Museums and Mosques

So to day we got the opportunity of going to the Egyptian Museum today. It is an amazing building that unfortunately none of you will get to see pictures of because once again, cameras are not allowed inside the museum. This museum is famous for a few things. Not only is it one of the largest collection of Egyptian artifacts in the world (go figure right!) but it also houses 12 of the most famous mummies in Egyptian history and has a 1/3 of all of the artifacts from Tut's tomb including the tomb itself and the sarcophagus and head-mask of the boy king. We had alot of fun on the bus. This is a pic of Adam and Morgan posing oh so well!

It was really a site to see the mummies of the ancient people that you hear about so often. I was able to be 6 inches away from Ramses II and see that he was a bald guy that was really well preserved. Also seeing Seti I and thinking that this could have been Moses' father figure growing up was quite a thing to behold. All of the mummies were really well preserved and it was amazing to still be able to make out facial features, hair, nails, and even preserved fingers and toes. Really it was a great site. Another thing about the Egyptians is that some of the sculptures that they made to symbolize people had the most amazing eyes. They would use semiprecious stone to actually make the eyes reflect light just as normal eyes would do. It was eerily creepy to literaly be able to stare into the eyes of the past.
Of course the treasures of Tut were one of the more amazing things to see. The wonder of all of the things that were given to this minor king to help keep him and his ba safe for the afterlife was astonishing. The 4 separate gold leafed coffins, his pure gold sarcophagi and head-dress was really amazing piece of work. There was just to much jewelry, and it was amazing to me to see all of the furniture that was supposed to have fit in the room that i had just seen a couple days before! Really it must have been a great thing to see it so chock full of golden things when it was first found. I can only imagine.

After the museum they dropped us off at one the biggest markets in Cairo for us to shop. For me i had already spent enough money and didn't really want anything else, so a few of us went to the nearby mosque to see what stuff was like. Actually, I did go walking around the market for a little bit, but then after i heard the call to prayer i could not resist being able to see what a prayer service was like inside the mosque, and so I slipped away and went in. There were a few of us in there and it was a neat thing to watch as the imam lead the people that were in the mosque in prayer. I think that I have a video that I will have to share of the prayer service, at least a little bit of it. It went on for more than 15 min, and it was neat, but a little repetitive after a while. It was just neat to have seen some of the religious practices of Islam, since we don't get the opportunity to see a service in Jerusalem itself.

All in all it was a fun day and I am so glad that I got to experience so much in this little part of town. Tomorrow is our last day in Egypt and so I hope that I really have done all that I want to do!