A Cockney's Journey

by Eddie Allen

  “Even more impressive than the size of the Great Pyramid is its geometrical perfection. All the pyramids were designed so that the base was as close as possible to a perfect square and the sides aligned to the cardinal points. Nobody builds a colossal monument like the Great Pyramid or other pyramids without a reason, however no Egyptian documents have survived, which I find amazing. The Egyptians preserved mummies and other artefacts to be found thousands of years later but couldn’t preserve documentation on how and why they built the pyramids. Maybe they weren’t permitted to leave such information for the rest of humanity. Inscriptions in temples at Denderah and Edfu, for example, show that the line of the walls was marked out after observation of the stars in Ursa Major, but the builders were not told why. The Egyptians built their astronomical and mathematical knowledge into their pyramids and temples, not once did they record on tablets or parchment their achievements, keeping everything secret amongst the priests and ruling classes.” Azziz paused and lit another Marlboro. “What do you think, Eddie?” he asked.

  “Well, I’m a great believer in ‘there’s no smoke without fire’. It’s quite possible that the Egyptians had help building their pyramids or at the very least they were shown. I’ve always believed we live in a parallel universe between the mortal world and the spirit realm. The spirit world could have manifested itself to help the Egyptians. Consequently, the Egyptians deemed them all to be gods. That’s why the secret was never known. Let’s take, for example, the human fascination with aliens or beings from another planet. It’s exactly the same principle; for some unknown reason, most humans refuse to believe in the afterlife, yet believe in little green men from Mars. Pathetic! If there is a higher, intelligent being out there in space, wouldn’t you think they would have shown themselves by now? I believe in Karma and the universal law. Angels or spirits could quite easily manifest into any shape or form and, just as the Egyptians saw them as gods, we see them as aliens.”

  Azziz looked at me smiling.

  “Interesting, Eddie, your theories are definitely interesting. You could be right. You and I actually think along the same lines. It’s quite refreshing to meet someone on the same wavelength,” he said flashing his two gold teeth as he smiled.

  I stood up and ordered two more coffees and, whilst standing at the stall, Al and James entered the souk, laden down with numerous bags of goods.

  “Get two more of those, Ed. We’re gasping,” James bellowed across the square. I informed the stallholder that I wanted four cups instead of two and sat down.

  “You’ve been busy. What you bought, Al?” I asked curiously, trying to guess what was in the bags.

  “Couple pairs of jeans and some shirts and this baby,” he said, pulling out a radio cassette player. “What do ya think, Ed. Not bad, eh? Only ten quid in English money,” he said in a chirpy voice. “Mind you, Ed, took some serious haggling,” he added.

  “Lads, this is Azziz,” I said gesturing in his direction. “Azziz, meet Al and James. They’re a couple of mates of mine,” I said introducing them both.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Al and James said, offering their hands in friendship.

  “Likewise,” Azziz said smiling. He leant over the table and individually shook their hands. After a short time, Azziz informed me that he had to get back to his brother’s house in Medina. Saying his farewells, we shook hands and planned to meet up next Friday at 1 p.m. for coffee. I must admit I found Azziz good company and looked forward to our next interesting meeting.

  The rest of the guys started to turn up in dribs and drabs and it wasn’t long before we headed back to the site. Arriving at the site, I noticed how overcast and cloudy it suddenly became and then without warning the heavens opened up and flooded the site in torrential, thunderous rain. I’ve never witnessed rain like it; it never let up for hours. The site ground was so sun-baked and rock hard that the rain couldn’t penetrate immediately, thus causing horrendous flooding everywhere. Even the billets ended up in twelve inches of rainwater. After about five or six hours, the rain eventually stopped and the sun came out. The site and surrounding area was at least two-feet under water and it actually took till the next morning for the ground to absorb the surface water. All that evening, we spent mopping out our billets and drying clothes that were placed on the bottom of every individual’s closets. Quite a few personal belongings got ruined and were chucked out into the site’s rubbish skips or bins.

  The following morning, I was summoned to Sheik Mohammad’s office. After squelching my way across the site to his office, he motioned for me to come in and sit down.

  “Morning, Eddie, I’ve got two points I’d like to discuss with you. Firstly, the site will shut down next Monday for one week. All employees have to take one week’s holiday leave. You can either go home for a week or tour the Middle East. I would personally like you and the players to stay here for your holidays. I can arrange for you to visit Egypt and Cairo and possibly Khartoum in the Sudan. I have strong contacts in Egypt; my brother Saheed has shares in two tour operators in Aswan, so getting you fixed up won’t be a problem. Secondly, I’ve entered the team in the Inter Emirates Cup in Qatar. The three day tournament starts the week after you are all back from holiday.”

  “Great. I’ll look forward to that and the offer of a tour to Egypt sounds absolutely tempting. In fact, if I can get some of the guys to go, I would definitely stay and have my break in this neck of the woods,” I said smiling, thinking about my conversations with Azziz.

  “That’s pleasing. Let me know the outcome and how many would like to stay so I can arrange everything with Saheed,” he said, holding out his hand. I shook his hand and left the office. During the afternoon and evening I persuaded eight guys to stay, including Al and James. I must admit the thought of doing two long hauls in a week put me off going back to Blighty, and visiting Cairo and seeing the Great Pyramids in Egypt along with the Valley of the Kings was a temptation I had to give in to. After informing Sheik Mohammad that eight of us were prepared to stay in the Middle East for our break, he started organising our trip through his brother, Saheed. The next few days flew by and my meeting with Azziz took place as arranged. He seemed well excited that we were going to his country for a week’s holiday. He agreed to meet up with us in Luxor and show us around all the major sights in Egypt and Cairo. He gave me his phone number and told me to ring him from our hotel upon arrival in Luxor. After receiving our documentation from Sheik Mohammad, he informed us that his brother had arranged for us to fly from Jeddah Airport to Marsa Alam, where we would board a coach and then a Nile boat to Luxor. The next day, we left Jeddah for Marsa Alam and then onto Luxor. We arrived at the hotel at about eight-thirty in the evening and I immediately phoned Azziz. We arranged an early start for the following morning. It was too late in the day to go sightseeing, so we just hung around the hotel having a few beers. I sat on the balcony staring across the sacred lake, my eyes transfixed on the temple of Amen-Ra in Karnak. There’s definitely something mystical and spiritual about Egypt. Why build such colossal monuments and what are their true purposes? I asked myself, feeling mesmerised by the whole experience. Me, Al and James sat there for another hour or so, and then decided to call it a day, seeing as we had an early start in the morning. Jumping into bed, feeling very excited and slightly inebriated, I fell sound asleep.

  The following morning, after a long drive, we arrived in Giza. We climbed to the top of the Great Pyramid of Egypt soon after dawn. Gasping in amazement at the sight my eyes were trying to take in, I took a deep breath. To our west, the monument’s shadow stretched out far into the desert, sharply defined as though the rod of a giant sundial had cast it. At the base of the pyramid to our east, I could see quite a few empty, diamond-shaped trenches carved out of bedrock. According to Azziz, they were ‘boat pits’, or ‘boat graves’, which long ago had contained ceremonial timber boats. On one side of the pyramid’s base was what I can only describe as an ‘eye sore’. There stood this modern structure known a
s the ‘boat museum’, which lunged up towards us. Lying inside the museum was a completely intact boat, which was found beside the pyramid. Aziz pointed towards the south of the temple and, hemmed in by two archaic megalithic temples, crouched the Great Sphinx, its front feet extended towards the horizon; the emblem of enigmatic antiquity. We all stood, gazing in wonderment across the desert.

  “My God, how beautiful this place is, I feel so privileged and honoured to be standing here,” I said to Al quietly. He looked at me, nodding his head in agreement. We could feel a cool breeze blowing steadily towards us from across the desert. We looked up and saw the crystal clear blue sky, dotted with early morning clouds curving above us like a kaleidoscope. Beneath our feet, the man-made pyramid tapered jaggedly upwards while the earth stretched away in all directions from its large base.

  “Absolutely fantastic, Azziz,” I said with a large smile, thinking that I would never forget this day for as long as I lived.

  “Tomorrow, we’ll go to the Valley of the Kings outside Luxor, then visit the temple of Amen-Ra at Karnak on the east bank of the sacred river Nile,” Azziz informed us, while we made our way down to the base. “But before that, we’re going into the pyramid to view the King and Queen’s burial chambers and the grand gallery.”

  As we entered the grand gallery, our Egyptian guide started to fill us in on its ancient history.

  “There can be no dispute that the equipped spirit was thought to master the land of the Duat with what he knew. But what exactly was this knowledge? The suggestion in the texts that it was used to ‘go down to any sky’ hints very strongly that astronomy might have been involved.” He paused, looking at his audience with a smile before carrying on. “Scholars from around the globe have, as yet, failed to consider the possibility that the pyramids and perhaps even the Sphinx of Giza could have been built as three-dimensional models of the “inner world” of the Duat, or Neverworld; places of preparation in which initiates may have been selected to immerse themselves, perhaps in total darkness, and perhaps even for days, in order to gain foreknowledge of the afterlife realm.”

  Bloody hell, I thought. This is totally fascinating stuff. I actually believe that the ancient Egyptians and the North American Indians had the afterlife sussed out yonks ago.

  “We already know that the ancient Egyptians’ Book of the Dead provides textual explanations and visual images of the Duat, with the explicit purpose of preparing the deceased for the afterlife journey.” The guide stopped talking as we walked out of the grand gallery, towards the King’s chambers. As we stood in the chambers, our tour guide continued his lecture.

  “All the pyramids in Egypt are believed to have been royal tombs of the time. This is certainly borne out by the inscriptions found in some of the later ones, which include prayers and magic spells to give the dead king immortal life. The ancient Egyptians thought it essential to preserve the physical body from decay if the soul was to live on after death. To achieve this, they mummified the corpses of kings and other important and wealthy citizens. The process was far too expensive for ordinary Egyptians. The hot, porous sands of the desert naturally disinfect and preserve corpses buried in them, which may have provided the impetus to the invention of more elaborate and efficient techniques. This amazing Great Pyramid was built for King Cheops in the 26th century BC, however, the king was never buried in this chamber. The odd thing is that no bodies have ever been found in any of the pyramids. Sarcophagi, or limestone coffins, have been found, apparently intended for the dead kings, but always empty.” The guide paused, taking a long deep breath.

  “The standard explanation is that grave-robbers broke in and stole the bodies, but this is not very convincing, especially as some of the empty sarcophagi seem not to have been opened or disturbed. An alternative explanation, which I may add is my belief,” he said, “is that the corridors and chambers that have been discovered and explored in the pyramids were blinds, meant to deceive robbers, and that bodies of kings are hidden in skilfully concealed compartments, where they still lie undiscovered to this very day.”

  The guide went on to explain that the tour was now over for today and showed us the way out.

  Later that evening, we travelled to Azziz’s hometown in El Minya, where we stayed the night in a cheap hotel near Azziz’s home. Next morning, we boarded a riverboat, or felucca, and cruised up the Nile towards to our hotel in Luxor. I gazed in awe as we slowly cruised past the silhouettes of great ochre-coloured temples and monuments rising up on the horizon. The river’s verdant banks overflowed with tall obelisks and ruined shrines from a bygone age. This famous river is the very lifeblood of Egypt; its fertile banks shaped Egyptian culture and inspired religious life in the first dynasty. The sacred Nile is like an open-air museum and I found myself being transported back in time to an opulent age of pharaohs, gods and glorious temples. I could see in the distance the temple of Amen-Ra in Karnak and knew we would shortly be back in our hotel.

  After eating a hearty meal in the hotel’s restaurant, we made our way to the Valley of the Kings, north of Luxor. Hidden away in a scorching canyon flanked by arid sands and soaring mountains lies the majestic valley. This desolate ravine plays host to the burial chambers and tombs of Egypt’s many pharaohs. It was here that Tutankhamun’s golden sarcophagus was unearthed, exposing the King’s glittering treasures of Egypt. After strolling about in awe of the valley and the mystical brace it holds over you, we entered burial chambers hidden away in the Theban hills. I stood gazing in excitement at the reliefs and murals that decorated most of the vaults. Built into the cliff-face, the temple of Queen Hatshepsut was built in honour of the only woman to ever reign over Egypt as pharaoh. The temple rises up in a series of monumental terraces and we were amazed by the elegant columns stretching into cloudless blue skies. I focused my attention on the magical hieroglyphic inscriptions, wondering what secrets were really hidden here. I thought this was truly the most spiritual experience ever!

  Well, I was wrong. My visit to Karnak would blow me away completely.

  After visiting the Valley, we all returned to our hotel feeling quite jaded and extremely tired; the Egyptian heat had taken its toll on our mere mortal bodies. While we sat drinking ice-cold lager in the hotel lounge bar trying to relax, an excited Aziz broke the silence.

  “You’ve just got to visit Karnak, Luxor temple and the temple of Horus in Edfu before you all go back to Jeddah. I’m still around for the rest of the week. I’d love to see your face, Ed, when you see Karnak.”

  “Sounds good to me, Aziz. Everyone else OK with that?” I asked, looking around the table smiling.

  “Yeah, no probs,” Al and James both said simultaneously. The other guys asked to be excluded from our remaining sightseeing plans, due to the very early starts and the constant heat.

  Amen-Ra’s Temple in Karnak ancient city of Thebes now Luxor

  Valley of the Kings, at the ancient city of Thebes, now Luxor.

  Anubis, Guardian of the Dead

  Amen-Ra, Egyptian Sun God

  The following day we set out for Karnak and, to say that I was spellbound would undoubtedly be an understatement. Comprising of three separate shrines, the temple is, quite simply, enormous. Standing, awestruck, I simply couldn’t understand why the Egyptians built such a huge monument in honour of Theban gods and the glory of the pharaohs. You just don’t build temples and shrines for no reason; somewhere back in time, the secret had been lost or deliberately hidden, I thought to myself. Our party walked around staring in utter disbelief at the vast labyrinth of towering stone pylons, obelisks, sanctuaries and monumental gateways. We entered the great hypostyle hall. Again, I was gobsmacked to the point of delirium. Before my very eyes stood well over a hundred soaring papyrus-shaped columns.

  “Well Ed, fantastic isn’t it?” Azziz whispered.

  “All this for gods, They knew something, something very important that modern man can’t or won’t comprehend,” I said.

  After spending most of the afterno
on wandering around Karnak Temple in total awe of its enormity, we made our way back to our hotel for dinner. During dinner, my mind was in turmoil at the sights that I had seen this week. Everything the Egyptians built related to gods, astrology and the afterlife. Why were the pharaohs so obsessed with leaving their mark for all mankind? Was it because they knew the secret of life? Is there, somewhere in the pyramids and shrines, messages left for mankind that, to date, we have not found, or just simply missed? There’s definitely something we’ve missed and all this, hundreds of years before Jesus of Nazareth. I believe Jesus was sent to mankind from the universe to show us the way forward spiritually.

  Al annoyingly broke my train of thought.

  “Fancy another beer, Ed?” he asked, looking at me strangely.

  “Yeah, why not?”

  “You all right, Ed? You were miles away, mate,” he asked in a concerned voice.

  “Probably all that sun, eh, Ed,” James laughed.

  “I’m not surprised. It’s been the hottest day of the year. Well over a hundred degrees,” Azziz informed us.

  “Do ya mind if I crash out soon, guys?” I asked. “I feel totally knackered and my body needs to sleep, big time.” I yawned and stretched my arms towards the ceiling.

  “I feel tired myself,” James reckoned, yawning as well.

  “OK, a nice early night wouldn’t go amiss,” Al said.

  “Fine, no problem. Tomorrow we’ll visit the temple of Horus in Edfu and take in Luxor temple,” Azziz suggested.

  After a short while, the four of us departed to our rooms. I opened my balcony doors to let in the cool, welcoming breeze and lit my mosquito-repellent candles. Slipping into bed, feeling completely drained, I once again fell into a deep relaxing asleep.