EGYPT 1: GENERAL ADVICE

                       Linda at a fancy hotel in Cairo

Egypt 2:  General advice

Do you speak Arabic?  Do you take pleasure in intense bargaining on all retail occasions?  Does it please you to have people dogging your every footstep, trying to extract money by whatever means?  Can you ride a camel?

If you answered “no” to most of those questions, better go with an established tour.  I know one family that winged it on their own:  they saved a little money, but never got out of Cairo.  Hell, its only money; nothing to worry about.  Right?

So, take a tour.  An excellent plan would be to email an experienced Egyptological guide and go with what he/she has on offer.  My personal recommendation is to contact Amr Shahin  (amrhotep@gmail.com).  He is friendly, knowledgeable, and greatly experienced.  Linda and I loved him, and if she were still alive and I weren’t such a physical disaster we would be doing another trip with him as guide, just as soon as Covid lets up.

Also, be sure to work in a Nile cruise of four or so days.  It’s an ideal way to visit temples and such along the river, as well as a great sightseeing and culinary experience.  For Linda, our cruise was the highlight of the trip.  Sure, it will add to the expense, but who cares?  Only money, right?

Later on I will conjure up a list of things you absolutely must see, if you are to obtain your Junior Egyptologist badge.  One piece of advice now, however.   The rock-cut temple of Abu Simbel is a substantial plane ride to the south, and may not be worth the time and effort (not to mention the cost, which we are agreed to ignore.)  It is big, that’s for sure, but rather clunky.  Ramses II built it to frighten the Nubians; apparently he didn’t have art critics in mind.  Most good tours offer it, but you might be better off spending your days elsewhere.

Finally, a tip almost none of you will follow.  Go to your public library and  locate a copy of A Thousand Miles up the Nile, by Amelia Edwards.  Ms. Edwards explored the Nile near the end of the 19^th century, and produced a delightful cultural experience for generations thereafter.  Come to think of it, you probably can find it on your computer.  For Free!

 

Egypt, into

  Two things everybody knows about ancient Egypt

Why Egypt?

There are older civilizations (Sumer, by a whisker) and plenty of dead cultures close by to assuage one’s curiosity (Incas, Mayans, Aztec, etc.), so why fly half-way around the world to get your antiquarian rocks off?  Well, the answer is crushingly obvious.  Egypt – the Pharaonic culture we associate with the pyramids and King Tut – lasted about 3000 years, far, far longer than any other ancient civilization.  Moreover, it built and sculptured in hard, erosion-resistant stone, thereby leaving behind multitudes of objects for us to gawk at and wonder about.  Additionally, this richness of surviving artifacts has generated an enormous amount of study and exploration, by persons ranging from sober academic scholars to shifty-eyed tomb-looters.  Europeans began messing around in the Nile valley more than two centuries ago.  All this attention has churned up a meaty and complex story, as well as quite a few mysteries, for us to ponder.  And, blessing of blessings, they are still digging stuff up!

But seriously, the ancient Egyptians were the first, or almost the first, to tackle the important, universal questions of human life: Where did we come from?   Where do we go after death?  Are there entities superior to us who influence our daily lives?   How should we behave – and why?  Ancient Egyptians confronted these questions long before any of our extant religions came Into existence The answers they came up with are deeply absorbing.

So – that’s why you need to go to Egypt.  Moreover, the food is good, the mid-winter weather excellent, and prices are reasonable – compared, say, to Norway. Furthermore, there are non-Pharaonic pleasures to be had, especially in Cairo and Luxor.  But bring your own whiskey.

 

THE J2 CUSP

                                                   EDGE EFFECT

                                              Main forces that move plates

Here is my choice for “paper I wrote that’s most difficult to         understand”:

Beck, M. E., and B. Housen, Absolute velocity of North America during the Mesozoic from paleomagnetic data, Tectonophysics, v. 377. pp 33-54. 2003.

I say this because I picked it up lately and, after 17 years, could barely get through it myself!  However, it may have some relevance to Nick Zentner’s discussion of exotic terranes, so here goes:

First we need some basic assumptions:

1)    A paleomagnetic study of rocks of a particular age and geographic location gives an accurate approximation of the location of that area at that time with respect to the spin axis of the earth – the geographic pole.

2)    As a continent moves with respect to the spin axis it will, in effect, paint a path of apparent polar wander in the form of a string of paleomagnetic poles that reflects that motion.  These are called curves of apparent polar wander (APW).

3)    Continents, like everything else, move in response to the sum of forces applied to them.  If the sum of forces remains constant so does the motion, in direction and speed.

4)    North American APW can be described as a series of intersecting paths.  Each path should represent a period of constant applied external forces; intersections of these paths accordingly should represent episodes at which the sum of applied forces changed.  This has been discussed previously by Ted Irving, Richard Garden, and Alan Cox. 

5)    External forces that may influence plate motions include subduction zones, rifts and strike-slip faults.  It follows that events such as initiating or choking off of large subduction zone might be expected to alter the velocity of plate motion.

AND NOW, finally, I get to the point.  The incomprehensible paper cited earlier recognizes a half-dozen or so “cusps”, defined as times when North America abruptly changed its direction of motion with respect to the spin axis.  One of the better defined of such cusps occurs at about 160 Ma, the J2 cusp.  Could that represent the effect of cramming the Intermontane Superterrane into a west-dipping subduction zone?  I suggest an alternative in the 2003 paper – but who knows?  I need to study the damned thing again!