Author: Andrew Becraft

Author, poet, and technologist. Founder and Editor-in-Chief of The Brothers Brick.

Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahari in LEGO

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Cross-posted from The Brothers Brick.

When I visited Deir el-Bahari back in 1994, our Egyptian guide told us an easy way to remember the name of the pharaoh who had the colonnaded temple built for herself near the Valley of the Kings and Luxor. “Hot sheep suit,” he said. “You know, hot, like the sun, with a suit made from sheep.” The weather forecast placard in the hotel lobby had informed us it was going to be 45° C (113° F) that day. Standing there in the blazing desert sun, it was hard to imagine wearing a wool suit. And today, it’s hard to forget how to pronounce Queen Hatshepsut’s name.

Similarly unforgettable was her mortuary temple, here recreated wonderfully in LEGO by Harald P. (HP Mohnroth).

lego_architecture_deir el bahari

See many other wonderful LEGO models of historical structures in Harald’s LEGO Architecture set on Flickr.

Tall al ‘Umayri, 7 July 1994

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As thrilling as each new discovery is during a dig, the scientific process of documenting an archaeological site can occasionally become a bit tedious.

Tall al 'Umayri, 7 July 1994

Photographer Ron Graybill used a small whiteboard between each sequence of photos for a given square on a site’s grid to identify it during the development process. (Yes, we still used film back in 1994…) When we got particularly bored, we’d have a little fun with the interstitial photos.

BONUS: Compare my beard in 1994 with the beard that recently accompanied me to Emerald City Comicon. Beard-off! 1994 vs. 2012!

Andrew in a fez

Dunes at Willapa

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Where the swale widens to the beach
and dune grass gives way to open sand,
my dogs have exhumed the body
of a harbor seal. Mummified
by wind, black-spotted fur flakes
off skin stretched over brown bones.

I find the pelvis, a femur, and four ribs.
Vertebrae bloom like flowers
on the damp sand. Each in its place,
I lay all that I’ve gathered:
Phalanges still connected by ligaments,
tibia and fibula together, scapula above,
ribs in rows down the spine.

With a driftwood spade, I set to work.
The odor of death blends with the scent
of kelp on the wind, with smoke
from a fire farther up the beach,
with the calls of gulls who hang
suspended in the air. A barrow rises
over the bones, ringed with stones
rolled smooth in the surf. Above,
clouds soar to the curving edge of the earth.

Ecliptic vertigo

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I looked up one evening recently and saw the crescent Moon, Venus, and Jupiter forming a line across the deepening twilight sky. Suddenly, it seemed as though I could actually feel the Earth’s axial tilt — the moon and the planets showed me what was truly “horizontal” in relation to the much bigger solar system of which the Earth is just a minuscule part.

Luna Venere e Giove su Palermo

Photo by Carlo Columba

At that moment, waiting for my bus, the universe opened beneath my feet. I looked across the ecliptic to Jupiter and felt as though I were standing on the slope of a steep mountain at the edge of the sea, a lighthouse beaming across the darkness from the far shore. Below the line formed by Jupiter and Venus, I stared down into the depths of space.

To keep from feeling as if I were about to slip off the face of the Earth, I grabbed hold of the bus stop sign.