The Part II – Year I students of the City School of Architecture organized an Architectural Study Tour to Egypt. The tour included visits to historical sites as well as a cruise on the Nile. A short description of a few places which awed the tourists from CSA were:

Egypt Museum: contains the world’s most extensive collection of pharaonic antiquities. The ground floor takes the visitor on a chronological tour through the collections, while the objects on the upper floor are grouped according to tomb or category; exhibits here include the treasures of Tutankhamun, wooden models of daily life, statuettes of divinities, and a rare group of Faiyum Portraits. On display on the second floor are also many of the New Kingdom royal mummies.

Pyramids of Giza: consist of the Great Pyramid of Giza (known as the Great Pyramid and the Pyramid of Cheops or Khufu), the somewhat smaller Pyramid of Khafre (or Chephren) and the relatively modest-sized Pyramid of Menkaure (or Mykerinos). The Great Sphinx lies on the east side of the complex. Current consensus among Egyptologists is that the head of the Great Sphinx is that of Khafre. Along with these major monuments are a number of smaller satellite edifices, known as “queens” pyramids, causeways and valley pyramids.

Abu Simble (1250 BC): two Sandstone Temples dedicated by Pharoah Ramses II to the Chief Gods of Heliopolis, Memphis and Thebes, and the other to his wife Queen Nefretiti. It is oriented so that the rays of the rising sun illuminates the statues of the three gods and of Ramses II in the innermost sanctuary.

Valley of the Kings: is a valley in Egypt where, for a period of nearly 500 years from the 16th to 11th century BC, tombs were constructed for the Pharaohs and powerful nobles of the New Kingdom (the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Dynasties of Ancient Egypt). The valley stands on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes (modern Luxor), within the heart of the Theban Necropolis.

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