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Of course, Cycladic art isn’t the ancient history that most people imagine when they think of ancient Athens. You can visit the world’s largest collection of these figurines at the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens. But ancient Greece traces its roots back to about 3,000 BC, when a probably matriarchal culture made thousands of abstract sculptures of women. The pyramids’ wild popularity means it can be hard to remember that the Egyptians weren’t the only complex culture that was thriving 5,000 years ago. Athens, Greece: the Parthenon and Cycladic art Parthenon, Athens They draw much smaller crowds, giving you more space and quiet to appreciate their importance. You can go into the Great Pyramid, but I also suggest taking time to visit the Bent or Red Pyramids, located in the countryside along the palm-fringed Nile. Standing at the bottom of the vast, soaring Great Pyramid of Cheops was humbling - each block is more than twice as tall as me. A good guide will help you put the whole thing in perspective - for example, my guide explained that we live closer in time to Cleopatra than she did to the pharaohs who built the first pyramid. I, for one, find it hard to wrap my head around such an enormous span of time, so I strongly suggest a private tour of the pyramids. As you arrive by air, you can still see the pyramids rising from the busy modern city, a remnant of a culture that started more than 5,000 years ago. Gritty, sprawling and loud, with a buzzing downtown, Cairo is a city on the go.
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Cairo, Egypt: pyramids and the Great Sphinx Great Pyramid and Sphinx, Cairo
#Ancient cities how to#
Our Europe and Middle East specialists will show you how to delve deeply into any of these cities, or you could take a grand tour of Europe to see several in one trip. If you know where to look, you can explore remnants of these cities’ ancient origins. Thousands of years later, many ancient metropolises still hum with commerce and culture. The cities and roads of long-gone empires - Rome in particular - created the scaffolding of modern Europe and the Middle East. Egyptian pharaohs, Greek kings and Byzantine emperors may seem like distant figures, but their decisions still shape our world.