Day 56

March 15th,

Today we went on a field-trip with my Islamic Art and Architecture class to the Nilometer and Ibn Tulun's Mosque. Since we were with a class we got to take a bus to both of these sites and not have to pay for entrance, which nicely removed the stress of trying to get around and what not. The class is supposed to have 40 kids, but only about 20 of them showed up for the field-trip, so we had a nice small group with a well-educated professor who was the best tour guide I have had in this country.
The first place we visited was the nilometer. This is the oldest Islamic monument in Cairo, built in 861 by the Abbasid's in order to measure the height of the Nile. You see, if the Nile was above 19 cubits high, then there was enough water to release the dams and flood the fields. This meant the city wouldn't strave and they could then pay taxes on this agriculture to the Abbasids. So basically knowing if the water level was going to over 19 cubits or not was very important to the Egyptian society and thus this momument was very important to egypt. We also got to wonder around the palace grounds that the monument is located on. It was fun imagining what the palace must have looked like in the 9th century. The Nile would have been wider, less polluted and less overcrowded. It might have actually been nice to live there.
The second place we visited was Ibn Tulun's mosque built sometime around 870 by Ibn Tulun. The Mosque resembled the Abbasid architecture as it had the exterior staircase on the mosque and was just freaking huge. Even stranger, it has a really freaking big ablutions fountain. Not quite sure why it was so big, but when it was reconstructed they definitely built it big. We got to wonder around the mosque and analyze all the artwork and what not. Apparently in this early form of architecture the arabic script lacks letters. This makes reading the inscriptions extremely difficult to decipher. Even the Egyptian students struggled to read all of it. Afterwards I was so hungry that I ate a ton, sleept a bunch and played my game I just downloaded. It's called World inConflict, and its pretty addicting. I should probably be doing something more productive with my time, but its Egypt, its a country where its hard to stress about about things... and what's less stressful then defending America against a bunch of commies who decided to take over Seattle. Poor choice on their part.