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<\/a>Another good day, at least from my perspective. \u00a0We began it with a visit to the so-called Egyptian Museum \u2014 the Museum of Egyptian Antiquities \u2014 on Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo. \u00a0Some of the rooms there have been emptied out a bit, with their objects probably having gone to the beautiful new National Museum of Egyptian Civilization or going now to the spectacular and enormous but still-not-open Grand Egyptian Museum, which is located \u00a0out by the pyramids in Giza and which, we\u2019ve been told, will be the largest museum in the world when it opens.<\/p>\n
But the old museum, which is now an antique in its own right, is still well worth visiting, despite its darkness and dinginess. \u00a0Our visit today was fairly brief and summary, but we still spent time at, among others, the beautiful Narmer Palette<\/a>, the Merneptah Stela<\/a> (with its important late-thirteenth-century BC reference to \u201cIsrael\u201d), a large portrait bust of Queen Hatshepsut, and, of course, the treasures from the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen.<\/p>\n From the Egyptian Museum, we drove to the twelfth-century Citadel of Sultan Salah al-Din (Saladin), the famous hero of the Counter Crusades who is something of a personal hero of mine. \u00a0There, we visited the prominent nineteenth-century Turkish-style mosque of Muhammad Ali that was built within the Citadel, and looked out over the city of Cairo and, beyond, to the Giza pyramids. \u00a0The weather was fairly clear, and they were easily visible this time \u2014 which is not always the case. \u00a0I have to confess that I\u2019ve never been especially fond of the Muhammad Ali\u2019s mosque. \u00a0If I want an Ottoman-style mosque, I would prefer to go to Istanbul or Bursa or Edirne to see it<\/p>\n We had lunch at the Steigenberger Hotel, which is near to both Tahrir Square and The Egyptian Museum, and then headed over to the late-medieval bazaar area of Khan al-Khalili. \u00a0Some of our group went shopping there; others simply sat and visited with each other in one of the Khan\u2019s cafes, facing the important mosque of Sayyidna Husayn, \u00a0My wife and I, though, accompanied by my former student and her husband (who are living here as a Church service couple), made a beeline for al-Mu\u2018izz Street<\/a>, with its numerous sabil-kuttabs<\/a> and the mosque, mausoleum, and madrasa<\/em> of Sultan Qalawun<\/a>. \u00a0This area was a favorite of ours back in our student days here, many years ago, and it was a nostalgic experience for us to visit it again.<\/span><\/p>\n Thereafter, we headed out to the Cairo International Airport and caught a flight down to Aswan, in the south of Egypt. \u00a0It was about 10:30 PM by the time that we reached our hotel and the hour is considerably later now, and I freely confess to being quite tired and to having a difficult time typing coherent sentences. \u00a0But I\u2019m struggling heroically against unconsciousness, so please forgive stupid errors.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve always enjoyed Aswan. \u00a0(So did Agatha Christie; she wrote her novel Death on the Nile<\/em> here during a stay in a grand old hotel that is still standing a bit to the south of the place where I\u2019m<\/em> writing.) \u00a0 Aswan is much smaller than Cairo, and the Nile River is still actually blue here. \u00a0The Nile Valley is narrow, and the contrast between \u201cthe desert and the sown,\u201d between the rich green of the valley and the desert\u2019s brown, is especially obvious and particularly beautiful here. \u00a0There is an African feel here that reflects Aswan\u2019s ancient role as a center for the ivory trade between Egypt and the sub-Saharan continent. \u00a0And the sights to see are wonderful. \u00a0I hope that our group will like it as much as I do.<\/p>\n These three new items have recently appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:<\/p>\n Conference Talks: Beauty and Truth in Moses 1<\/em><\/a>, 2018 Temple on Mount Zion Conference, presented by The fourth \u201cTemple on Mount Zion\u201d Conference was held on Saturday, 10 November 2018 in the Tanner Building at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.<\/p>\n The presentations were filmed, and both video and audio recordings of each presentation are available. The videos are currently available both at https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/conferences\/2018-temple-on-mount-zion-conference\/2018-temple-on-mount-zion-conference-videos\/<\/a>and on the Interpreter Foundation YouTube channel at https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/theinterpreterfoundation<\/a>. A YouTube playlist is also available at https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLRMn4gyXMWLsWt34zVNC5FmTqBtFfcnxl<\/a>. The audio recordings are available at https:\/\/interpreterfoundation.org\/conferences\/2018-temple-on-mount-zion-conference\/2018-temple-on-mount-zion-conference-audio\/<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/a>
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a>
\nJeffrey M. Bradshaw<\/a><\/p>\n