page.) Great Pyramid As you can see on the plan below the ticket office is placed so that you walk from there towards the Great Pyramid to get the full… Read More »Egypt Holiday 2014: Giza Plateau

Egypt Holiday 2014: Cairo Museum

Our very first trip of the holiday was to the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo. There’s no photography allowed inside the museum, so I didn’t even take my big camera off the coach, but I did take a few photos outside the museum with my phone (up on flickr here). Cairo Museum Once inside the museum the group split into those who wanted to have a tour from our guide, Medhat Saad, or those who wanted to just explore themselves. We opted for the tour to make sure we saw a decent overview of the interesting pieces, rather than just seeing things we already knew were there or wandering round randomly. Medhat spent about two hours taking us around the ground floor in roughly chronological order. We started with the Narmer Palette, which seems appropriate as that’s from the start of Egypt as a unified country. Near the case… Read More »Egypt Holiday 2014: Cairo Museum

Egypt Holiday 2014: Temples and Tombs (Overview: 21st-24th November)

Medinet Habu The last three days of the trip include two of the advertised highlights of the tour – the tomb of Seti I and the tomb of Nefertari. The photos for this overview series are up on flickr, in a set here, they are about half taken by me and half taken by J. Not all of the photos in the set are in these posts, so do go look at the rest 🙂 If you click on any photo it’ll go to its flickr page. Maps are linked to a custom Google map with all the places on, click on any map to go to it. Once there you can click on the place names in the key to the left to zoom to them or turn on & off the visibility of the layers to see particular days on their own. Hotels are green marks, sites are… Read More »Egypt Holiday 2014: Temples and Tombs (Overview: 21st-24th November)

“Uncovering the Quarry Workers at Gebel Silsila” Sarah K Doherty (EEG Meeting Talk)

On Sunday Sarah Doherty came to talk to the Essex Egyptology Group about the ongoing excavations at Gebel Silsila (or Gebel el Silsila, her slides used the two name interchangeably). She split her talk into two halves (so we could have tea and cake in the middle) – the first half was about the work done at the site in 2012 and 2013, the second half covered 2014 and the plans for the future. The first half was also something of an overview of why the site is interesting, and the second half included more details on the day to day life of the archaeologists working there. Gebel Silsila is a large site in Upper Egypt where sandstone has been quarried throughout the majority of Egypt’s history. It’s situated about 40 miles north of Aswan and 500 miles south of Cairo, near Kom Ombo. The site itself is enormous –… Read More »“Uncovering the Quarry Workers at Gebel Silsila” Sarah K Doherty (EEG Meeting Talk)

Egypt Holiday 2014: Temples and Tombs (Overview: 18th-20th November)

  • by

Sunrise in the Hotel Gardens The next three days on our Egypt holiday were the start of the Luxor-based portion of the trip. The photos for this overview series are up on flickr, in a set here, they are about half taken by me and half taken by J. Not all of the photos in the set are in these posts, so do go look at the rest 🙂 If you click on any photo it’ll go to its flickr page. Maps are linked to a custom Google map with all the places on, click on any map to go to it. Once there you can click on the place names in the key to the left to zoom to them or turn on & off the visibility of the layers to see particular days on their own. Hotels are green marks, sites are red. 18th November This was the… Read More »Egypt Holiday 2014: Temples and Tombs (Overview: 18th-20th November)