Secrets of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World

Author Bettany Hughes shares surprising truths about the Great Pyramid, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and other Wonders of the Ancient World. 

Quick — name the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

Struggling? You’re not alone.

Most people can’t list them all. Some guess the Colosseum or Stonehenge. Others don’t realize that only one still stands. 

“These weren’t just impressive buildings and sculptures.

They were bold declarations of power — a Hellenistic highlight reel that reflected the ambition and reach of Alexander the Great’s world.”

In her 2024 book The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World: An Extraordinary Journey Through History’s Greatest Treasures, historian Bettany Hughes peels back the mythology and reveals the politics, poetry and propaganda behind these wonders. These weren’t just impressive buildings and sculptures. They were bold declarations of power — a kind of Hellenistic highlight reel that reflected the ambition and reach of Alexander the Great’s world.

MORE: 3 Times Alexander the Great Wasn’t So Great

The oldest surviving version of the list was scribbled on a scrap of papyrus used to wrap a mummified body in Ancient Egypt. 

Most could be visited on a single, well-planned trip through the eastern Mediterranean. This was the ancient world’s first viral travel list — and its message was clear: Look upon our works, ye mortals, and marvel.

1. The Great Pyramid of Giza: A Resurrection Machine by the Nile

If you visit the Great Pyramid today, you’ll likely see a heat-blasted monument rising from a stretch of ochre desert. But what if we’ve been picturing it all wrong? Hughes urges us to reimagine the Giza Plateau not as barren but as bursting with life: “Where we see desertion, imagine an abundance of clover and thousands of homes; where there are sands, waterways; where there is emptiness, tens of thousands of workers in loincloths and linen kilts. Where there are now neutral horizons, there was once hectic color; where piles of collapsed stone, dwarf-pyramids and sloping, mudbrick mastaba tombs. Where desert, gravid green.”

Built around 2550 BCE and once faced in polished white limestone, the Great Pyramid would have shimmered with a blinding brilliance. 

It wasn’t just a royal tomb; it was a “resurrection machine,” a literal launchpad to the afterlife. This machine served a higher cosmic purpose: to guarantee Egypt’s prosperity by ensuring the pharaoh’s rebirth. The fate of the world literally depended upon Khufu’s afterlife. 

And the engineering behind it still leaves modern minds gasping. Standing 480 feet tall and weighing in at roughly 6.5 million tons, the pyramid used about 2.3 million blocks of limestone, each hauled into place over a quarter of a century. Its interior space alone could swallow London’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, and the cathedrals of Milan and Florence — with room to spare.

Despite theories ranging from alien intervention to lost technologies, Hughes focuses on the human marvel of it all: tens of thousands of anonymous laborers working 10-hour days, 52 weeks a year, over decades — moving one block every two to three minutes. Current estimates suggest around 20,000 workers were active on the plateau at any given time, likely using a combination of sledges, rollers, ramps and perhaps even early hydraulic lifts. Still, the exact method remains elusive: “The engineering and construction of the Pyramid — the way these blocks were shaped, lifted and set in place — has confounded researchers for centuries, triggering miles’ worth of parchment and paper, and now volumes of iCloud storage,” Hughes writes. “It is a conundrum that obsesses the modern world — taxing the minds of engineers, architects, archaeologists, surveyors, even mediums.”

It’s also easy to forget that this was a riverfront wonder. In Khufu’s day, the Nile flowed much closer to Giza, hugging the Pyramid complex for most of the year, and sometimes lapping its very foundations. What we now see as isolation was once a place of movement and connection — a grand riverside attraction.

Capped with a golden or electrum pyramidion that caught the sun’s rays and hurled them back to the heavens, the Great Pyramid symbolized the original mound of creation — the divine moment when the world emerged from chaos. It was cosmic.

2. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon: Myth, Monument or Mistranslation?

Of all the Seven Wonders, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon remain the most mysterious — and possibly the most fictional. Unlike the Great Pyramid, whose stones still scrape the sky, the Gardens leave us with no ruins, no universally agreed-upon site, and plenty of questions. Did they even exist?

If they did, the Hanging Gardens would have bloomed sometime in the 6th century BCE, during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II — the great Babylonian king who ruled from 605 to 562 BCE and who is most often credited with their creation. That attribution, though, rests more on later tradition than contemporary evidence.

MORE: Nebuchadnezzar, King Josiah and the Formation of Jewish Law

And the evidence is where things get messy. Hughes lays out the problem clearly: Neither Herodotus nor Xenophon — Greek chroniclers who actually visited Babylon — mention the Gardens. Not once. That silence is thunderous. Even the East India House Inscription, a beautifully preserved 20-inch-wide slab chronicling the many accomplishments of Nebuchadnezzar II, makes no mention of them — no garden at all, hanging or otherwise.

So what gives?

Hughes suggests we may be looking for something too specific. What if the gardens weren’t separate from Babylon’s famed walls but were part of them — verdant terraces that flowed from the fortifications and palatial structures themselves? In many ancient lists, it’s actually Babylon’s walls that earn the “Wonder” designation, not the elusive Gardens. That ambiguity raises the possibility that what we now call the “Hanging Gardens” may have been a poetic misunderstanding — a mistranslated marvel.

And yet, the idea of the Gardens persists — not just because they would’ve been beautiful, but because they captured something deeper and darker about humanity’s emerging relationship with nature. These were not serene rooftop retreats. They were feats of engineering and control, power disguised as paradise.

“Whatever they were, however wondrous, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon would not have been idylls,” Hughes writes. “They would have been exquisite, exacting expressions of potency, expressions of belief, manifestations of ingenuity and the start of a dangerously dominating relationship with the natural world.”

Whether built in Babylon or borrowed from memories of Nineveh, the Hanging Gardens endure because they symbolize an idea: that nature could be bent into spectacle. And that idea, as Hughes suggests, has echoed through every empire since.

MORE: Controversial Theories About the Tower of Babel

3. The Temple of Artemis at Ephesus: Sanctuary of Stone and Wildness

Of all the ancient world’s architectural achievements, none left the poet Antipater of Sidon more breathless than the Temple of Artemis. Around 140 BCE, he wrote, “I have set eyes on the very wall of lofty Babylon, supporting a chariot road, and the [statue of] Zeus by the Alpheios [in Olympia], and the Hanging Gardens, and the Colossus of Helios, and the huge labor of the steep pyramids, and the vast tomb of Mausolos; but when I saw the temple of Artemis, reaching up to the clouds, these other marvels dimmed, they lost their brilliance, and I declared, ‘Look, apart from Olympus itself, the sun has never shone on anything that can compare to this!’”

Constructed around 550 BCE and rebuilt in grander fashion after a devastating fire in 356 BCE, the Artemision — as it was called in classical sources — was the first of the Seven Wonders to be accessible to all people, not just royalty. And it was the only one where women, both mythic and mortal, stood at the center of its story.

The original temple was incinerated on a sweltering July night — the very night Alexander the Great was born. In fact, the Greek world couldn’t help but connect the two events: “Tongues wagged: Artemis — goddess of nature and childbirth — it was whispered, was so busy in northern Greece, super-birthing a world-class megalomaniac, she neglected her earthly temple home,” Hughes writes. 

MORE: Alexander the Great: 8 WTF Facts About His Early Life

The arsonist was a man named Herostratus, likely a desperate slave who torched the temple to immortalize his own name — and, ironically, succeeded. The Ephesians tried to erase him completely. Speaking his name was made a capital crime. But history, being what it is, remembered him anyway.

The rebuilt temple was a marvel: 425 feet long, 225 feet wide — nearly twice the size of the Parthenon that would follow it 150 years later. It featured 127 columns, each 60 feet high, and some capped by a skylight above the central cult statue. The structure marked the first true colonnaded Greek temple, laying the architectural blueprint for millennia to come.

Here, Artemis wasn’t the graceful huntress of Louvre sculptures. She was Asiatic Artemis, a wild guardian of beasts, bearing the mystery and fertility of the Earth. She was a goddess of contradictions — pure yet primal, distant yet intimately present.

“Artemis in the mythology of the Greeks was an unusual goddess, a female figure who stood apart from the rutting sexuality that was the norm of ancient life and myth,” Hughes writes. “The story went that on the eve of her wedding, Artemis begged her father Zeus to allow her not to marry. In most cultures at this time, women were controlled, either by having to have sex, or by not being allowed to. Artemis’s agency, and her choice, makes her attractively odd. She was a virgin, whose sphere was consummation.”

Her image, kept hidden behind a curtain in the sanctuary, was likely a wooden plank known as a xoanon — treated as a living being. It was washed in seawater, anointed in fig milk or grape juice, adorned with clothes and gold, and lovingly cared for in a process called kosmeis — the root of our word cosmetics.

The cult of Artemis was largely female-led. Young women, or parthenoi, took part in the rites. But the high priests — the megabyzoi — were eunuchs, men who had castrated themselves in service to the goddess. Their female counterparts, the melissae, were the “honey women,” underscoring the deep associations between Artemis, fertility and nature’s sweetness.

Ephesus itself had become one of the largest and busiest cities in the ancient world, its port capable of hosting over 800 ships. That accessibility helped the temple’s fame spread far and wide. It was a religious sanctuary, a political hub and — crucially — a bank. Like many temples of the time, it safeguarded vast stores of wealth and knowledge. To violate the temple was to risk divine wrath.

The mythic presence of Amazons — female warriors who were said to have founded the site — was inescapable. Their likenesses adorned the temple’s façade, doorframes and rooftop sculptures. Bronze statues of Amazons stood with short chitons, bare breasts, crescent shields and battleaxes — some even depicted with wounds.

“The Temple of Artemis is a Wonder with diverse genetic makeup and influences from both East and West within its deity, its design and its dogma,” according to Hughes. “It is a work of mankind, trying to understand the power of the natural world and the power of women.”

And Artemis herself? Her statue was encrusted with bees, lions, griffins, cows, horses and sphinxes — a tapestry of creatures and symbols. Her front was thick with mysterious swellings: ostrich eggs? Pollen sacks? Breasts? Testicles? Bags of gold? The goddess resisted definition. She contained multitudes.

Topping her cylindrical polos crown was an image of the temple itself. A shrine of power, mystery and the wild feminine, the Artemision stood as a defiant celebration of life’s most primal forces.

4. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia: God Made Monument

Epictetus, a Stoic philosopher, captured just how beloved the Statue of Zeus had become by the 1st century CE: “The wish to witness the ancient masterpiece of Phidias was so intense, that to die without having seen it was considered a huge misfortune,” he wrote in Discourses. 

The statue of Zeus at Olympia glowed with godly gravitas inside the sanctuary’s darkened temple. A creation of the sculptor Phidias, it was a divine father made colossal: Zeus, King of the Gods, father of Artemis and Apollo, products of the rape of the titaness Leto. The statue wasn’t meant to comfort. It was meant to awe.

“Of course, in a place where men were attempting to become godlike, the ultimate god took the form of the ultimate man,” Hughes writes. 

Built between 438 and 430 BCE, the statue was made of the most extravagant materials available: gleaming hippopotamus ivory for skin, gold for hair and beard, ebony, bone, polished stone and glass. 

“Measuring the size of a three-story home (41 feet, on his pedestal rising over 44 feet tall), and yet seated, crouching, with his head skimming the ceiling, like Alice in Wonderland after taking her Drink Me spiked potion, the godhead must have seemed extraordinarily intimidating,” Hughes adds. “It was said that if he stood up, this Zeus would ‘unroof’ his temple-home.”

The throne featured six statues of Nike, the goddess of victory, marching up the legs. The arms of the seat were sobering sphinxes. The struts featured Herakles slaughtering Amazons to seize their queen’s girdle. The side panels showed Artemis and Apollo massacring Niobe’s children for her pride. And at Zeus’s feet? A stool supported by snarling lions — another Amazonian battlefield carved beneath.

“The message was clear: Olympia, and its Holy of Holies were, in every sense, somewhere that weakness was abhorred, for Zeus’s domain, there were only winners and losers,” Hughes explains. 

In Zeus’ right hand stood a 6-and-a-half-foot statue of Nike, also made of ivory and gold. In his left: a scepter topped by a gleaming eagle. His hair curled in heavy golden locks onto his shoulders, while his ivory skin was oiled daily to prevent cracking in the damp climate. That oil pooled in a limestone basin at his feet — creating a dark twin of the god.

The temple that housed Zeus at Olympia was a masterpiece of Doric architecture, designed by Libon of Elis and completed in 456 BCE with the spoils of war. Zeus’ likeness, modeled after Homer’s verses in The Iliad, captured the very image of cosmic authority. It was said Zeus could start an earthquake just by furrowing his brow. 

A wooden framework supported the ivory plating, carefully soaked in vinegar and sculpted into seamless sheets. Recent research by Kenneth Lapatin confirms the intricacy of this process — and the ingenuity of the ancients who achieved it.

When Roman Emperor Caligula ordered the statue’s decapitation in 41 CE so he could replace the god’s head with his own, Zeus reportedly laughed. The scaffolding collapsed, and days later, Caligula was assassinated — after having dreamed of the deity he sought to deface.

After standing for nearly 1,000 years, the statue was eventually moved to Constantinople, where it burned in a city-wide fire around 476 CE. Olympia’s pride, a masterpiece honored for generations, was reduced to ash.

And yet, Zeus lived on — not just in memory, but in iconography. The Byzantine depiction of Christ Pantokrator, “Ruler of All,” seated on a throne with glowering brow and commanding presence, bore a striking resemblance to Phidias’s Zeus. The divine father had been reborn.

5. The Mausoleum of Halikarnassos: A Monument to Power, Grief and Glittering Excess

It was a tomb so grand it gave its name to every monumental tomb that followed. But the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos — final resting place of Mausolos, satrap-king of Karia — wasn’t just massive. It was mesmerizing. A collision of Greek elegance, Persian grandeur and Anatolian symbolism, built between 361 and 351 BCE on the sun-soaked coast of modern-day Turkey.

This Wonder fused the influences of East and West: Ionian and Doric architectural styles mingled with the dramatic scale and symmetry of Persian rock-cut tombs. Hughes notes that Karia, the region where Halikarnassos sat, was a culture of blendings — borrowing, reimagining and innovating in equal measure. And the Mausoleum was its masterpiece.

“This giant tomb came to be thought of as wonderful because it was trumpeted as embodying a faithful woman’s selfless devotion to her husband-brother, a sign that the brilliance of some men is to devastate women by dying,” she writes. 

Indeed, much of its fame came from the story of Artemisia II, Mausolos’ sister and wife, who reportedly grieved so hard she mixed his ashes into her wine. But beneath the romance lay a structure of staggering ambition: a 145-foot-tall marble confection built atop a limestone terrace stretching over 785 feet — about half the height of Big Ben, and nearly the length of two football fields.

The base consisted of a rectangular podium roughly 100 by 125 feet wide. Above that, 36 columns ringed the structure, echoing the layout of the Temple of Artemis. On top of the colonnade rose a stepped pyramid of 24 tiers, leading to a grand pedestal. And at the very top? A chariot drawn by four thrashing horses, almost certainly carrying statues of Mausolos and Artemisia themselves — a couple who have been put quite literally on a pedestal.

Designed by architect-sculptor Pytheos and possibly other elite artists of the day — Scopas, Bryaxis, Leochares and Timotheus among them — the Mausoleum was both a sculpture gallery and a piece of architectural theater. Its blocks were polished to a glass-like sheen. Carvings depicted Mausolos hunting, receiving ambassadors, honoring the gods and leading battles — scenes real and imagined. Life, as Mausolos wanted it remembered, in full pageantry. 

We tend to think of ancient structures as white, but many were actually a riot of color — and the Mausoleum certainly was. “Funerary monuments in particular favored color — there was a sense that the polychrome experience brought the dead back to some kind of life,” Hughes informs us. “Mausolos’ tomb would have been a firework in the sky.”

And what fireworks: white marble, then bluish limestone adorned with over 120 human and animal figures — all progressing toward a seated Mausolos before a great doorway. Was this his entrance to the afterlife? Above this level, imported white marble from Athens depicted brutal battle scenes, including — once again — Amazons, a recurring motif in Wonder architecture.

A ring of lions likely prowled the pyramid’s base. The decorative program celebrated domination, but also wildness and ritual. Priestesses in clinging, diaphanous dresses, their bodies visible beneath the folds, hint at ecstatic Bacchic rites. 

Skulls unearthed at the site suggest mass animal sacrifice during the burial — a slaughter of sheep, oxen, lambs, birds. Where now there are thistles and butterflies, there were once streams of blood.

Threads of gold found among the ruins may have once wrapped the king’s cremated remains. 

A spring near the site was famed in antiquity for its uncanny power to make men infertile or effeminate. That same spring inspired Ovid’s tale of the creation of Hermaphrodite: the son of Hermes and Aphrodite, lured into its waters by a nymph, merging into one being of two sexes.

The Mausoleum was a place where myth, sex, sacrifice, politics and grief all coalesced. A wonder of death, yes — but pulsing with the messy, lavish power of life.

6. The Colossus of Rhodes: Bronze Giant, Fallen God

The Colossus of Rhodes is perhaps the most misunderstood Wonder. Popular imagination has long insisted it stood legs astride the harbor entrance, torch in hand, as ships passed beneath. But that towering figure, feet apart across a 390-foot waterway, is pure fantasy — a medieval myth that held the world’s imagination hostage for 800 years. (It even inspired the Titan of Braavos in George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones.)

In reality, the Colossus never straddled the harbor. It likely stood higher up, on the city’s acropolis, towering above the bustling port of Rhodes. This was Helios — the pre-Olympian sun god — cast in bronze and iron, gleaming in the Aegean light.

Standing an estimated 108 feet tall, the statue was a staggering feat of ancient engineering. Built in the early 3rd century BCE and completed around 280 BCE, it had a skeleton of iron and a polished bronze skin. Just one of its digits — a single toe, say — was said to be larger than most full-sized statues.

Unlike Zeus’ patriarchal presence, Helios pulsed with youthful ambition. “Whereas the Zeus at Olympia thundered, his luxurious beard the signifier of a mature man in Greek culture, Rhodes’ Wonder, the un-bearded, tousled, soft-lipped Helios, had the dangerous energy of a young, unpredictable man poised to do great things,” Hughes writes. 

And given the era, it’s hard not to see the influence and inspiration of Alexander the Great in the statue’s features and commanding pose. Rhodes had resisted a siege by one of Alexander’s successors — and the Colossus was both a victory monument and a symbol of sun-blessed resilience.

Kolossos is a Greek word — possibly of Asiatic origin — that originally meant simply “statue.” But this statue rewrote the definition. It was never just a likeness. It was legend in metal, a city’s pride forged into form.

“This was a wonder that became legendary within weeks of its completion,” Hughes says. 

Created by the sculptor Chares of Lindos — and possibly influenced by the legendary Telchines, mythical inventors of metalwork — the statue took 12 years to complete. It was cast in sections, working from the feet upward. Each foot stood on a marble plinth around 60 feet wide and 10 to 15 feet thick.

And then it fell.

Around 227 BCE — just 60 or so years after it was completed — a devastating earthquake struck Rhodes. The city walls crumbled, the coastline dropped by 3 feet, and the Colossus came crashing down. It broke at the knees and was never re-erected. 

The fragments, enormous and awe-inspiring, lay scattered for centuries — longer than the statue ever stood. According to later sources, the tumbled Helios remained visible until the 7th century CE, when its remains were finally melted down for scrap. So much for immortality.

And that legend has never quite gone cold.

7. The Lighthouse of Alexandria: Fire, Mirrors and the Edge of the World

Unlike the short-lived Colossus of Rhodes, the Lighthouse of Alexandria stood tall for over 1,500 years — a marvel of geometry, ingenuity and sheer ambition. Built beginning around 297 BCE and completed over the course of 15 years, this towering wonder rose more than 400 feet above the bustling twin harbors of Alexandria, Egypt, making it the second tallest structure in the ancient world after the Great Pyramid.

It was astonishing. A stacked sequence of geometric forms — square, octagonal, circular — constructed from marble and local limestone, sheathed in red granite shipped down the Nile from the scorched quarries of Aswan. Some blocks stretched 36 feet long and weighed 75 tons. The tower was crowned with a 50-foot statue, almost certainly of Zeus Soter (Zeus the Savior), watching over the seas like a divine lighthousekeeper.

Its beacon could be seen for over 37 miles — a flaming furnace at night, and during the day, sunlight reflected off massive copper mirrors. It was both a feat of engineering and a performance of cosmic authority. Ships approaching Alexandria’s treacherous coast — battered by crosswinds, stalked by hidden rocks — were guided by this shimmering sentinel, the Pharos.

It was built of red granite, which is usually a dull pink, but could turn an iridescent purple  in desert light. “The ancients must have believed red granite brought with it some kind of sorcerer’s power,” Hughes muses. 

The tower’s structure was just as beguiling: a 1,115-by-1,115-foot base with fortified brick walls and turrets; an interior ramp and hoist system to ferry fuel and supplies; and an eight-sided middle tier symbolizing the compass winds. Above that, a cylindrical chamber topped with the beacon — perhaps powered by naphtha and papyrus, possibly attended by pack animals climbing in pairs.

And the Pharos wasn’t just a lighthouse. It was also a proto-telecom tower, using flashing heliography — ancient Morse code — and possibly even mechanical sound effects. Sculpted Tritons (half-man, half-fish) stood around the structure, possibly blowing horns that served as early sirens, ancient animatronics that altered the city in times of danger.

The lighthouse was initially funded by Ptolemy I — one of Alexander the Great’s most successful generals — and completed under his son, Ptolemy II. It cost an estimated 800 silver talents — over $19 m

illion in today’s money. Built on the island of Pharos, which would lend its name to the structure and eventually become the word for “lighthouse” in multiple languages, the monument embodied Ptolemaic power and vision. It was a glowing stake in the sand, declaring Alexandria the gateway between Africa, Asia and the Mediterranean world.

And for centuries, it worked.

Until 1303 CE, when the Earth shook. An earthquake finally toppled the Pharos, reducing it to ruins and ending one of the longest-standing Wonders of the Ancient World.

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Why the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World Still Matter

All but one of the original Seven Wonders may be long gone — toppled by earthquakes, scavenged for scrap, or buried beneath centuries of sand and myth. But as Hughes makes clear, their true legacy is that they weren’t simply monuments to kings or gods. They were monuments to us — to human ambition, ingenuity, imagination and the drive to build something bigger than ourselves.

The list was specific, political, proudly Hellenistic — showcasing a curated world seen through Greek eyes in the wake of Alexander the Great. And yet, the idea of a Wonder has endured far beyond its original moment.

“Wonders serve a rich triple purpose,” Hughes writes. “They were constructed partly to feed our need for wondrous tales — to experience and talk about the biggest, the best, the tallest, the most strange, the most bold. They encourage a saturation in the now, by submitting to a present, pure sensation of wonder. They remind us of our overwhelming desire to collaborate to create beyond the possibilities of the individual.” 

Even today, the concept of a “wonder” still fuels our storytelling, our bucket lists, our skyscrapers and our sci-fi dreams. Because deep down, we’re still looking to be amazed. Still looking to build what seems impossible. Still wondering. –Wally

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Laughs, Lessons and Local Life: A Real-World Egypt Family Adventure

From camel chaos to temple adventures, this Egypt family travel story blends ancient sites, kid-powered mishaps and heartfelt local moments into one unforgettable trip.

There’s nothing quite like watching your 8-year-old barter for papyrus scrolls with a Cairo street vendor. His tactic? Dramatic sighing and a mournful “But I only have 10 pounds.” (It worked, by the way.) 

And so began our deep dive into the chaos, charm and contradictions of Egypt, a land where ancient monuments meet honking tuk-tuks, and your kid suddenly becomes a pint-sized negotiator.

“We discovered that letting go — of schedules, expectations, WiFi — leads to the kinds of memories you can’t make in a classroom or on a screen.”

We hadn’t planned on falling in love. Egypt had been one of those “Well, it’s educational” destinations, a check-the-box history lesson for the kids. But within 24 hours of landing, our agenda unraveled. Not in a bad way, but in that glorious, sun-drenched, sand-between-your-toes kind of way where plans give way to experiences. Opting for one of the curated Egypt tours packages turned out to be our greatest travel hack, providing structure where we needed it, and freedom where we craved it.

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BEFORE YOU GO: Ancient Egyptian Words You Should Know

Feluccas, Falafel and Family Chaos

Our first Nile-side morning began with mint tea and a hotel balcony view that could humble even the most screen-addicted teen. The Nile shimmered like it knew it was important. Down below, feluccas caught the morning light, while a rooster (somehow on the sixth floor?) reminded us that alarm clocks are overrated.

Breakfast was a lesson in logistics, three kids, four plates of ful medames, and one very opinionated guide named Amira, who declared, “Today we walk like Egyptians.” Cue eye rolls from the teenagers. Cue “Walk Like an Egyptian” humming from dad. Cue me silently questioning my life choices.

Yet by midday, we were temple-hopping with the best of them. Karnak left us speechless, partly because of its scale, and partly because we were playing “spot the gods” while sweating profusely. The kids learned to recognize Horus and Anubis like old cartoon characters. I learned that wearing white linen isn’t just stylish; it’s survival.

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HOLY HORUS! The Major Egyptian Gods and Goddesses

Kids, Camels and Culture Shock

Camel rides? Predictably chaotic. Our youngest named his camel Beyoncé. Beyoncé had opinions. Mostly about not walking straight. Still, nothing beats watching your children burst into uncontrollable laughter as their parents bounce wildly through the desert like disjointed marionettes.

But it wasn’t all slapstick. Somewhere between Giza and Aswan, the lessons snuck in. Our middle child, who rarely looks up from her phone, asked if we could visit a Coptic church “just to see.” Later, our eldest scribbled down notes about hieroglyphs, claiming it was “for a school project.” (Sure it was.) And all of us, parents included, began saying “Inshallah” with frightening regularity.

The Food That Made Us Stay a Little Longer

Egyptian food is like that cousin who insists you try just one more bite. And then five more. Shawarma wraps became our lunch religion. Koshari, a carb-on-carb-on-carb masterpiece, had the kids questioning everything they thought they knew about dinner. And don’t even get me started on the desserts: basbousa, konafa — sticky, sweet, and somehow always appearing just when you said you were full.

One night, our guide invited us for a home-cooked meal with her extended family. We sat on floor cushions, passed dishes around with our hands, and managed to communicate with smiles, hand gestures, and the universal language of children upending a bowl of lentils.

What We Took Home (Besides Sand in Our Socks)

Travel doesn’t always go as planned. You miss a train. Someone gets food poisoning. You accidentally offend a shopkeeper by declining tea. (Pro tip: Just drink the tea.) But in Egypt, those moments weren’t failures; they were the trip.

Our youngest now claims he wants to be an archaeologist. The middle one added “learn Arabic” to her birthday wish list. And we, the tired grownups, discovered that letting go — of schedules, expectations, WiFi — leads to the kinds of memories you can’t make in a classroom or on a screen.

So if you’re thinking of going, with kids, with chaos, with curiosity, Egypt’s got room for it all. Just pack extra patience, an open heart, and maybe a few 10-pound notes for some persuasive bargaining practice. –Jarno van Bazel

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8 Reasons to Visit Marsa Alam, the Hot, New Egypt Beach Destination

Much more laidback than Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh, Marsa Alam offers pristine sea life for scuba divers and snorkelers, European-style service, desert excursions and nearby Wadi El Gemal National Park. And, of course, there are the dugong sea cows.

Not too long ago, Marsa Alam, Egypt was known only as a hidden gem for divers. The secret’s getting out — and the area is rapidly developing as a more laidback alternative to the northern Red Sea beach party destinations.

Home to one of the oldest ancient civilizations in the world, Egypt is a mysterious and fascinating travel destination that should be on your radar. However, the pyramids, temples and tombs are only the beginning — it's also a beach destination bordering both the Mediterranean and Red Seas. Located on the western shore of the Red Sea, the town of Marsa Alam offers a less-crowded alternative to Sharm el-Sheikh and Hurghada.  

Not long ago, Marsa Alam was a small fishing village whose only tourists were avid in-the-know scuba divers. In recent years, though, it has grown into a promising European-style resort destination. Almost directly east of Edfu on the Red Sea, it’s farther south than most other beach towns in Egypt. 

There’s a small international airport that services Marsa Alam, though it’s actually an hour or so north, in Port Ghalib. Whether you’re looking to relax and enjoy pristine sand beaches, high-quality luxury accommodations, desert trekking, or exploring the abundant sea life, there’s something for everyone here. 

Another gorgeous sunrise at Marsa Alam — which you’ll be up to see since you weren’t partying till the wee hours at the club

8 Reasons Why Marsa Alam Is Becoming a Hot Travel Destination

More and more tourists are skipping Cairo and heading to the beach resorts of Hurghada and Sharm el-Sheikh. However, Marsa Alam is one of the newest destinations and is quickly rising in popularity. Here’s why you should consider this up-and-coming hotspot in Egypt. 

This part of the Red Sea isn’t yet crowded or polluted — and the aquatic life is stunning.

1.   An untouched underwater world

Thanks in large part to its remote location, the underwater world of Marsa Alam is more wild and currently less affected by tourism — a real paradise for divers and snorkelers.

Who doesn’t love dugongs, this area’s version of the manatee?

Schools of exotic fish, vibrant coral reefs, sea turtles, dolphins and dugong sea cows can all be found in this part of the Red Sea. And if you’re not a fan of snorkeling or diving, there’s always the option of booking a glass-bottom boat excursion to enjoy the wonders of this enchanting underwater world.

First and foremost, Marsa Alam is a beach destination, where you can relax on the sand, swim, snorkel and scuba dive.

2.   Gorgeous beaches

The beach stretches for over 30 miles (50 kilometers). Almost every hotel has its white sand beach — a great place to admire the sunrise. 

And because Marsa Alam isn’t as crowded as Hurghada or Sharm el-Sheikh, it’s a good option for families with children. There’s a calmness to this region for those who want the opportunity to be alone with nature.

The Lazuli Hotel in Marsa Alam is just one of many luxury resorts popping up in the area.

3.   High-quality service

Tourists here mainly hail from Germany, Poland, Austria and the Czech Republic, giving Marsa Alam a European feel. In fact, unlike other resort destinations in Egypt, prices are in euros. And for those of you who have experienced bad service elsewhere in Egypt, you shouldn’t find it in Marsa Alam. 

It is also worth noting that, unlike other beach hotspots, vendors and travel services representatives aren’t as pushy here. 

Even the winter isn’t too cold in Marsa Alam, and most beaches are protected from the infamous Egyptian winds.

4.   Good weather

Because Marsa Alam is farther south than other beach resorts, the enviable climate is warmer, especially in winter, when the temperature averagess between 60 and 84 degrees Fahrenheit — making it a comfortable holiday destination all year round. Also, most hotels have bays that are protected from the infamously strong Egyptian winds. 

Explore the ancient Roman ruins at Wadi El Gemal National Park.

5.   Excursions and activities

Marsa Alam is a place where you can swim for hours, ride an ATV in the desert next to the sea, and visit nature reserves and national parks. 

Wadi El Gemal National Park (Valley of the Camels) is a must-do day trip just 28 miles (45 kilometers) to the south of Marsa Alam. It’s the third largest park in the East Arabian Desert, consisting of 1,840 square miles of land and 810 square miles of marine life. Here you have the opportunity to observe rare birds and animals as well as wander among the ruins of temples and other buildings that date back to Ancient Rome!  This area was known as the Emerald Mountains and supplied the empire with green beryl gemstones.  

Take a day trip to marvel at the natural sculptures in White Desert National Park.

6.   Awesome deserts

If you want a break from the beach, then a trip to the Sahara el Beyda is a great option, with its stunning scale and boundless space. The surreal chalk-white landscape, punctuated by natural sculpture shaped by the harsh desert winds, is now a protectorate known as White Desert National Park. 

Who says Marsa Alam has to be relaxing all the time? Hop on an ATV and go for a ride in the dunes of the nearby desert.

To me, the desert represents freedom. Don’t worry about it getting too hot — it’s particularly pleasant even in the spring. Go for a ride on a quad bike or jeep, ending with a trip to the closed nature reserve beach to look for giant shells and pieces of coral. The sand here rivals that of the Maldives in its whiteness.

The Iberotel Costa Mares is but one of several five-star hotels in the Marsa Alam area.

7.   New world-class hotels and resorts 

So many four- and five-star hotels to choose from! They stretch along the coast in either direction from Marsala Alam. Yes, they are right on the beach — but, at the same time, there is a lot of greenery here. The staff will set you up with sports, wellness treatments and other activities. 

8.   Tourist infrastructure

Pharmacies, shops, bars and restaurants are popping up all over town. You can also head to neighboring Port Ghalib, about an hour away, to eat at one of the restaurants there.

Marsa Alam, where the desert meets the Red Sea

Oh-So-Chill Marsala Alam 

Compared to other popular resorts in Egypt, Marsa Alam is much more relaxed. This is an opportunity to experience amazing beaches and sea life away from noisy tourists and discos. But, like many other on-the-rise destinations, it might not be long before Marsa Alam becomes overcrowded. I recommend going sooner than later. –Isabelle Jordan

 

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Also in the area

Edfu is a little over three hours away, directly west.

The Temple of Horus at Edfu

Kom Ombo Temple and the Crocodile Museum

Sofitel Legend Old Cataract Hotel Aswan

Abu Simbel

Fashion and Beauty in Ancient Egypt

What did the average Egyptian look like? A tour of the clothes, jewelry and makeup worn in Ancient Egypt.

What was an Ancient Egyptian’s beauty regime like?

Ancient Egyptians had no qualms about nudity. To be fair, it does get really hot there. 

But that doesn’t mean they ran around naked all day. They did have a sense of style — the clothes tended to be simple, with jewelry adding colorful accents.

“When you think about these standards of beauty, you realize how similar they are to our own modern-day ideals.”

The dry desert climate has preserved an astounding amount of statues and paintings from Ancient Egypt, so we have a good idea of what they looked like and what they wore.

What did Ancient Egyptians look like?

On the average, they were shorter than modern-day humans: Women were about 5 feet tall, while men were typically around 5'5".

Ancient Egyptian women strived to be thin with pert breasts, while men with broad shoulders tapering down to flat stomachs were considered handsome. Some things never change.

What was the ideal of beauty?

A good place to start with standards of beauty is the art of a time period. You can see how bodies were depicted in paintings and sculptures — especially those that don’t aim at realism. The body types in Ancient Egyptian art remained amazingly similar for over 3,000 years.

So what was considered hot to the Ancient Egyptian? Thin was in. Curved hips weren’t often depicted, but small, firm breasts were admired. 

“[S]ome of the mummies of older women, whose natural equipment had sagged under the relentless pressure of the years, were stuffed with wax or sawdust in the pectoral region to give the necessary curves,” writes Barbara Mertz in Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt.

And the men emulated a long and lean physique, including broad shoulders that tapered down to a flat stomach. 

When you think about these standards of beauty, you realize how similar they are to our own modern-day ideals.

What hairdos did Ancient Egyptian women adopt?

How did Ancient Egyptians wear their hair?

“The girls let their hair hang loose or braided it into pigtails, but boys had an unusual coiffure — the head was shaved except for one long lock on the side, which was braided,” Mertz writes. You’ll see this sidelock carved onto many a temple wall.

A statue showing the unusual sidelock worn by Egyptian boys

This distinctive hairstyle was something men would wax idyllic about, feeling nostalgia for the carefree days of boyhood as the time “before I had cut off the sidelock.” Perhaps the act of cutting off the sidelock was a rite of passage into adulthood for Ancient Egyptian men.

Men in the Old Kingdom wore their hair short, not unlike today. Other styles that were popular included the shoulder-length bob and a short cap of tight curls arranged in rows. 

A man with rows of tight curls — a popular style in Ancient Egypt

For women, in the Middle Kingdom the haircut that was all the rage had bangs and long hair on the sides cut at an angle. 

By the New Kingdom, noblewomen had a new style: a top layer of long, thin curls or crimps, beneath which were rows of shorter curls or marcelled waves that hung to the shoulders. 

A wig with a colorful covering from the tomb of a minor wife of Pharaoh Thutmose III.

Did they wear wigs?

Yes, both men and women did, and they were mostly made of human hair. A woman’s wig tended to be long and dark-haired, though in the early dynasties, some females sported hairstyles as short as their male counterparts. 

Facial hair wasn’t too popular in Ancient Egypt, but there are some statues that show men with mustaches or beards.

What about facial hair? 

“At certain periods neat little mustaches were worn, and sometimes beards seem to have been fashionable,” Mertz writes. But most often, men in Ancient Egypt were clean-shaven. That long goatee you see on statues and carvings of pharaohs was artificial: You can sometimes see the chin straps.

A variety of clothing styles for the different classes. You’ll note that white was the color of choice.

What clothes did Ancient Egyptians wear?

For young children, the answer was nothing — not a bad idea, Mertz muses, given the heat and the propensity of toddlers to get dirty.

“Older children wore clothing like that of their parents, a kilt, or skirt, for boys, a simple linen dress for girls,” Mertz writes. 

Linen was pretty much the only material used for clothing, although now and then wool was used. Egyptian weavers could use linen to make everything from a coarse fabric to a delicate gauze.

No bright colors or patterns here: The clothes were usually white. 

Dresses and kilts got more elaborate in later periods.

What were Ancient Egyptian women’s dresses like?

Women were typically clad in an ankle-length dress with wide shoulder straps over the breasts.

“The dress must have been designed to fit the figure as tightly as possible, and it may have been stylish to make it of thin material,” Mertz writes, adding, “A becoming style for the slim and graceful, but I wonder how plump ladies felt about it?”

In later periods, fashion got a bit more complex among the well-to-do. Another style that became all the rage had a sheer linen robe with accordion pleats and a small cape that crossed and tied in front of the breasts. It hung loose unless tied with a long sash at the waist.

There are also depictions of dresses made entirely of colored beads, intricately woven into elaborate patterns. They were most likely quite revealing, and where they show up in bas-reliefs and statues, they’re donned by goddesses or comely servant girls.

Men’s wardrobes were simple: a white skirt, or kilt, and no top.

What did Ancient Egyptian men wear?

Most men went shirtless but wore a knee-length kilt. It was secured by knots, sashes or simply tucked in. Later on, the kilt, like women’s dresses, more fancy, and started sporting accordion pleats.

Like the womenfolk, men also wore long, sheer, flowing robes.

Leather sandals were preferred over those made of papyrus, which didn’t last long.

What about their shoes? 

Most people went barefoot but had sandals for special occasions. Even the poor would have had a pair of sandals made from papyrus, though they didn’t last long. Leather was preferred. 

Ancient Egyptian jewelry didn’t have many precious stones but featured turquoise, garnet, obsidian, lapis lazuli and other colorful rocks.

What was Ancient Egyptian jewelry like?

The precious stones used to make bracelets (worn by women, boys and sometimes men), diadems, girdles, anklets and rings included carnelian, turquoise, garnet, feldspar, rock crystal, obsidian and lapis lazuli. 

But the most popular material was faience. If you read anything about Ancient Egypt, you’ll come across this word. Egyptian faience was composed of ground quartz, a colorant and other materials molded into a shape — most often a blue-green bead. 

Copper (for the lower class) and gold (for the upper class) were the most common metals used. Both were readily available, thanks to mines in the desert and neighboring Nubia. Electrum, a pale yellow mix of silver and gold, was also commonly used for jewelry. 

These large necklaces were called pectorals. This one features faience, a common blue-green material used at the time.

“The most common ornament was the flexible collar, made of concentric rows of beads, some of which might be shaped like animals or flowers or leaves,” Mertz writes. “It covered the front of the wearer’s body from the base of the neck to the middle of the breast, and since it was made of bright colors, it formed an important part of the overall costume.” 

Men and women lined their eyes with kohl in a distinctive style.

Did Ancient Egyptians wear makeup?

Anyone even remotely interested in Ancient Egypt (or who has seen Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra) is familiar with kohl. Egyptians focused on the eyes, and kohl was the eye shadow of choice. It’s still popular, though it’s now made of soot. But back in the day, Egyptians ground up malachite to make green kohl, and galena to make shades of gray. They applied this eye shadow over the eyebrows and around the eyes using a tiny wooden spoon or a rod made of bone (or, in a pinch, their finger). 

Red ochre worked as rouge and sometimes as lipstick. 

The Egyptians were fond of oiling themselves, which, as Mertz points out, makes sense in a hot, dry climate.

And to complete the package, people also applied scented oils, including myrrh and resin or floral bouquets, such as lily. –Wally

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The Sex Lives of Ancient Egyptians

How did Ancient Egyptians view love, sex and marriage? What were their views on homosexuality? Did women have equal rights? And what was childbirth like?

Ancient Egyptians were a lot less prudish when it came to sex than we are today.

All it takes is a trip to one of the many impressive temples that have stood the test of time for thousands of years to establish a lifelong admiration for the Ancient Egyptians. The Pyramids at Giza are but one testament to their ingenuity. 

And the more I learn about their society, the more impressed I am. When it comes to sexuality, equal rights and divorce, for instance, the Ancient Egyptians were surprisingly enlightened. Sure, there was their predilction for incest — but aside from that, they had some pretty forward-thinking ideas, especially for the time.

“The rights of a divorced woman were far ahead of their time.

A divorcée controlled her own possessions and was entitled to a percentage of the assets acquired by the couple. ”

Premarital sex and children born out of wedlock were legal and carried no stigma.

How did Ancient Egyptians view sex?

They most likely didn’t have the same puritanical prudishness about sex that lingers in the West to this day.

“It seems clear, from references in the poetry and other sources, that there was no moral prohibition against physical love between young unmarried persons, nor was there any stigma attached to children born out of wedlock,” writes Barbara Mertz in Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt.

A statue depicting a lesbian couple from Ancient Egypt

These men are shown in a pose usually reserved for married couples.

What about homosexuality?

The signs point to Ancient Egyptians being OK with the gays. One case in point: There’s a Fifth Dynasty tomb at Saqqara that was jointly used for two men in the manner of a husband and wife. Though both were married with children, the men are depicted in a nose-to-nose embrace in one wall carving — a pose typically used for spouses. 

“Were these men lovers?” Mertz asks. “Your guess is as good as mine, though I think the evidence points in that direction.”

Marriages focused on cohabitation; a couple became husband and wife once they crossed the threshold of the house they would share.

What were Ancient Egyptian marriages like?

Well, it certainly wasn’t a major industry like it is for us. In fact, marriages might not even have been officially celebrated.

“We know very little about the ceremony of marriage, but most authorities agree that it was unimpressive, if indeed it existed,” Mertz writes. “Evidently, a man simply built a house and invited a woman to share it; when she moved in, the couple was considered to be married.”

This looks like a happy family — but if the woman wanted to get divorced, it was quite easy.

Could you get divorced?

No problem. In fact, a lack of compatibility was enough to end a marriage. By the Late Period, there were divorce documents that read, “If I repudiate you, if I take a dislike to you and want someone else…”

And the rights of a divorced woman were far ahead of their time. A divorcée controlled her own possessions and was entitled to a percentage of the assets acquired by the couple. Women could also pass on their property to whomever they wanted — rights that married women in England and America didn’t even obtain until the 19th century, Mertz points out.

Women had a surprising amount of rights — especially for an ancient civilization. They could hold property, get fair divorce settlements and hold even the highest office, that of pharoah.

How were women treated?

There was some equality among the sexes, with evidence of women holding even the highest positions, with the best example being Hatshepset, the woman who became king, or pharoah, and ruled over all of Egypt.

“We know of female treasurers and officials, and even a vizier — the highest position under the king,” Mertz writes. “One woman held the fascinating title of ‘Overseer of Doctors.’ Were these women doctors? Was she a practicing physician? Nobody knows for sure. The rarity of such titles indicated that they were exceptions to the general rule of male domination of the professions and crafts.”

Akhenaten and Nefertiti are famous for being a loving family, depicted holding their daughters — a slice of daily life that just wasn’t done at the time.

And one of the queen’s titles translates to something like, She for Whom Anything She Says Is Done. Sounds pretty powerful to me.

What about the harems?

Ancient Egyptian harems weren’t like the ones in the Muslim world. Mertz argues that a better translation is “women’s quarters.” The words that meant wife and concubine were occasionally interchangeable — which gives us a clue that these were women of status. 

“Some houses didn’t have separate areas for women; some did; but the dwellers therein were free to come and go as they liked,” Mertz writes. 

The royal family in particular practiced incest, emulating the gods, including the brother and sister pairing of Osiris and Isis.

Is it true that Ancient Egyptians practiced incest?

Well…yes. Certainly in the royal family. 

Ancient Egyptians didn’t have the same taboos we do (and, as smart as they were about architecture and so many other things, they obviously didn’t realize the dangers of depleting the gene pool by having kids with close relatives). 

Plus, they were emulating their gods. Just as in Ancient Greece and Rome, the deities of the Egyptian pantheon had some brother and sister pairings — most notably, Osiris and Isis.

Is it a mere coincidence that the word “senet,” at some periods in Ancient Egypt, meant both sister and wife? 

Egyptian women squatted during childbirth and were supported on either side (though not usually by cow-headed deities).

How did Ancient Egyptians give birth?

To see how Ancient Egyptian women delivered babies, the best evidence we have lies in their word for childbirth: The hieroglyph shows a woman squatting (or kneeling) with the arms and head of a baby emerging from between her legs. Hey, why not let gravity do its part?

A hieroglyph for childbirth reveals how Ancient Egyptians would have given birth.

The pregnant woman would have been supported on either side by females of the household, with a midwife helping with the delivery. 

How did they celebrate birthdays?

They probably didn’t. “One event that was never recorded was the year of an individual’s birth — and I mean any individual, king, commoner or prince,” Mertz writes.

From views on homosexuality to the rights of women, Ancient Egypt turns out to be a particularly progressive civilization. –Wally

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LEARN MORE: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt

Diseases, houses, food: What was it really like to be an Ancient Egyptian?

Daily Life in Ancient Egypt

How long did Ancient Egyptians live — and what did most people die of? What were the houses and schools like in Ancient Egypt? What did Ancient Egyptians eat and drink? Egyptologist and author Barbara Mertz unearths these secrets.

What was in an Ancient Egyptian’s diet? How long did they live? And, most importantly, were they cat or dog people?

While I love learning about world religions, mythology and history, not everyone can be a ruler or high priest. It’s nice to also think about the little people. As we explored the wonders of Egypt, I kept finding myself wondering what it was like for the average person. 

It was surprisingly difficult to find a book that covered this subject. There are tons of tomes covering the temples, tombs and pharaohs. But one that tells you how most Egyptians at the time kicked the bucket? Hard to come by. 

“Before we start feeling superior to our ‘primitive’ predecessors, we should bear in mind that a good many people in today’s ‘civilized’ world live under conditions that are as bad or worse than the ordinary ancient Egyptian endured.”

— Barbara Mertz, “Red Land, Black Land”

So thank Horus for Barbara Metz (who, incidentally is the author of the delightful murder mysteries of the proto-feminist archeologist detective, Amelia Peabody). Mertz’s book, Red Land, Black Land: Daily Life in Ancient Egypt, written in her oh-so-distinctive voice, was just what I was looking for.

Barbara Mertz — perhaps the most entertaining author on Ancient Egypt out there

Dear Reader, a Caveat

Part of what I find so enjoyable about Mertz is that she tells it like it is. She’s not too full of her own self-importance to be self-deprecating about herself and fellow Egyptologists. One thing she’ll never be accused of is being stuffy; in fact, there’s a sassiness and wit to her writings that delights me.

Mertz warns that you can’t take anything you learn about Ancient Egypt as outright facts. What we know about that time period could be a misinterpretation of the evidence, and a new discovery can utterly uproot existing theories. 

“[T]he most reliable books on ancient Egypt are loaded with boring words like ‘probably’ and ‘perhaps’ and ‘possibly’; scholars avoid ‘maybe’ for stylistic reasons, but it should be prefixed to at least 50 percent of the statements made in any book on Egypt — including this one,” she writes.

That’s especially true since Mertz first published Red Land, Black Land in 1966, with an updated edition that came out in 1978.

Mummies reveal a lot about how Ancient Egyptians lived — and died.

How long did the average Ancient Egyptian live?

About 35 years — and no wonder, Mertz says. They toiled hard and had limited access to healthcare: “Studies of Egyptian mummies show that these people suffered from a number of diseases, most of which went untreated,” she writes. “Poor nutrition and the inability to cope with infection contributed to high infant mortality. The flour ground on stone querns contained large quantities of grit that wore away tooth surfaces. Cavities were fairly infrequent, since the Egyptians didn’t have refined sugar, but a number of mummies have hideous gum abscesses.”

Ancient Egyptian doctors didn’t do the best job at fighting off a host of diseases.

What diseases were the most common?

Studies of mummies from Ancient Egypt have revealed a host of illnesses, including malaria, tuberculosis and smallpox. “Black lung disease resulted from the smoke-filled, poorly ventilated houses, and desert lung disease from the constantly blowing sand,” Mertz writes. “Perhaps the worst and most common illness was parasitic infection, which still occurs in Egypt today. The most pervasive parasite goes by two names, bilharziasis or schistosomiasis. I won’t go into details, since they are really revolting, but if not treated, the infection produces calcification of the bladder, fibrosis of the intestine, scarring of the liver, serious anemia, chronic fatigue and possibly heart disease. It isn’t fatal except in rare cases, but the sufferer probably wishes it were.”

It all sounds pretty awful — but Mertz points out, “Before we start feeling superior to our ‘primitive’ predecessors, we should bear in mind that a good many people in today’s ‘civilized’ world live under conditions that are as bad or worse than the ordinary ancient Egyptian endured.”

Ancient Egyptian homes weren’t too shabby; they had four rooms, plus the rooftop.

What was an Ancient Egyptian house like? 

For the middle and upper classes, there were typically four rooms in their homes. The room facing the street had no windows, aside from grates near the roof. Beyond this was an all-purpose room with columns and a higher ceiling, where the family slept, ate and entertained. A raised platform was used for a couch, bed or possibly to give birth. And behind this were two more small chambers: a kitchen and a storeroom or extra bedroom. There was a basement for storage, and a flat roof that served as extra living space. 

Beds tilted slightly downward, so instead of a headboard, there was a footboard to keep the sleeper from gently sliding down onto the floor, Mertz writes. And no down-filled pillows were to be found: “the item that would finish most of us was the pillow, which was not a pillow at all but a headrest of shoulder height, with a support curved to fit the neck,” she explains.

Dining tables were also unheard of. Even in royal palaces, every guest or pair of guests had their own little table to eat at.

In the kitchen, there weren’t any counters. While it doesn’t sound very sanitary, all cooking prep was performed on the floor, from grinding grain to kneading bread.

Egyptian homes didn’t have counter space, so meal prep was done on the ground. Consequently, a lot of food had grit in it that wore away at the teeth.

Privacy wasn’t really an option, as homes were filled with extended family members.

At Amarna, a city that briefly served as Egypt’s capital, the villas of chief courtiers even had bathrooms — a small, walled-off space with a brick-supported seat and a removable vessel beneath.

A model of an Ancient Egyptian home. Peasants’ homes were made of mud brick and would be reduced to nothing in a bad downpour.

What about the homes of the lower class?

Their huts would have been made of mud brick, containing a single room that everyone — including any domesticated animals — shared. And while it doesn’t rain often in Egypt, when it does, it’s a deluge. “A heavy downpour would reduce a peasant’s house to a pile of mud,” Mertz writes. “On the positive side, such domiciles were easy to build.”

Bread and beer were the two main staples of the Ancient Egyptian diet.

What did Ancient Egyptians eat and drink?

The key staple of the Ancient Egyptian diet was bread. In fact, some loaves have survived to the present day! 

They were also quite fond of beer. These two items top the list of the mortuary texts that list the food most desired in the afterlife. 

Early Egyptians ate a lot of fish — the River Nile offered a never-ending supply.

Milk, cheese, beans, lentils and chickpeas were also consumed. 

Vegetables played a large part in the Ancient Egyptian’s diet, primarily onions, garlic, radishes and lettuce (which was an aphrodisiac and features prominently in a bizarre myth about Horus and Seth). 

“Meat was probably scarce in poor households, but well-to-do families raised cattle and such exotic animals as oryxes and gazelles for food,” Mertz writes. 

They also domesticated pigs, sheep, geese and ducks.

Wealthy nobles, not surprisingly, ate better than the peasants. For one, they could sweeten their food with honey, and they ate carob, which is as close to chocolate as the ancients got.

They ate fruit, including dates, figs, melons and grapes, which were also dried into raisins or made into wine. 

More wine? Egyptians seemed to prefer beer, but as these amphoras attest, vino was popular, too.

“People ate with their fingers,” Mertz writes, “and when the meal was over a servant, or a daughter of the household, came around with water, which was poured over the hands.”

This carving shows what appears to be an Ancient Egyptian school.

Did Ancient Egyptians go to school?

We’re not sure, but we can presume that some of the upper class children, particularly the boys, were educated at a temple or in a room of a scribe’s house. 

The tools of the scribe’s trade

They were given the equivalent of pen and ink, and they wrote on ostraca, broken fragments of pottery or stone, because papyrus was too expensive for educational purposes. As you can imagine, they wrote in the hieroglyphic Egyptian script (“the most beautiful system of writing ever devised,” according to Mertz).

“Incidentally,” she continues, “the correct noun form for the little images is ‘hieroglyphs.’ Popular writers occasionally call them ‘hieroglyphics,’ and this small error scratches at the sensitivities of Egyptologists like a fingernail on a blackboard.”

Ancient Egyptians got a lot of things right — including a love of cats, which they domesticated.

How did they feel about cats?

It’s believed that Ancient Egypt was the first place cats were domesticated. 

They were also at the center of the worship of the feline-headed deity, Bastet: “Mummified cats have been found in large numbers,” Mertz writes. “I regret to say that the majority appear to have been deliberately done in, presumably as an offering to the goddess in question. (Don’t ask me to explain the logic of this.)”

The Egyptian word for cat might have been an onomatopoeia: It’s spelled miw. “How it was vocalized we may safely leave to the imagination of any cat-owning reader,” Mertz writes, cheeky as ever. –Wally

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KEEP READING: The Sex Lives of Ancient Egyptians

Learn their views on premarital sex, children born out of wedlock, homosexuality, women’s rights and more!

Ancient Egyptian Words You Should Know

Do you know your ba from your ka? What’s a vizier? How about a cartouche? Our handy glossary of Ancient Egyptian terms will have you speaking like a pharaoh in no time.

How many Ancient Egyptian terms can you spot in this image?

The terms we use to describe the religion, history and artifacts of Ancient Egypt are a strange mishmash of words that have French, Greek, English, Arabic — and yes, sometimes even Egyptian — origins.

Talk Like an Egyptian 

As you read more about the fascinating and complex world of Ancient Egypt, it helps to familiarize yourself with the terms that come up the most often. It’s probably a good idea to bookmark this page for easy reference — especially if you’re considering a visit. 🤗 

ankh: The hieroglyphic symbol for life, similar to a cross but with a loop in place of the upper arm. It was especially popular in jewellery and on temple carvings, where it was held in the hands of deities or being given by them to the pharaoh, to represent their power to sustain life and to revive human souls in the afterlife.

atef: The atef crown was made up of the White Crown of Upper Egypt with red ostrich feathers on either side. It was worn by the god of the underworld, Osiris.

ba: The ba is, essentially, the concept of the soul. Depicted as a bird with a human head, it could leave a person’s tomb to fly about. 

barque: These thin boats that curve up at either end were the transports of the gods, especially during festival processions. In temple sanctuaries, models of barques held statues of a deity. When a pharaoh died, a barque would transport them on their way to becoming a god.

Book of the Dead: This is the modern name ascribed to a collection of 200 hymns, rituals and spells that allowed the deceased to travel safely through the underworld and enter the afterlife. Ancient Egyptians knew it as the Spells for Going Forth by Day.

canopic jars: Four containers used to store the preserved internal organs of the deceased (the lungs, stomach, liver and intestines) extracted during the mummification process. Each jar was topped with the head of one of the god Horus’ sons.

cartouche: The oval frame that surrounds the name of a king, queen or god in inscriptions.

Coffin Texts: Collected during the First Intermediate Period, around 2134-2040 BCE, these 1,185 incantations and other forms of religious writing were inscribed on coffins to help the deceased navigate the afterlife, providing maps of the underworld and the best way to avoid dangers on one’s way to paradise.

deshret (or Red Crown): The crown, with a square base that curved upward into a point and had a coil spiraling out in front, was worn by the rulers of Lower Egypt.

djed: A representation of the spine, it symbolized stability. A djed amulet was often placed in coffins, where the backbone of the deceased would lay, to ensure eternal life. During a Sed festival, the pharaoh, with the help of priests, would raise a djed column. 

Duat: The underworld, home of the gods Osiris, Anubis and Ma’at, as well as many grotesque monsters. The sun deity Ra travels through the Duat every night, where he battles the serpent Apep, or Apophis. This is where a deceased person’s soul travels for judgment. 

Eye of Horus (aka udjat eye or wedjat eye): A falcon’s eye that acts as a protective talisman and symbolizes rebirth after death. Its origins lie in a myth where the evil god Set plucks out one of his nephew Horus’ eyes. 

faience: A powdered quartz paste that ranges in color from turquoise to teal. Modeled and sometimes fired, it was commonly used for jewelry, pottery and sculptures.

hedjet (or White Crown): The crown of Upper Egypt, it’s often irreverently (but accurately) described as looking like a bowling pin.

hieroglyphs: Think of them as the emojis of their day. Often mistakenly called hieroglyphics, they make up the system of pictorial writing used in Ancient Egypt. Though they sometimes represented the actual objects they depicted, hieroglyphs usually stood for particular sounds. 

Horus name: Beginning in the Predynastic Period, pharaohs would take on an additional name, cementing their relationship with the falcon-headed god Horus. The pharaoh oversaw their entire country and, like the bird of prey, could strike at enemies below. 

hypostyle hall: The reception area of a temple. Originally, most would have had a roof over rows of densely packed columns with capitals depicting palms, papyri or lotuses to represent the lush island of creation.

ka: The best way to describe this is as a soul — it’s someone’s other self, what makes them unique. It’s with a person throughout their life, but upon death the ka and the body become separate. The body has to be preserved, and the ka nourished, or it will starve and cease to exist. It’s represented as a human with upraised arms — or just the arms raised at a 90-degree angle. 

khepresh (or Blue Crown): Often worn by pharaohs when going into war, the khepresh was a blue headpiece with a uraeus on the brow.

kohl: Black powder made from galena ore (the chief source of lead) mixed with oil and used as an eyeliner by women and men.

Lower Egypt: The Ancient Egyptian worldview was upside-down compared to ours. Lower Egypt was the northern half of Egypt, so called because the Nile flows north before entering the Mediterranean Sea. Its capital was Memphis.

ma’at (aka maat): The principle of balance and cosmic order, personified by a goddess of the same name. It was a pharaoh’s duty to rule according to ma’at.

mammisi: A birth house, where a woman would go to deliver a child and recover for two weeks or so. These chapels were often situated in front of a temple and were said to be where a god had been born.

mastaba: A type of tomb first created in the Old Kingdom. From the Arabic word for “bench,” they were rectangular and flat-roofed, with a substructure belowground. As time went on, architects stacked stories atop them, leading to step pyramids and, eventually, the triangular pyramids like those at Giza.

nemes: A striped head covering worn by pharoahs. It covered the brow and skull, hung down on the side to rest on the shoulders, and was drawn together in the back in a sort of ponytail. King Tut was a fan. 

Opening of the Mouth: A ceremony held at the tomb, where the mouth of a mummy was symbolically opened so the dead could use their senses in the afterlife.

Opet: A festival held during the inundation, or flooding of the Nile. The statue of the chief god Amun would travel upon a barque from his sanctuary at Karnak to Luxor Temple.

papyrus: The writing surface used by Egyptian scribes. Derived from the pith of the stalks of papyrus, which grew along the banks of the Nile, the plant was also used to make boats, sandals, baskets and rope. 

pectoral: An elaborate necklace that covered much of the chest.

pharaoh: The supreme ruler of Ancient Egypt. He or she (there are a few times when a woman took the throne, like the remarkable Hatshepsut) was considered a god.

pschent (or the Double Crown): A combination of the deshret and hedjet crowns, it showed that the pharaoh controlled both Lower and Upper Egypt.

pylon: A massive gateway leading into a temple. Some held rooms, like the one for the harem at Medinet Habu.

Pyramid Texts: The earliest religious texts of Ancient Egypt. These spells, religious beliefs and myths were inscribed on the walls of Fifth and Sixth Dynasty pyramids (2465-2150 BCE). They were used to magically transform the deceased into the god of the afterlife, Osiris. Composed of 2,217 spells grouped into 714 “utterances,” they gave way to the Coffin Texts.

rekhyt: A stylized lapwing bird with wings spread and human arms raised in adoration, representing the general populace or the pharaoh's subjects. When depicted on the walls of ancient temples, it signified that the public was allowed in that area. 

sarcophagus: A large stone container that held a mummy's coffin. Its name comes from the Greek sarkophagos, meaning “flesh-eater.”

Sed: A festival of rejuvenation that renewed the powers of a pharaoh, it was usually — but not always — held in their 30th year of rule.

senet: A game played in Ancient Egypt. No one knows the rules, but they think it was a bit like chess. Pieces were usually fashioned from animal bone or clay. 

shabti (also shawabti or ushabti): A small mummy statuette of a servant placed in tombs that could be magically brought to life to perform tasks for the deceased in the afterlife.

sistrum: A sacred rattle made of a wood, metal or clay frame set loosely with crossbars strung with small metal discs. It was shaken during ritual dances for the goddess Hathor and later Isis.

sphinx: A mythological beast with the body of a lion that usually had the head of a pharaoh or god. The famous one sits outside Cairo at Giza. 

stele (also stela): An upright slab of stone that served as a monument, inscribed with religious or historical text.

Upper Egypt: The southern half of the kingdom of Ancient Egypt. It’s called Upper Egypt because the Nile River flows northward, from Upper to Lower Egypt. Its capital was Thebes.

uraeus: A rearing cobra in a threatening pose that represented divine authority, worn as a crown or head ornament by Ancient Egyptian divinities and rulers. It showed that the pharaoh had the protection of the goddess Wadjet, the patroness of Lower Egypt.

vizier: The second in command after the pharaoh. The role held many responsibilities, including administration of the government, security, judgement and the safety of the empire.

was scepter: A staff that’s often forked at the bottom and topped with the head of a creature, possibly the Bennu bird, a mythological heron who wears the atef crown. Carried by gods and pharaohs, the was scepter stood for power and dominion. –Wally

Did the Exodus Really Happen?

Evidence reveals that the Hyksos were Canaanites — and their story later morphed into the Exodus to serve as a rallying cry against Egypt. 

Could over 600,000 Hebrew slaves revolt and escape their captors in Egypt? Spoiler alert: The Exodus is more folk tale than actual history.

Egyptian pharaohs steadily ruled their empire for thousands of years — except during a foreign occupation that lasted over a century.

An Egyptian historian named Mantheno, who wrote in the 3rd century BCE, “described a massive, brutal invasion of Egypt by foreigners from the east, whom he called Hyksos, an enigmatic Greek form of an Egyptian word that he translated as ‘shepherd kings’ but that actually means ‘rulers of foreign lands,’” write Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman in The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology’s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts. Inscriptions and seals from the time of the invasion have names that are West Semitic, or Canaanite.

“If a great mass of fleeing Israelites had passed through the border fortifications of the pharaonic regime, a record should exist.”

— Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, “The Bible Unearthed”

The Hyksos in this Egyptian painting are depicted as wearing brightly patterned clothes, which Wally much prefers to plain old white skirts.

Were the Hyksos Actually the Hebrews?!

Archaeological excavations in the eastern Nile delta “indicate that the Hyksos ‘invasion’ was a gradual process of immigration from Canaan to Egypt, rather than a lightning military campaign,” the authors write. “The fact that Manetho, writing almost fifteen hundred years later, describes a brutal invasion rather than a gradual, peaceful immigration should probably be understood on the background of his own times, when memories of the invasions of Egypt by the Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE were still painfully fresh in the Egyptian consciousness.”

The biggest clue that the Hyksos were none other than the Hebrews is something else Manetho wrote: He suggests that after the usurpers were driven from Egypt, they founded the city of Jerusalem and built — you guessed it — an important temple there.

Israel gets a brief mention on the Merneptah Stele in a long list of conquered kingdoms.

When Did the Exodus Happen? The Merneptah Stele

If we take the story of the Exodus at face value for now, what evidence is there to provide a date for it? The Ancient Egyptians kept quite a written record, and, when paired with archaeological digs, the expulsion of the Hyksos is typically placed around 1570 BCE. If we go by the Old Testament account that this occurred 480 years after the construction of the Temple, that means the Exodus happened in 1440 BCE. 

But the Bible mentions the Hebrew slaves helping to construct the city of Raames (Exodus 1:11) — a name that’s inconceivable at that time, according to Finkelstein and Silberman. “The first pharaoh named Ramesses came to the throne only in 1320 BCE — more than a century after the traditional biblical date,” they write. “As a result, many scholars have tended to dismiss the literal value of the biblical dating, suggesting that the figure 480 was little more than a symbolic length of time, representing the life spans of twelve generations, each lasting the traditional 40 years.”

The Battle of Kadesh, in which Ramesses II battled the Hittites, as shown on a wall of the Ramesseum, the pharaoh’s mortuary temple

A city named Pi-Ramesses, or the House of Ramesses, was built with the help of Semites in the delta during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II, who ruled from 1279-1213 BCE. 

What’s more, though, is the famous stele of Merneptah, Ramesses’ son. The inscription is the sole mention of Israel in all of the artifacts from Ancient Egypt. The tribe is part of a list of people who were decimated during a Canaan campaign. Merneptah went so far to exclaim that Israel’s “seed is not!” 

This would mean that if a historical Exodus did indeed take place, it would have occurred in the late 13th century. The evidence doesn’t match up, though.

The Israelites Leaving Egypt by David Roberts, 1828

The Exodus: A Lack of Evidence

It’s highly unlikely that a large group of slaves could have made it out of Egypt at the time, given the guard posts all along its borders, argue Finkelstein and Silberman. “If a great mass of fleeing Israelites had passed through the border fortifications of the pharaonic regime, a record should exist,” they insist.

And if the slaves did somehow get out, there would be archaeological records of the Hebrews as they wandered in the desert. “However, except for the Egyptian forts along the northern coast, not a single campsite or sign of occupation from the time of Ramesses II and his immediate predecessors and successors has ever been identified in Sinai,” write Finkelstein and Silberman. “And it has not been for a lack of trying.”

Numerous excavations haven’t turned up anything: “not even a single sherd, no structure, not a single house, no trace of an ancient encampment,” they continue. “One may argue that a relatively small band of wandering Israelites cannot be expected to leave material remains behind. But modern archaeological techniques are quite capable of tracing even the very meager remains of hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads all over the world.”

Whether it actually happened or not, the Exodus makes for a great story — especially the dramatic parting of the Red Sea and the drowning of the pursuing Egyptians.

Dating Exodus — a Great Piece of Propaganda?

All of the archeological evidence, including a reference to the kingdom of Edom, which refuses to help Moses, indicates that the Exodus narrative was completed during Ancient Egypt’s Twenty-sixth Dynasty — that is, during the 7th and 6th centuries BCE (shortly after, one would imagine, the stories of Abraham and the other patriarchs told of in Genesis). That’s 600 years after the events were supposed to have taken place!

What was the purpose of the Exodus story, if we put it in context of that time in history? “The great saga of a new beginning and second chance must have resonated in the consciousness of the seventh century’s readers, reminding them of their own difficulties and giving them hope for the future,” Finkelstein and Silberman write. 

Was Exodus written to bolster the agenda of King Josiah of Judah?

Josiah, the young ruler of Judah, sought to escape from the yoke of the newly crowned Pharaoh Necho II, who reigned Ancient Egypt from 610-595 BCE. 

Connecting Josiah’s confrontation with the Egyptian empire to that of Moses and the pharaoh of Exodus, complete with miracle after miracle to demonstrate the Hebrews as Yahweh’s Chosen People, would have been a powerful piece of propaganda. 

“[A]ncient traditions from many different sources were crafted into a single sweeping epic that bolstered Josiah’s political aims,” the authors conclude.

There simply is no evidence that a mass Exodus as described in the Old Testament ever happened. –Wally 

Habiba Gallery in Luxor: Fair Trade Handicrafts

This charming shop in the Luxor souk sells gorgeous items made by local women’s collectives.

If you’re staying in Luxor, be sure to stop into Habiba Gallery to pick up some local handicrafts — and say hi to Linda, who owns the shop.

Wally and I have never met a souk we didn’t like. As our time in Luxor neared its end, we made arrangements with the concierge at our amazing hotel, Al Moudira, to take us across the Nile to shop for souvenirs.

We arrived about 20 minutes later, outside the atmospheric pavilion that serves as the tourist market of Luxor. You’ll know you’re there when you see the massive louvered wooden pergola flanked by a pair of smaller pergolas and the name El-Souk emblazoned above the entrance. For a moment I felt like we were stepping into the city’s past as horse-drawn carriages trotted by while I was taking a photo. 

“The shelves of Habiba are lovingly stocked with curated goods that represent the vast array of Egypt’s cultural richness and craft heritage.

Local producers, many of them women, are supported through the principles of fair trade, providing a path to economic self-sufficiency. ”

Beneath the latticework archway lies the entrance to the Luxor souk — just be careful of the horse and carriages.

Inside the pedestrian-friendly bazaar are merchants selling spices and shops selling scarves, djellabas, trinkets, alabaster, statuettes and more. It wasn’t exactly bustling — we were there on a Sunday, and as Luxor has a large Coptic Christian population, many stalls were closed — but that was fine by me. 

After haggling at a few stalls in the market, our eyes lit up when we spotted Habiba Gallery, located on Andrawes Pasha, a side street running off the main souk. Wally and I have always had a passion for handicrafts, and the shop came highly recommended by Zeina Aboukheir, the “boss lady” proprietor of Al Moudira. 

A playful textile depicting village life, including a watermelon vendor and colorful birds in a cage

UnCommon Threads: Every item Has A Story

As we excitedly began to collect items we wanted to buy, Linda Wheeler, an Australian expat and the owner of Habiba Gallery, began sharing the stories behind the pieces. One of the first of many to catch our eye were a group of earthenware pottery. It was difficult to choose between the unique handmade pieces, but ultimately we settled upon a couple of plates, and a serving vessel in the shape of a cow. 

Duke and Wally couldn’t resist this dish shaped like a cow — at least they think it’s shaped like a cow.

Linda explained to us that the handmade pottery came from Tunis, a small village located in the Fayoum Oasis. The pieces were made by the former students of Swiss-born ceramicist Evelyne Porret. In 1989, Evelyne and her husband, Michel, established a pottery school to mentor and nurture the talents of the children of Tunis. Like Linda, Evelyne and Michel laid the foundation for locals to embrace an entrepreneurial spirit, and many of their students now run small businesses of their own.

Fun natural patterns adorn the plates we bought. The prices at Habiba are fair — no haggling necessary!

The next item was a supersized, Egyptian cotton hammam towel or blanket from Naquadah, a predominantly Coptic village located on the West Bank of the Nile River just south of Luxor. The fine textiles are woven by the local women, who have preserved the traditional craft of manual looming — practiced there since pharaonic times. 

Linda told us how her conversations with the producer of these textiles eventually led to the subtle variation in style we saw before us. We chose one with a simple deep blue striped pattern and hand-knotted fringe. 

This was quickly followed by a brightly colored embroidered textile with a whimsical scene depicting village life and a tote bag with a block-printed fly pattern. No one can deny a fly’s persistence, and the Ancient Egyptians viewed this trait as a positive attribute. Pharaohs were known to have presented military personnel with a golden fly amulet to acknowledge an individual’s success and tenacity. We now better understood the impressive necklace with three flies on it that we had seen at the Luxor Museum.

Wally regaled Linda with a story about how I was unable to exercise discipline when it came to negotiating — in fairness, I had caved rather easily at the shop we visited beforehand, but I was not going to leave Egypt without a few rather authentic-looking objects. Linda diplomatically replied, “Well, if you love them, then it was worth it. And if you think you’re getting a good deal, then that’s OK.”

The shelves of the shop are lovingly stocked with curated goods that represent the vast array of Egypt’s cultural richness and craft heritage. Local producers, many of them women, are supported through the principles of fair trade, providing a path to economic self-sufficiency. 

Whimsical hand-painted wooden spindle dolls reminded Duke of Japanese kokeshi.

One of the refreshing things about Habiba is that everything is clearly marked, so there’s no need to ask for the price or haggle. Linda was never pushy and allowed us to peruse the shop at our own pace. After about 20 minutes, we had a large stack piled on the counter — quite a few things for ourselves as well as presents for family and friends.

Linda, an Aussie expat, started Habiba with a sewing machine and a dream. The shop now showcases gorgeous handicrafts made by women’s collectives in Egypt.

The Story of Habiba and Its Goal of Female Empowerment

It all started when Linda brought her trusty sewing machine with her to Luxor. 

“The idea was to impart my simple skills and love of sewing onto the ladies in Karnak,” Linda says. “Some were widowed, divorced or illiterate, and I hoped to encourage them to make their own clothing. But this was a daunting task, so I reverted to beadwork, a traditional technique familiar to the women, and discovered they were happy to apply their skills to smaller items such as accessories.”

Wanting to find a way to improve these marginalized women’s livelihoods and provide them with a sustainable source of income, Linda decided to open a shop to sell their products. She chose Habiba, the Arabic word for “beloved,” and, with the help of Abd el Shafy, who assisted with the maze of bureaucracy, her dream came true. 

Habiba is filled with beautiful handicrafts like these wooden boxes with geometric mother of pearl marquetry.

At first, the shop didn’t offer a large range of items. “I borrowed a black jalabiya and headscarf and set out with my friend Sahar to find additional handicrafts,” Linda says. “Being a traveller, the thought excited me, and what better reason to see the country and meet the local community? I’ve been to the Siwa Oasis, Sinai Peninsula, Western Desert, Aswan, Fayoum Oasis and El-Mahalla.”

She also partnered with Fair Trade Egypt. “I would travel to the source to see how the product was made and who was involved,” Linda explains. “Meaningful relationships were formed, and over time we’ve developed new ideas with them.”

Technology has improved communication and social customs have relaxed, so Linda no longer needs to modestly cover herself in native garb when she travels around Egypt. 

Linda’s favourite site in Luxor is Karnak Temple. “I will walk through to the offering room, past those huge columns, and then on to the sanctuary of Sekhmet at the Temple of Ptah. It’s my place for grounding,” she says. So it’s fitting that she has helped to establish a workshop space in Karnak named Hands of Habiba, where the women are learning to become independent.

“For me, being a shop owner isn’t entirely about the money,” Linda says. “It’s about sharing the comments of our happy customers with the artisans. My life here has been about the women and the love and support that we give to each other. Living in Egypt is a simple life: buying local, living local and supporting local. The people make the experience — so friendly and always willing to give you their time.”

Her time in Luxor amongst the locals just might have influenced her, as we found Linda to be a delight. If you’re in this part of Egypt, be sure to stop into Habiba and purchase something (or some things) to take back with you, knowing that you’re helping empower Egyptian women. –Duke

“My life here has been about the women and the love and support that we give to each other.

Living in Egypt is a simple life: buying local, living local and supporting local. The people make the experience — so friendly and always willing to give you their time.”

— Linda Wheeler, owner, Habiba Gallery

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RELATED: Shopping in Egypt? Here’s what to expect — and how to get the best bargains.

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Habiba Gallery
opposite the exit gate to Luxor Temple
Andrawes Pasha Street
Luxor, Egypt

A Visual Tour of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo

Take a virtual tour to see our favorite statues of famous pharaohs and tomb relics.

If you can’t actually visit the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, do the next best thing: Virtually tour some of the exhibits below

It’s bad enough that I’ve been self-quarantined inside our home for a week and a half now, with no end to this isolation in sight. On top of that, I seem to have contracted the dreaded coronavirus, with lingering symptoms of COVID-19. 

To make matters worse, I’ve had to cancel a mini-sabbatical to Spain, where I had planned to visit my good friends Jo and José in Málaga, fulfilling my dream of experiencing Semana Santa and touring the colorful towns of the South of Spain, with their charming Moorish influence. 

Plus, it’s looking as if Duke and I will also have to forgo our trip to Athens and the Greek Isles this spring as well. 

“Most of us find ourselves looking for ways to live vicariously, to continue to explore the world — even if that means virtually. ”

Like many of you, travel is what we look forward to. In many ways, it’s what makes life worth living. Planning a trip abroad gives Duke and me something to dream about. In a time when the world wasn’t so chaotic, our future travels would be what got us through tough times. Now we have no idea when we’ll be able to take a vacation again. The world is on lock-down, frozen in place. It’s not a comfortable feeling, and the real extent of the crisis might not be apparent for weeks or even months.

With so much time on our hands, most of us find ourselves looking for ways to live vicariously, to continue to explore the world — even if that means virtually. 

Here’s a photographic tour of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, showcasing some of our favorites statues, sarcophagi and other works of art. (To get a feel for the delightfully dilapidated museum, read Duke’s write-up.)

A gray granite statue of Ramesses II as a child protected by the god Horus, depicted as a falcon.

The fragmented sculpture of the goddess Mut and her husband, the chief god Amun, is composed of 79 pieces. The head of the goddess was discovered by French Egyptologist August Mariette in 1873. Other parts were unearthed during additional excavations in the Temple of Amun-Re at Karnak and sent to the museum, where they were reassembled.

The colossal figures of Amenhotep III, who ruled around 1386-1353 BCE, and his wife Tiye survey the great hall of the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities. The statue was discovered at Medinet Habu. Tiye, whose arm wraps around her husband's waist, is the same size as the king, demonstrating her equal status as a powerful and influential queen.

This statue, carved in a variety of sandstone known as graywacke, shows the Fourth Dynasty Pharaoh Menkaure wearing the crown of Upper Egypt. The king, who was born in 2532 BCE, is flanked by the goddess Hathor (left), crowned with a solar disc between cows horns, and Anput (right), the personification of the 17th nome, or district, of Upper Egypt. Note the jackal above her, referring to her husband, the god Anubis.

A realistic-looking sycamore wood figure with white quartz and resin eyes from the Fifth Dynasty, depicting a khry-heb, or lector priest, named Ka-aper. He was responsible for transcribing religious texts and reciting hymns in the temple and at ritual festivals.

Skeleton of a dog. Ancient Egyptians were known to sacrifice and mummify a variety of animals.

An alabaster statue of the high priestess Amenirdis, who held the title of God’s Wife of Amun during the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty. She’s wearing a diadem of cobras and holding a small whip, or flagellum, bent to resemble a lily.

A row of small stone sarcophagi stand in front of a chipped wall typical at the Egyptian Museum

A statue of Meryre and his wife Iniuia. Meryre began his career under the reign of Akhenaten, the so-called Heretic King who ruled from 1353-1336 BCE in the Eighteenth Dynasty, as steward and scribe of the Great Temple of the Aten in Armana, Akhenaten’s capital city, and later as high priest at the temple of Aten at Memphis.

Dwarves commanded respect in Ancient Egypt, thought to possess divine gifts. One of the much-loved gods of the time, Bes (right), was depicted as a dwarf.

A granite sarcophagus lid of a dwarf named Djeho from the Thirtieth Dynasty. Inscriptions on the lid indicate that he was employed to dance at burial ceremonies connected to the sacred Apis bull.

This painted limestone head of Hatshepsut originally belonged to one of Osiride statues resembling the god of the underworld, Osiris, at Deir el-Bahari, the female pharaoh’s mortuary temple.

This granite sphinx was one of several that once stood at Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple. This remarkable woman ruled Egypt, first as co-regent for her nephew/stepson Thutmose III and subsequently as pharaoh.

Another sphinx of Hatshepsut, this one painted limestone. It’s believed to have originally stood at her mortuary temple. Unusual for Ancient Egypt, her face is surrounded by a leonine mane.

A detail of the outermost shrine that enclosed the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun. Composed of gilt plaster over wood with a faience inlay, it bears protective symbols: the djed, or spine of Osiris, and the tjet, or Isis knot.

A diorite statue of the Fourth Dynasty Pharaoh Khefren, who may have ruled around 2558-2532 BCE, seated on a throne, protected by the outstretched wings of a falcon, a symbol of the god Horus. The eagle is on the back, so you unfortunately can’t see it from this angle.

A statue of the lion-headed goddess of war, Sekhmet. Don’t let her calm expression fool you: She could be violent and was given various titles, including Mistress of Dread, Lady of Slaughter and She Who Mauls.

This compact granite block statue depicts Senenmut, the favored official and director of building works under Hatshepsut, who reigned from 1479-1458 BCE, during the Eighteenth Dynasty. Senenmut held many roles, one of which was tutor to Hatshepsut’s daughter, Princess Neferure. The strange style of statuary was common for tutors. The head of the young royal emerges from Senenmut’s cloaked, protective form.

Model soldiers carrying shields and spears from the tomb of a pharaoh. Fun fact: The bravest soldiers were given amulets shaped like flies, to show that they had stung the enemy.

Funerary models carved of wood show scenes from everyday life. Placed in a pharaoh’s tomb, they assured that he would have all he desired, including food and drink, in the afterlife.

A gray granite statue of Tutankhamun depicted as Khonsu, a moon god whose name means Wanderer, son of Amun and Mut. The Boy King wears the sidelock braid of youth and is holding a crook, flail and djed pillar.

A 2nd millennium BCE funerary stele found at Abydos that may or may not depict a ruler named Sobekhotep and his wife.

This red granite statue depicts Ramesses II (left) and the creator god, Ptah (right). Ptah held a close relationship to the primeval god Tatenen, whose name means Risen Earth, referring to the primordial mound that emerged from the watery chaos at the beginning of the world. –Wally

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10 More Museums You Can Virtually Tour

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The Egyptian Museum
Tahrir Square Rd.
Cairo, Egypt