Deep below the Egyptian desert, archeologists have found evidence of yet another pyramid, this one constructed 4,300 years ago to store the remains of a pharaoh’s mother. That makes 138 pyramids discovered in Egypt so far, and officials say they expect to find more.
Tourists will, no doubt, care.
Egyptians probably will not, unless they work in tourism.
But for citizens and foreigners alike, there is no escaping the truth that Egypt is inextricably linked in the public consciousness with pyramids, especially the Great Pyramids of Giza. The nation’s premier newspaper is called al Ahram, or “the Pyramids.” Egypt’s best-known research center is the al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
Yet living in the shadow of past greatness is not always easy.
The pyramids are proof of Egypt’s endurance and what distinguishes it from modern confections, like Saudi Arabia, a nation founded 76 years ago, named after a family and built on oil wealth. But these monuments to Egypt’s early ingenuity are also an ever-present symbol of faded glory. It is hard to escape comparisons between an Egypt that once led the world in almost everything and modern Egypt, where about 40 percent of the population lives on US$2 a day.
“Can you believe our government can do nothing for us, and this thing that was built thousands of years ago is still helping me feed my family?” Ahmed Sayed Baghali, 49, said as he sat in a plastic chair selling postcards to tourists outside the Egyptian Museum, which displays millenniums of antiquities. “Who would buy my things if they were not about the pharaohs? People come here from very far to see the pyramids, not to see Cairo.”
Baghali’s Cairo is a city of about 18 million people that is layered with history stretching back to the birth of civilization. The ubiquitous nature of antiquities — stick a shovel in the ground almost anywhere and it is difficult not to find something — has helped mold a collective consciousness, a national identity, that is uniquely Egyptian.
“A man without history is a man without humor,” said Galal Amin, an economist and author who has written about Egypt’s modern decline. “A man with history is more likely to have humor, because he is more likely to see the irony in things, how things were and how they turned out to be. And patience.”
Egyptians, as a group, are extremely patient, though given the growing pressure of daily life, a bit less than they used to be. Their it-is-what-it-is attitude is often attributed to a strong religious faith and a conviction that all events are God’s will.
Yet growing up and living amid so much history has something to do with that view, too; the abundant antiquities in everyday life are a constant reminder of one’s place in time.
People come and go, pharaohs come and go, even Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who has ruled Egypt for 27 years, will go, too — though talk of that certainty is discouraged.
No need to worry.
Or as Egyptians like to say, maalesh, which, depending on the circumstance, means “Never mind” or “Oh, well.”
“When other people talk about hoping to see something happen soon, they probably mean within the next few months,” said Aly Salem, an Egyptian playwright. “For an Egyptian, it could mean in the next 50 or 60 years. An Egyptian has a particular pace. His pace is different than an American’s. And a long history can do this.”
These days, Egypt is rarely spoken of in a positive context. The education system is in crisis, and unemployment, traffic and pollution are all major problems. Top to bottom, the state seems to have seized up.
When the historical parliament building burned recently, firefighters bungled for hours before bringing the blaze under control.
When a rockslide crushed a neighborhood, the authorities responded slowly, infuriating rather than rescuing.
And at nearly every level, there is anxiety over who will rule when Mubarak is gone. The president, who is 80, refuses to clarify the issue of succession and seems out of touch with daily life in his country. His son Gamal Mubarak, who appears positioned to inherit the job, says that it is premature to discuss succession.
He counsels patience.
Amin mused: “This deep conviction, ‘Leave it to time, leave it to God, God will resolve it, don’t worry too much, everything will be all right in the end — can’t this also be the result of the length of history? When you have a short amount of time, you can’t rely on bad things to be corrected or mistakes to be corrected. But in the long run, things are bound to be all right at the end.”
And there is ample evidence that Egypt itself can be expected to continue to endure. It may be down on its heels for the moment, but this country has survived the test of the time, a lot of time, where so many others have not.
The 138th pyramid — the most recent proof that Egypt’s contemporary troubles amount to a blip in its long history — was unearthed in a vacant patch of sand. The discovery, announced last week, was made not far from Sakkara, the step pyramid that, at 5,000 years old, is the oldest known pyramid in Egypt.
Twenty years ago, Zahi Hawass, now Egypt’s chief of antiquities, began excavating the area around Sakkara, which is in Giza, part of Greater Cairo. Remains of the newest pyramid were found about two months ago, 7m beneath the surface of the desert.
Hawass said it appeared that the pyramid was built for Queen Sesheshet, the mother of Pharaoh Teti, the first pharaoh of the Sixth Dynasty, who ruled from about 2345BC to 2333BC. Little remains of what is believed to have been a 14m-tall pyramid.
One day last week, Abdel Hakim Karar, director of the excavation, escorted visitors into the pit.
“In this small space, you see about 2,000 years of history,” he said, with pride and a sweep of his hand.
Right at the edge of the pit was a dirty-yellow building constructed relatively recently to serve as offices of a government magazine. Its walls were cracking. A meter down in the pit, he pointed to mud brick houses that were built in 300BC and were found as part of the excavation. And then he pointed to the wall that had enclosed the 4,300-year-old pyramid. The massive stones, carved in antiquity, were still square with each other, and were exactly where they had been placed long ago.
“It took patience, dedication and hard work to build this pyramid,” he said.
Karar watched as a group of poor Egyptians, peasant farmers from a nearby village, slowly, very slowly, hauled satchels of sand and rock on their backs out of the pit.
“They don’t know how to work,” he complained.
The men, mostly barefoot, said they were paid 13 Egyptian pounds a day, a bit more than US$2, to haul the debris — and were glad to have the work.
The pyramids? They could take them or leave them.
“We feel the might of this history when we get paid,” said Sayyid Saber Shabaan, 21, when he stopped to take a 10-minute break. “But if we don’t get paid, we feel nothing. We are used to these things. We are always here.”
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