The rainbow never sets

golden face mask. Standing on my toes I could look straight into his eyes, and I had the feeling that he looked back at me. Most uncanny.

This is where the belief in life after death finds its best artistic expression. It was not yet spiritualised, as real gold and wealth for the life beyond was added to the tomb. The mask alone weighed 9 kg. of solid gold. It had been placed over the head and shoulders of the king's mummy. He had died aged 18 years. The falcon head upon the brow was the symbol of sovereignty over upper Egypt, and the cobra next to it was the symbol of sovereignty over lower Egypt. The eyes, eye-brows and lids were all made of precious stone.

We also saw the sculpture of king Aknaton who had introduced mono-theism into Egypt, roughly during the time of Moses, and I wondered what influence this must have had on the development of mono-theism among the Hebrews. These were only some of my thoughts that came to me as I studied those ancient artefacts. I could have spent days in that museum without getting tired, speaking in a metaphorical sense, of course, as after a few hours we were physically quite exhausted.

The Citadel, actually a mosque built early last century, had a commanding view over Cairo and was built, no doubt, with a strategic purpose in mind. Near the Sultan Hasan mosque we came across a notice in English which made us laugh:

FOR INFANTRY ONLY

(In Australia it would have read: FOR PEDESTRIANS ONLY)

It is not surprising that in the land of the pyramids, the ordinary dead would be honoured too. This culture has led a whole suburb to be declared a 'City of the Dead'. This contained town house sized tombs and monuments, where the living could have easily lived.

The mosques were most impressive. Part of the Al Azhar Mosque was the oldest university in the world, established in 972 A.D. The professor would sit in 'the chair' and his students would sit on the carpeted floor around him.

We had been given an address of a Coptic christian in Cairo. He took us for the Sunday service to the 'hanging church' or El Mu'alla'a, which was built on top of tower gate columns, a Roman fortress called Babylon. The church was built in the fourth century. It had three pillars in the centre, symbolising the Trinity, and six pillars on either side, representing the twelve apostles. The service took well over two hours. It included a baptism, long readings, a sung liturgy accompanied by cymbals, and a cloud of incense smoke rising to the top (symbolising the Holy Spirit?) and tickling our noses. A guide took us around and showed us some of the 90 icons, and an escape stairwell down to the river, for the priest and congregation to escape, if attacked by persecutors. It is good to be prepared! The Coptic museum was also in that area. We learnt there that

454