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CAIRO has a vibrant, modern present. Its minarets number in the thousands.
Its Oriental bazaars are picturesque. The hotels and apartment blocks along the Nile are plush.
But it is also a rare blend of a long past. Right in the heart of the city, there is a place where visitors take a step back in time. About 3,000 years back, to be exact.
Dr Hassan Ragab's Pharaonic Village depicts life in ancient Egypt during the rule of the Pharaohs. Not only is the village educational and entertaining, it also serves as a source of information of the ancient world.
Ragab actually got the idea to create the Pharaonic Village after visiting Disney's futuristic Epcot Centre in Orlando, Florida. His idea, however, was to go back in time to depict a historical village.
In 1974 when he started working to create the village at Jacob Island, he planted 5,000 trees to block the view of modern Cairo that surrounded the site.
The first trees planted were the weeping willows, sycamores and date palms. These trees are easily identified in the tomb paintings as a part of ancient Egyptian life. The papyrus tree is also a common sight. There are exact reproductions of buildings, clothing, and lifestyles at the Pharaonic Village. A nobleman's house and garden, a market, a field for planting and harvesting, a shipyard, roads, farms. The centrepiece is a gigantic temple of white stone that has become the symbol for the Pharaonic Village.
Ten years of work and over US$6 million (US$1 = RM3.78) went into the building of the village. In 1984, Ragab's Pharaonic Village opened its doors to the public.
At the Pharaonic Village, visitors sail on comfortable motorised barges down a network of canals where they can view for themselves the recreation of ancient Egyptian life.
Over 100 actors re-enact the daily activities of the ancient Egyptians, from pharaohs to fishermen, from potters to priests. The activities include agriculture, pottery, sculpture and weaving. One segment showed how Moses was discovered at the bank of the Nile River. There is also a life-size replica of Tutankhamen's tomb, just as it appeared in 1922 when Howard Carter opened it.
CONTRARY to popular belief, only one of the three pyramids at Giza – a necropolis of ancient Memphis and today part of Cairo in Egypt - is on top of the list of the Seven Wonders of the World.
The Great Pyramid of Cheops was built by the Egyptian pharaoh Cheops of the Fourth Dynasty around 2560 B.C. to serve as a tomb for when he died.
The great pyramid is believed to have been built over a 20-year period as a "mastaba" or platform covering the royal tomb.
When it was built, the Great Pyramid was 145.75m high. But over the years, it lost 10m off its top.
The sloping angle of its sides is 54 degrees 54 minutes. Each side is carefully oriented with one of the cardinal points of the compass, that is, north, south, east and west.
The structure - ranked as the tallest on Earth for more than 43 centuries only to be surpassed in height in the 19th century AD – was covered with a casing of stones to smooth its surface.
Some of the casing can still be seen near the top of Chephren's pyramid, built for the pharaoh Chephren.
The third pyramid at Giza was built for pharaoh Mycerinus.
The Great Pyramid structure consists of about two million blocks of stone, each weighing more than two tonnes. To this day, it is not known how the blocks were put in place.
A guide at the Pharaonic Village said one theory involves the construction of a straight or spiral ramp that was raised as the construction proceeded.
This ramp, coated with mud and water or oil, eased the displacement of the blocks which were pushed (or pulled) into place.
It has also been suggested that the area covered by the Great Pyramid can accommodate St Peter's in Rome, the cathedrals of Florence and Milan, and Westminster and St Paul's in London combined.
Another attraction at Giza is the Sphinx, or more commonly known as Abu Hoel among the Egyptians, located 500ft south-east of the pyramid.
A symbol of kingship in Egypt, the human head of the Sphinx symbolizes intelligence while the body represents strength.
The recumbent statue - craved from natural rock - faces east, from which it was meant to watch the rising sun.
Over the centuries, however, parts of the pyramids and the Sphinx have eroded and broken off.
The Egyptian Culture Ministry has undertaken a 10-year restoration project of the Giza pyramids, believed to be the first 100 per cent Egyptian restoration scheme to be carried out by the Egyptian Government.
Some 12,244 pieces of stone similar to those originally used in building the pyramids were used for the restoration. The stones were brought from a quarry in the May 15 City in Cairo.
Also in the area is the museum housing the mysterious Sun Boat, discovered in 1954 near the south side of the pyramid.
The boat is believed to have been used to carry the body of Cheops on his last journey on earth before being buried inside the pyramid. It might also have been intended as a means of transportation in his after-life journey, according to ancient Egyptian beliefs.
