The Great Pyramids of Giza | Egypt Travel Blog: Day 2 (Part 17) 01D19

The Sakkara Complex: Tomb of Ka-Gmni, TiTi Pyramids, Step Pyramids

Egypt Travel Blog: 10 DAYS Egypt Explorer - Felucca Cruise & Red Sea

The Sakkara (or Saqqara) complex is an extensive archaeological site in Egypt that hosts many tombs and pyramids. Our tour covered only three sites from the complex: the Tomb of Ka-Gmni, the TiTi Pyramids, and the Steps Pyramids.

Tomb of Ka-Gmni (Mastaba of Kagemni)

Kagemni was a vizier or high-official/high-priest of King Teti of the Sixth Dynasty of Egypt and he had his own tomb in Sakkara. This type of tomb called a mastaba, or eternal house, in Ancient Egyptian. The tomb was a flat-roofed, rectangular structure with inward-sloping sides.

The Tomb of Ka-Gmni was discovered in 1843. The tomb is huge. There is a chapel which has six rooms, a hall by the entrance and another pillared hall, five magazines, two chambers containing boats, and a serdab. There is a staircase you can take to reach the roof.

The burial chamber has an inscribed stone sarcophagus with a coffin inside. The walls have beautiful and decorative bas reliefs all over depicting agricultural scenes, fishing scenes, and presentations of offerings. Some of them looked colourful, but I saw some of them were damaged or the colour was fading.

The Pyramid of Djoser or Step Pyramid

The Step Pyramid is located inside a huge pillared complex. The 6-tier, 4-sided structure is a colossal stone building built for the burial of Pharaoh Djoser.

The Step Pyramid is considered one of the oldest stone structures built by man. Entirely made of limestone, the Step Pyramid has survived for more than 4700 years. As the name suggests, the Step Pyramid is made of 6 steps, 60m high on top of each other and built as a step pyramid, and gradually getting smaller as the steps ascended.

I was more mesmerized by the huge complex made of tall walls and gigantic pillars. To enter the complex, you must go through a narrow door-like entrance curved in the stones. The complex had lots of unfinished structures and ruins.

My next stop will be TiTi Pyramid, where I will go inside the Pyramid.

How to Cut Down On Your Gas

How to Go Green With Your Vehicle Gas 

First Published Date: July 24, 2014 ADawnJournal.com

Everyone knows that gas emissions are carbon dioxide emissions and the more emissions we have in the atmosphere, the worse global warming will be. While buying a hybrid is a great option, it is not an option for everyone. Some people have to juggle their own finances and are looking for ways to cut down on the gas that their conventional vehicle uses. Not only does cutting down on gas help the environment, it also helps all of us save money. Try these tips to make your wallet breathe a sigh of relief, and to help the environment  as well.

1.    Most vehicles these days can handle ethanol-gas mixtures, usually at a rate of about 20/80, where the gas is made up of 20 percent ethanol and 80 percent gas. Using an ethanol mixture cuts back on your CO2 emissions, but it does not help your wallet.

2.    Instead of doing errands on several days of the week, try and consolidate your errands into just one day, if possible. By doing this, you save yourself trips into town, which keeps you from spending too much money. Many drivers will make short trips into town each day to run their errands when a weekly trip will do just as fine.

3.    When you are in town running errands, park in a central area and walk to all your errands. That way you are not starting and stopping your vehicle over and over, nor are you driving it everywhere. You also get some great exercise when you walk where you need to go, rather than drive there.

4.    Idling your vehicle is bad news for the environment and it is just wasted money. When it is cold, you can let your vehicle run for a minute or so when you start it up, but that is all it needs. As well, you do not need to leave your vehicle running while you are in the store. Instead of going through the drive-thru, you can easily just go inside and get your food. It is usually less busy in there anyways.

5.    Instead of driving, just walk to the store. If it is a beautiful day out, why not walk to the store and get some great exercise and fresh air? You can get most places pretty quick depending on where you live and you do not have to waste any gas.

6.    Public transit is a great alternative because it allows you to catch a ride on a bus or subway for a fraction of what you would pay for fuel. In addition, you no longer have to worry about a commute or driving; you can just sit back and read.

7.    Car pooling is another popular option that many people choose. When you car pool, you share a vehicle with others and you drive only ¼th of the time to work. This is a good option that saves you money and lets you get to know your co-workers.

It is easy to save money, gas and the environment when you use these tips to going green with your vehicle’s gas

How To Go Green with Cleaning

Green Home Cleaning Tips

First Published Date: Feb 21 2010

Did you know that homes today have more chemicals in them than chemical labs did 100 years ago? Did you know that homes have 70 times the chemical levels inside than are found outside? These are alarming statistics. Another alarming statistic is that housewives/husbands have a 55 percent greater risk of contracting cancer than others, and this is most likely due to the high levels of chemicals in our home. Another scary statistic is that our homes usually contain 150 chemicals that are known to cause cancer. Where do these chemicals come from? They come from the cleaning products we use to keep our homes clean. Well, you do not need to have any harmful cleaning products in your home because of the big three of green cleaning; vinegar, baking soda and lemon juice.

Vinegar

Vinegar is one of the best cleaning products you can have. Some of the things that you can use vinegar for include:

·    Vinegar can be used as paint thinner.

·    Vinegar can be used to clean your oven without using harmful oven cleaners.

·    Vinegar can be used to clean off counters.

·    If you take half vinegar and half water and put it into a spray bottle, you create a great all purpose spray.

·    You can boil vinegar and then pour it down a drain to remove any clogs. Make sure you don’t breathe in the fumes, they are not harmful but they will smell pretty bad.

Baking Soda

One of the best cleaning products available for you is baking soda. Baking soda can clean nearly anything. Some ideas include:

·    Baking soda can be used to clean soap scum and mildew.

·    You can clean most stains off the counters and bathtubs with just a bit of baking soda.

·    If you combine baking soda and vinegar in a drain, the combination will clear out your drain without harmful chemicals.

·    You can use baking soda to deodorize your entire home.

Lemon Juice

Lemon juice is very popular because it smells good and it’s acidic, which is very important in cleaning.

·    Put some lemon juice in a bowl and leave it in a room. This will deodorize the room completely.

·    Mix lemon juice and water together to create a good all-purpose spray that also smells good.

·    You can put lemon juice on your counters and other places to help sanitize the areas to remove germs.

Cleaning your home is important but many people have gone way overboard with cleaning. We need germs in our home to help keep our immune systems strong, but we surround ourselves with products that remove all germs. Then, these products cause us to become sick because of the harsh chemicals in them. This is why it is important to remove these harsh chemicals from your home. You can easily clean your home in an excellent way by using just vinegar, baking soda and lemon juice. These are the big three of green cleaning.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Thegreenlivingblog.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on Feb 21, 2010.

Plastics Break Down Quickly In The Ocean

Plastics Pose A Threat To Sea Life Right Now

First Published Date: August 23, 2009

It has long been held that plastic waste, when dumped in the sea, posed more of a risk to careless swimmers as a bludgeoning hazard than it did to aquatic life as a pollutant. The received wisdom was that plastics were hardy materials likely to release their contaminants over time. Now, according to new research from scientists presenting to the American Chemical Society (ACS), it seems that that is not the case. It may well be, in fact, that plastics break down with ease and speed in our oceans, and are posing a threat to sea life right now.

It is well known by anyone who has seen footage of “Beaches from Hell” that often waste thrown in the ocean will wash up on the beach. This may not be desirable, but the fact that it was at least visible brought some strange comfort, at least to those of us who could ignore that the beach itself was an ecosystem all of its own. However, it is fair to say that a more than significant amount of plastic waste thrown into the sea never finds its way to the shore. Some stays in the ocean and interferes with marine life directly – as anyone who has ever tried to free a fish or a seagull from a plastic bag can attest – and a lot of it, we can now say without fear of contradiction, breaks down while in the ocean, releasing toxins that do their own brand of harm to the marine population.

Famously, the expanse of water between Hawaii and California has become known as the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch”. What is less well-known is a little statistic which states that the area is twice the size of Texas. Think of how much marine life finds its home in that area, and consider then that the water is not just polluted by bottles, bags and other detritus, but by the component parts of that detritus. Although not as viscerally horrible as the Exxon Valdez oil spill, this is a major problem and will require attention. While we have always assumed plastic in the ocean to be undesirable, now we find the true extent of how much this is the case.

It emerges that plastic when thrown into the ocean reacts extremely badly as it is exposed to the rain and the sun while already weakened by the saltwater in the ocean. The contamination caused by this has an immediately obvious negative effect – poisoning marine life – but the secondary effects it can have by entering the food chain are no less concerning. At the moment we do not know what shape the effects could take, but previous studies in animals have demonstrated that Bisphenol A – a major constituent of many plastics – can disrupt animal hormone systems. Although it would be unwise and unhelpful to become too apocalyptic in our vision of the effects this could have, it bears attention and reminds us that vigilance is vitally important. The consequences of ignorance could yet be very damaging.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Thegreenlivingblog.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on Aug 23, 2009.

Is The Kyoto Protocol Dead?

The Kyoto Protocol: Twelve Years On

Published Date : Sep 22, 2009

With the majority of the world’s governments set to have representatives at the Climate Change Conference in the Danish capital, Copenhagen, at the end of this year, there is naturally a great deal of interest and desire that the parties present will be able to get a deal in place whereby the world works at bringing down the carbon emissions on a country-by-country basis. This is, after all, the mood that was taken into a similar meeting in Kyoto, Japan twelve years ago. At the end of that conference there was a deal on the table – but slowly it became clear that the deal was not on the terms that many of the signatories found desirable. The very reason that the parties concerned are due to meet in Copenhagen is the failure to set terms at Kyoto that were fitting for each country.

Famously the United States, although a signatory to the protocol laid down in the agreement made at Kyoto, has never ratified nor withdrawn from the agreement, but it has been clear since early this decade that they wished to renegotiate what was laid down in the Kyoto bill. Critics of the agreement felt that it singled out the United States as a country which had to do more than others, and that attempting to live up to the provisions laid down in the bill would seriously and negatively affect the viability of the US economy. Indeed, the most skeptical commentators felt that the entire bill was slanted in favour of persuading the US to bend over backwards to do more than anyone else, and was an anti-American document per se.

In the light of these feelings, it became impossible to see how the United States would ever ratify Kyoto’s protocol, especially when it elected the notorious climate change skeptic George W Bush to two terms in office as President. Many people’s hopes for a move at the Copenhagen conference lean on the fact that Barack Obama is seen as more amenable to Green politics, and although there is evidence to support this it remains to be seen whether first of all Mr Obama is prepared to sign up to terms which will suit the other signatories to the bill, and secondly whether he will be able to carry with him a Congress which has become more partisan than ever in recent times, with the President having endless difficulties steering through a healthcare bill that carries no elements which would give the majority of other countries much pause for thought.

It is largely accepted that the Kyoto protocol are to all intents and purposes dead in the water. While countries have independently gone about meeting their requirements as set out in the document, it was a document that depended upon the agreement of all signatories if it was to meet its own requirements. Any bill now agreed may well be the son of the requirements set out at Kyoto, but the fact remains that without some quite searching negotiation, Copenhagen may well not be the endgame in the battle against climate change

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Thegreenlivingblog.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to A Dawn Journal. This article originally published on the above website on Sep 22, 2009.