This man works at a welding shop just outside my window at work. Quite often he smokes his sheesha pipe during his numerous breaks. He keeps the pipe just next to his welding equipment.

The main hall of the Egyptian Museum (AKA Cairo Museum).

This is a statue of Akhenaten, the so-called"heretic pharaoh." There were four such statues in this room, each at varying degrees of completeness. Each one was as tall as three men. I remember studying Akhenaten in Art History in college and was fascinated by him. He turned the ancient Egyptian world on its head when he declared there to be only one God, Aten, the Sun God. This effectively took the power away from the priests. He is significant in the history of Egyptian art because he changed the style of Egyptian art. You can see he has a pot belly, his face is more slender and he has big pouty lips (my Lonely Planet guide book called them Mick Jagger lips) You may have heard of his wife, Nefertiti. After seventeen years of being pharaoh, Akhenaten was assassinated and his son, the famous Tutankhamun (King Tut) came to power.

This is the carrying chair of Queen Hetepheres. I don't know anything about her but she had several incredible items in her room including a gold bed canopy which you can see in the back left of this photo.

This is a statue of Khafre, the pharaoh who built the second largest pyramid at Giza. On the back of his head was the god Horus in his falcon form, wrapping his wings around Khafre's head.

I thought this was an amazing sculpture! My Lonely Planet guide book says it is painted limestone and is a depiction of a scribe. Sure enough he is sitting, waiting to transcribe something into the book in his lap. Anything that I look at in this museum that has paint on it just amazes me. Keep in mind many of these items are nearly 4000 years old.

This sculpture of Ka-Aper is another one that wowed my mind. This sculpture is made of wood... that's right 4000 year old wood. On top of that, it is an amazing depiction of a human being. My Lonely Planet guide book said that the Arab men who unearthed the statue nicknamed it Sheikh al-Balad (Headman) because he resembled the headman at the excavation site.

This is a sculpture of Menkaure, builder of the smallest of the three pyramids at Giza. On his right (the opposite side) is Hathor, an Egyptian god usually depicted with bull horns. On Menkaure's left side is a woman with a symbol over her head. The symbol indicates a province of Egypt. There were three such statues at the museum, each with a different symbol in this location representing three different provinces.

A statue of any Egyptian pharaoh, I think it was Ramses II.

There was a Greco-Roman room in the museum that displayed Roman influences on Egyptian art after the Romans had taken over the region.

I think my favorite piece from this room was this statue that had an odd combination of a pharaonic head dress and the face and curly hair of a Greek man.

One room had a new exhibit that showed the Faces of Fayoum. I saw a sampling of them a few years ago at an exhibition at Emory University in Atlanta. These are portraits painted on wood that were placed on mummies at the time of their wrapping. The faces were positioned in front of the face of the corpse. There are many, many of these portraits.

A golden face mask in the Faces of Fayoum exhibit.

Next I entered the gallery of Tutankhamun (King Tut) which was filled with thousands of pieces that were collected from his tomb. When Howard Carter discovered the tomb in 1922 it had never been looted. To this day it remains one of the most complete collections from a tomb of an Egyptian pharaoh. This is one of two such statues that guarded the door to the exhibit.

Tut had many gold statues buried with him. These stood about 14 inches tall.

This is a handheld fan complete with peacock feathers.

Tut's lion throne.

An alabaster chest containing three alabaster coptic jars with pharaonic heads (one was missing or lent out). The organs of Tut were placed in each of these jars, which were placed in this chest, which was in turn placed in...

... this gilded shrine.

A golden chariot found in Tut's tomb.

And here's the photo that nearly got me kicked out of the museum (Read my journal entry). This is the outer coffin of Tut. Tut's mummy wore the famous headdress and was placed inside a slender golden coffin, which was placed inside this coffin. All three pieces were in the same room, but this was the only one I got a picture of.

While these statues outside were neither ancient nor really in the Egyptian style of art (more Classical Greek if you ask me) they were still neat.

I *think* this is supposed to represent Hathor because she has the sun disk and horns on top of her head.

Here is a statue outside of the museum with the Hilton hotel in the background.

The Egyptian Museum.

Teri and I attended the Ramses College for Girls Christmas celebration, and Santa was the guest of honor.

Santa began passing out presents and the children mobbed him.

Parents scurried to make sure their child got a present and to take pictures of their child with Santa.

Children waited patiently as Santa's helpers replenished the supply of presents.

Now wait just a minute. That jolly, happy man looks familiar.

Merry Christmas everyone! Ho, ho, ho!