Dr. Kofi Dankyi Beeko
23 July 2008
opinion
Until I entered the Egyptian Museum in Cairo the early part of 1998, I had only a rough idea, of what I had read in bits and pieces, both in Elementary School, and then at the University in Europe, where if you did not respond as fluently as others, with regard to questions pertaining to Egyptology, you seemed as though, you came from another planet.
If you were a true Egyptologist, it would not enhance very much, your chances of passing through medical school, or successfully out of it. It was just fine, if you knew how and when Memphis came to be such an important city of Upper and Lower Egypt.
My aim, as you would expect, was; one day, to go to Egypt, and see more of what until then, was what I had read, or heard from others. In a way, it was also to test, whether there was any truism in what the Germans say among themselves, "Wer mehr weiss, hat auch mehr vom Leben." In English, you would put it this way: "The more you know, the more you enjoy life".
One day, I was in the business Class Cabin of a Boeing 747, from Singapore to Sydney. There was this Chinese young man, who was excessively sharp in English. He was off to Sydney, to pay in advance, the Tuition, as well as boarding fees of his twin daughters at the University. When he disclosed to me, how much it was per semester, the above-quoted German saying had to be true. It seemed worth it, learning more.
Cheops is the same Pharaoh as Khufu. He is believed to have been the man behind the Great Pyramids at Giza , which is just about 13 km north of present day Cairo.
Three Pyramids stand in such a way, that none casts a shadow upon the other, and one is larger than the other two.
Three Million pieces of rock, some weighing as much as one hundred-and-twenty tons, but others, only three tons, were used in erecting just one of them. No mortar was cast between any two stones, and these mammoth structures have been standing for five thousand years without the need for any repairs. What might bluff you more is that, they are estimated to stand, for another a million years. Just nearby, is the Sphinx, believed to have been hewn out of one piece of rock, as long as twenty-eight meters, ten meters high, and of one hundred and fifty tonnage.
Everybody takes a guess as to what kind of face she, or he is to depict, even before Napoleon, the Emperor of France is believed to have had the tip of the nose chipped off in the 19th Century AD.
None seems to know the cause of anger or ecstasy, which led to this Napoleonic action. After a trip to Giza , where I made the damnable mistake of joining the curious to inspect the Sarcophagus, and in the process, descending the interminable stairway, and later having to climb back to the surface, I was more than exhausted, when I boarded the Omnibus, to ride back to the hotel.
The Phoenicians, the Sumerians, the "Negroids" from Nubia, all are believed to have contributed. The question is, "who did what alone? And what did they do in concert?" When you sit down, at best alone, and begin to reflect on these mammoth structures, you chill slowly into something you can't find the words to describe.
If it is true, that the ancient Egyptians sought passionately to conquer death, you marvel at their genius, and at some stage, when you sink into a state of narcosis, because, you would have helped yourself with aliquots of Tiger Beer from Singapore, (the best beer sold in Egypt), you wake up the next morning, and you feel as though, you had a tonsillectomy the previous night in full narcosis, but the sumptuous Arabesque-Oriental breakfast serves as the anti-dote which peps you up for another day of admiration of mankind, for a change.
Whilst we were fraternizing, and in the process, looking for a colleague and a friend, a Brain Surgeon, originally Italian, but for 45-years sessile in Kenya, we missed a group of our new-found friends from Israel.
We phoned their room to hear a strange voice. When we got finished with our Enquiry, the Israeli group had left helter-skelter, on a tip-off that, Israelis might be attacked by some Al Kheda groups, yet to be identified.
They did not wait for any identification, they just left. That, of course, made a little bit of nonsense of all the wonders we had observed for several days, during which time we thought mankind was wonderful. Perhaps, he is so, looking back. What are his prospects, into the future? Hopefully, even better than the PYRAMIDS.
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