TUT'S TOMB RELICS AT EGYPTIAN MUSEUM
By Bob Van Leer

  (PORT SAID, Egypt, May 26, 1960 - Egypt is one of the world's oldest civilizations, and one of the most interesting to visit. We spent a whirlwind day visiting some of the highlights of the country, including the pyramids, sphinx and the wonders of Tut's tomb.

  Our ship, the Eugenio Costa, docked at Alexandria, Egypt, at 8:00 a.m. today and most of the 1000 passengers on the ship boarded buses for the three-hour trip to Cairo, Egypt, south on the Nile River Delta, the largest delta in the world, I was told. The Nile is Egypt. The 60 million people in Egypt live on about 4% of the land area of the country along the Nile. The delta is lush and green where it is irrigated. Stop the irrigation and it is desert.   Cities are huge here. The population of Alexandria is 5 million, and this is small compared to Cairo with 16 million.

   Our convoy of buses proceeded to Cairo with a heavy police escort. Terrorists shot up a party of Greek tourists in Cairo just a few weeks ago and the country can't afford to have another such event so quickly and still keep tourists coming. Our first stop on reaching Cairo (actually Giza, west Cairo) was the pyramids of Giza, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. The pyramids symbolize Egypt. The most famous are the three main pyramids at Giza: Cheops, Chephren and Micerinus. Cheops is the largest at 137 meters (about 450 feet) high. (It was originally 146 meters high.) The pyramid is built of enormous stone slabs several feet high each. It was originally faced with smooth stone but this is now gone, leaving the base building rocks.

  The pyramids were built in the "Old Kingdom" which dates from around 2700 B. C. to 2180 B. C. In front of the pyramids is the famous sphinx. It gives a person a real feeling of the antiquities, looking at monuments thousands of years old. After lunch, we visited the Egyptian Museum, where the entire second floor is taken up with the contents of the tomb of Tutankhamon. The young king died at the age of 18 about 1350 B. C. Most tombs had been robbed over the centuries, but Tut's was untouched until found in 1922. The gold death mask of Tut is one of the most famous artifacts of all. It is on display along with Tut's 450 pound solid gold coffin, said to be perhaps the finest example of gold-smithing in history. The mask and coffin are set with semi-precious stones and the pieces are as brilliant as the day they were done. Tut's gold coffin was in another coffin which was inside two boxes similar, on a grand scale, to the Russian dolls were there are progressively smaller ones inside.

  After the museum tour, it was time to rejoin our ship, which had moved to Port Said, at the entrance of the Suez Canal. Coming down to Cairo we were on the west side of the Delta and going back were on the east side which made a triangle with the movement of the ship. The last few miles of the trip were right alongside the canal. To get aboard, we had to run a gauntlet of peddlers selling tourist wares. "Pushy" is too mild a word to describe them. Son-in-law Dave Shuey said they can hear a wallet opening at 100 paces.

  The slightest interest in their wares, even eye contact, is enough to make them feel they have a customer if only they push harder. We were gone from the ship for more than 12 hours and were more than ready to get back aboard. Tomorrow is to be another long day. Our ship is making a short (118 nautical miles) run to Ashdod, Israel, and we will take a bus tour to Jerusalem and Bethlehem.