When I was little, I knew what old was. My grandparents were ancient and my parents were pretty darn old. Once I entered elementary school, I learned all about U.S. history, and those founding fathers from the 18th century seemed incomprehensibly remote. How did humans even exist then? Did they talk like us? Did they breathe oxygen and like "The Boxcar Children" like me?
Yesterday, I was confronted with one of the founding fathers' contemporaries, the minute general Napoleon. In his speech before the Battle of the Pyramids in 1789, he called out to his soldiers, "Soldats, songez que du haut de ces pyramides, quarante si?cles vous contemplent" ("Soldiers, consider that from the top of these pyramids, 40 centuries look down upon you"). How right he was. The pyramids of Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure, under the weight of the centuries, create awe in light of the changes that they've seen since their creation. The alabaster and limestone casing stones have all but disappeared, and the once buried workers' cemetery has only recently been discovered, but despite numerous attempts at dismantling them throughout the centuries, they are still standing as stable as ever.
Just standing beneath them is intimidating. Even greater than my realization that people existed before me, the pyramids expanded my practical view of time. Yes, I previously knew they existed, but now I have proof that they weren't just Photoshopped into existence or created by alien beings as a joke.
I am stuck with 200 other people in the middle of the pyramid in 90-degree heat with a humidity level high enough to rival an Amazon rainforest. Oh, and did I mention that the descending and ascending corridors leading to the burial chamber are all of three feet high? So I (with my LED headlamp) am poised in the middle of the corridor peering into a small descending passageway to my right.
Meanwhile, I am dodging twentysomething Parisians throwing themselves down the ramps in an attempt to squash my toes, and a group of Chinese tourists is forcing me up the ascending ramp, while the sole thought running through my mind is, "Right now, in this exact time and place, I may be spending the next 40 centuries here after I lose the ability to breath or am trampled to death." When the burial chamber opened up, tacky fluorescent lights lit the sarcophagus, a wheezing dehumidifier ineffectively rumbled in the background, and I was immensely glad it wasn't me trapped inside.
The thing is, there is no one in the sarcophagus or in many of the sarcophagi in Egypt. The vast majority of them have been scattered across the European continent or, as in the case of Menkaure's sarcophagus, on the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea, where it sank during the crossing.
With many more movable treasures (and some not-so-movable treasures) scattered about the world, in Egypt remains heritage in the form of temples, monuments and hieroglyphic-decorated walls.
However, many of my fellow tourists and even fellow students seem determined to ensure that these remains also disappear. Not on a boat, but in little heaps of rock and plaster on the ground. No, jumping on the fragile walls of the amphitheater is not a good idea. The reason you cannot use a flash in frescoed tombs is because it destroys the paint in a process referred to as lightening. Light lightens paint as high impact destroys fragile rock and humidity destroys plaster. With such behavior, in the future, in 100 years, what will actually be left in Egypt? A heap of stone? A pool of blue-red-green mush? Or a cracked pillar?
So, I propose a new idea: To all American study abroad students of the future, do not imitate several of the students in my current program. Stay off fragile structures, don't use flash photography where you shouldn't and, in general, let's prove that while one of the world's youngest countries may not fully understand the concept of old, we're not too na've to appreciate its value.
