The Great Pyramid at Giza is more than a pyramid. King Khufu added many other buildings to his burial site that added more meanings to Giza.
You can appreciate Giza much more by exploring the buildings around the Great Pyramid. [click to continue…]
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Dahshur is off the beaten tourist path, so I was the only visitor there when I explored the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid. As I approached them, two policemen on camels rode towards me. “Hello!” said one with a deep voice that boomed across the desert. I knew what was coming.
They led me around the Bent Pyramid and asked me to be photographed with them. “Touch the camel!” He seems to be enjoying the affection in the above photo. [click to continue…]
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The previous post on Ancient Egypt showed some of Khufu’s Great Pyramid at Giza’s external features. Today, we’ll explore its interior.
I’m standing in front of the ancient and modern entrances. The big hole is the old entrance. The small one with the line of people is the one you use today. [click to continue…]
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Since most of my recent longer posts have been about Ancient Egypt, and since the quick flight posts have been about music, I’ll converge both in this pic of an instrument I bought in Egypt: an oud.
The oud is the ancestor of the modern lute, the most popular stringed instrument during the European Renaissance. But it doesn’t have frets. You can thus play scales with shorter intervals between notes. Many Middle Eastern scales are based on the quarter tone, rather than the half tone. These shorter intervals allow a lot of nuances in emotional expression.
The oud has a very soft and warm sound. Its rounded body is so light that the combination of sound and touch stays with you for many hours after you play it. The notes ripple through your body and relax you.
Why am I playing it in a Thai restaurant?
1. I’m in California, home to lots of cultural cocktails.
2. I’m in Thai Spoons, in Sunnyvale–its owners are very nice friends.
3. Thai culture is also full of graceful patterns.
4. As nice as the owners are, they would probably throw me out if I brought one of my electric guitars.
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By selecting Giza as the site of the Great Pyramid, King Khufu set one of the greatest stages in world history.
The Great Pyramid at Giza--a perfect monument on a perfect stage
We saw the stage in yesterday’s post. Now we’ll explore the building. [click to continue…]
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Ancient Egypt’s King Khufu had a tough act to follow. His father, Sneferu, founded the 4th Dynasty (2575-2465 BCE), and used more stone mass in his building projects than any other Pharaoh in Egypt’s history–he constructed the Bent Pyramid and the Red Pyramid, both at Dahshur. How could the son top his father?
Giza, prime real estate in Ancient Egypt's 4th Dynasty
By perfecting what Sneferu had done. Khufu built on the trial-and-error construction experience in Sneferu’s reign and created a model of perfection that has yet to be surpassed. [click to continue…]
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Hey, how do you play the solo on Deep Purple’s Highway Star on this?
I saw this beautiful instrument laying on the seat. It belonged to the girl in the previous post, and she was gracious enough to let me play it. Its tuning is similar to the guitar’s, so I found it fairly easy to improvise melodies on.
I thought about buying one, but I had already bought a pipa in Xi’an, and the moon lute was much heavier. I was already wondering how I was going to avoid overweight baggage charges.
It sounds similar to the guitar, but with only 4 strings. So my only reason for bringing it home would have been for looks.
A local family videotaped me for several minutes. I absolutely loved playing music in public in China. The dense population and the people’s friendliness guarantee a lot of close interactions that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.
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A nice Sunday at home with some old friends. Ears are still ringing!
Sometimes I think my home is the most interesting place I’ve seen. Material from all the world’s cultures is in one place. All societies seem to be in dialog here. It’s always a great place to return to after travels, and to spend time alone in for fresh ideas–when the guitars are unplugged!
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Many things kept getting bigger in Ancient India. Narratives became vast to extents that have disoriented Westerners. I overheard a woman in Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum say, “I don’t understand Indian religion. There are too many gods.”
As Jesus’ life took a central place in Western thought, Indian’s developed other ideas of how divinity becomes embodied. [click to continue…]
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