A magical encounter at Sakkara
When you just can’t make something up and have it be more incredible than it actually was, that’s when you call it magic. I’m going to share a magical encounter I had in the area of Egypt known as Sakkara while I was there with our tour group in September, 2022. This is a special site we often visit with our groups because here you can see many pieces of Egypt’s ancient history. The first pyramid ever built is here, which is the Step Pyramid of Pharaoh Djoser of the 3rd Dynasty. It’s a structure that has been standing in the shadow of Cairo for over 4,700 years. In front of this pyramid is the Heb Sed Court where the pharaohs would celebrate their “Jubilee”, much like the reigning monarchs of Great Britain do today, although the King or Queen of England didn’t run around with bulls or engage in mock battles to show their endurance and strength like the pharaohs did at their Jubilee celebrations! Also here at Sakkara is the 5th Dynasty pyramid of Pharaoh Unas and the oldest hieroglyphic texts ever written! All of these are what make this area so special and why we always include it in our tour itinerary.
Something else important is here and was discovered by Dr Ramadan Hussein in 2018. He discovered the location of the mummification workshop behind the pyramid of Unas. Dr Hussein was a much-beloved Egyptologist and archaeologist who became well-known after National Geographic produced a series about the discovery of the mummification workshop I first met him through my friend Curtis Ryan Woodside during his interview with Ramadan and after that, he was always very welcoming and helpful anytime I reached out to him to ask a question.
When our group arrived at the Sakkara necropolis in September 2022, I was looking at the valley temple of Pharaoh Unas and started to think about Ramadan. I wondered if he knew we were there and that I was thinking of him, wishing I could have had the opportunity to meet him and visit this favorite site of ours together. I quickly chided my Self for “wishful thinking” and focused on what was ahead for our group at the site.
We visited the Step Pyramid area, walked the long causeway to the pyramid of Unas and went inside to see all the beautiful hieroglyphs carved on the walls telling the king how to move through the after life with the neteru, and visited the Serapeum where mummified bulls, which were sacred to Ptah who became joined with Osiris and Apis, were interred inside huge granite sarcophagi. We then visited the tomb labeled as the tomb of Ptah-hotep II. While we were at this tomb I thought about the Ancient Egyptian literature called, “The Instructions of Ptah-hotep” and that I wanted to write a book one day and that I wanted it to be about the Pyramid Texts. It’s something I started working on translating a long 7 years ago and something that Normandi Ellis and I talk about doing together “one day”. The Pyramid Texts were also something that Ramadan had studies and written about so once again he crossed my mind.
Everywhere we go through the tombs and temples in Egypt we have temple/tomb guards with us as well as men who oversee the site and keep an eye on tourists as they visit. Our overseer that day had the most beautiful eyes and as we stood just inside the door of the tomb, the photographer in me came to life and I noticed the beautiful light coming in on him. I asked our tour operator to ask him if I could take his photo and he said I could. I felt a little self-conscious but had him stand just-so in the light of the tomb doorway and took a few pictures of him. When I finished, I shook his hand to thank him and although I don’t normally ask them for their names, I felt a strong urge to ask this man. What he said is the magic.
He said, “Ramadan.”
I about fell over, as it’s not really a common name in Egypt, and of all the overseers we could have had with us that day and of all the names of men in Egypt that he could have had, his name was the same as the man I admired so much and hoped was somehow with me in spirit.
Later in October I was once again in Sakkara with my group and then again at the end of the month with my friend Curtis. I was able during that time to be alone at the mummification workshop site with the spirit of this great man. To protect everything, the site had been filled back in and the colleagues of Ramadan had written his name on the concrete along with the name of the current director of the site/excavation. It was really special to be there and to try and imagine what that must have been like to discover such an incredible site!
That day, when Curtis and I returned to our hotel, it RAINED and there was HAIL in Cairo for at LEAST 20 minutes!! The streets were flooded and our hotel was leaking. It was the most amazing experience to be in Cairo during an “inundation”! Once the rain stopped, we were on the roof watching the lightning show over the Great Pyramid. Unfortunately, my camera battery was dying but I did actually capture a shot of the lightning! If you watch Curtis’s newest documentary, The Secrets of Giza, you’ll see video of the rain event at the very end.
I don’t actually talk about this to a lot of people, this connection with Ramadan that I seem to have because I never actually had the opportunity to meet him in person or work with him or have coffee together. I feel like I’m one of thousands of people who admire him and think of him often.
I think that Ramadan is busy in the after life, kindly attending to those who remember his name and feed his KA. I think this is true for everyone and their loved ones in spirit. In the after life, they try to connect with us to let us know that they’re with us, sometimes by leaving a feather or penny, or by playing a song on the radio at the exact moment we’re thinking of them, or some other magic sign of their presence in our lives.
For me, this was an experience at Sakkara that I can only describe as ‘magic’.
How would YOU describe it?