Feature photo taken at the Luxor Temple in Luxor, Egypt

Sunday, January 23, 2022

Anyone who believes aliens built the pyramids, is underestimating the intelligence, and dehumanizing the Egyptian civilization. Maybe aliens exist—I’d never doubt that—but to say that a civilization who prospered for 30 centuries, couldn’t figure out how to do awesome stuff, and be spiritual as fuck about it, is misunderstanding the hierarchies and powers of kings, nobles, and unified people who built ancient Egypt.

They were all humans who had brains like the one you’re reading with, hands guided by the eyes that led you to this post, and two ears, which are the same pair of organs you accept ignorance through.

I’m fortunate and blessed to have experienced ancient Egypt. In fact, I was drooling when I first gazed at the Great Pyramids of Giza. I was also fortunate to have gotten the explanation to why and how these pyramids, tombs, and temples were built.

Believe it or not, there are many Egyptians today, who don’t understand this. There are even many Egyptians who have never seen the pyramids. With the average citizen assuming their population is over 100 million, I wouldn’t be surprised, because it’s in the top 5 busiest cities of the world. Impoverished as well.

Who has time for history when you gotta’ hustle a plate of food for the next hour. The population’s between 20 and 25 million. Maybe more…

Anyways, here’s part one of what I’ve learned this past week in Cairo and Luxor.

For a city that stops traffic in some parts of town to pray five times a day, it makes me grateful for my Christian roots. It’s roughly 80 to 90 percent a Muslim country, with a minority of Christians and Jews in other sectors. I’ve been asked my religion out here quite often, and even though I don’t practice Christianity, my spiritual journey is what I lead with—meaning—I am all that I need to be in order to get by.

But I’m not here to get by, nor show off my spiritual ego. I’m writing because I’m inspired by kings, nobles and priests, who all have tombs embedded in The Theban Necropolis. It’s where King Tut, the Boy King, tomb was carved, and centuries later excavated along with many others in The Valley of The Kings.

Nobles were any one of high to low rank, from lawyers, doctors, scribes, and so on. Their tombs are along the other side of the mountains you see below.

A day trip to Luxor, Egypt, taught me that once a king was born, hundreds of thousands of workers [slaves] were put to work to build their tomb. Keep in mind, this was over decades through dynasties, and for as long as a king’s heir could reign over the people once the king passed on. They would mummify the body first, then dress it in gold after 90 days before putting it in the tomb.

Shift artists, who I believe were taught by the scribes, would chip away all day into the mountains, engraving the hieroglyphics we see in history books.

But let me take a step back…

The temple above, that’s the Temple of Deir al-Bahri (Queen Hatshepsut’s Temple). It was carved out of that mountain. Most of which was reconstructed after an earthquake destroyed the left wing. On the other side is The Valley of The Kings. Many of these tombs were unfinished because of the robbers who’d enter the tombs and steal gold, or the king’s heir for some reason didn’t carry on the family’s ruling power. But mostly, people were stealing…

Ancient bastards…

The temples below were both dug up out of the sand. Like, wow. Fuck Vegas. The real Luxor stood under sand for centuries and… never mind. The night time photos are the Luxor Temple, and day time photos are at Karnak Temple.

These were religious centers for kings like Amenhotep III, Ramses II, Tutankhamun, and other pharaohs.

I’m no Egyptian historian and nor do I want to be. I just like to write what I recall, and at least show that I know enough to be dangerous. Or, spark a reader’s curiosity because I could be making this shit up…

But seriously, I’m not.

I’m going to stop there because this can go on all day—I left out a lot. So next, I’ll tell you about the building of the pyramids…

Ok. Thanks. Bye.

-Budd