What can you buy in Egypt?

Perhaps you were already in Egypt or onlygoing there to go. This country leaves very few people indifferent. Surely every tourist will want to take home some souvenir to commemorate the journey, as well as to grab gifts for friends, relatives, co-workers. In Egypt, you will encounter a huge number of shops, shops, shopping centers, where souvenirs are sold. Street vendors will vie with each other to offer you their goods. How can you navigate in this abundance? Today we will tell you about what you can buy in Egypt, and how to distinguish a fake from a quality product.

Egyptian souvenirs

Papyrus

This is perhaps the most popular Egyptian souvenir. On papyri are often depicted pharaohs, ancient Egyptian gods, scenes of hunting or battle. Although today papyrus is just a beautiful material, in ancient Egypt papyri had a sacred meaning. Be sure to ask what kind of god, symbol, hieroglyph is depicted in the picture. The real papyrus is dense, does not break. If you put it in the water, it will not lose its properties, which can not be said about counterfeit rice paper or bamboo. If the forgery is folded in half, it will break or crumble. The real papyrus will remain unscathed. It is best to buy papyrus in shopping malls or special papyrus factories in Luxor and Cairo, where you will also be shown the technology of making papyrus.

Hookah

If you do not know what you can buy in Hurghada, thentake a closer look at hookahs. Egyptian hookah is called "shisha", it will appeal to smokers, and can also serve as a colorful decor. To hookah was sealed, ask the seller to smoke it. Tobacco and coal you can buy in Russia.

Cartouche

Your name written in ancient Egyptianhieroglyphs in an oval frame. This is how the names of the pharaohs were written. Cartouche will protect the holder of the name from evil eye, diseases and misfortunes. Cartouches are made of gold and silver. Decoration can be your personal amulet.

Alabaster and stone figures

This alabaster is a milky white stone. He well passes light, and if you shine a statue with a flashlight, then the stone will seem to glow from within. The best quality figurines can be found at the alabaster factory in Luxor. Figures from stone often are not stone, but plaster. To check, gently pick up a figurine with a fingernail - if it's a painted gypsum, then the paint will be erased. In addition, plaster figures are lighter than stone figures.

A popular souvenir is the goddess figureBast, who was portrayed as a cat. It is the goddess of joy and home. Another popular character in Egyptian mythology is a scarab beetle. It is a symbol of happiness and longevity.

How not to buy funerary symbols

Be careful when choosing a statuette. In ancient Egypt was very strong belief in the afterlife, so the funerary symbols are found everywhere:

a scarab scab without legs and with a hole - it was hung on a mummy during burial;
a cat on a thick stand or on a stand in the form of a vessel - decorates the sarcophagi;
funeral mask of Tutankhamun or other pharaoh. If the pharaoh's beard is represented as a straight line, then it is alive, if in the form of a curved pigtail it is a posthumous image;
vessels of a canopy with the heads of the gods - these vessels stored what was extracted from the body during mummification, namely the internal organs of the deceased.

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