As you may now know (only because I’ve mentioned it in my previous posts!) I have started a journey to tour Cairo museums every Thursday, my day off, back in mid-2017 which allowed me to be some kind of an expert (please allow some pride here!).
As I was making my list of all the museums that I wanted to visit focusing more on unpopular places that people barely know about, I came across the Geological Museum in Maadi. I am not a geology freak or anything but I am definitely an explorer and a passionate learner. I couldn’t, by any means, miss a chance of unveiling what turned out to be a buried treasure in Cairo!
So on a hot summer Thursday, I went on an adventure in Cairo transportation to a place I haven’t visited much in the past to finally, fast breathing, tired and sweating, reach the museum. With a wide open jaw, I bought the 2-pound ticket because I never thought it would be that cheap (some other museums charge up to 50-pound tickets!).
I stepped inside that one large hall that made the museum to go several million years back in time seeing skeletons of dinosaurs kept in glass boxes that were found in Fayyoum, a city located near the eastern desert of Egypt. The museum contained an incredibly large number of fossils, skeletons, rocks of all kinds, colors, origins, and names that were either found in Egypt or given as gifts to the museum from Egyptian and foreign geologists.
In the museum, there was a small section dedicated to space. A part of it explained the layers of the earth and other planets. In a glass box, there were parts of the asteroid that hit the earth and fell in the Egyptian Eastern desert around 5000 years ago and was only discovered by Google Earth in 2010. As I was reading the labels in wonder and studying the items presented, I came across a strangely-looking box.
In the box, there was a small dark rock kept in what seemed like a crystal but turned to be an acrylic ball at the end and a small example of the old Egyptian flag and a note. The note, which was signed by Richard Nixon, the 37th American president, read:
This flag of your nation was carried to the moon aboard Spacecraft America during the Apollo 17 mission, December 7-1, 1972. Presented to the people of Arab Republic of Egypt from the people of the United States of America.
I fixated in front of the box for over 10 minutes trying to make sense of what I just read yet can’t because it seemed quite unbelievable since it hasn’t been (as far as I knew) publicly announced anywhere!
I went back home, googled it, and spent a couple of hours reading articles, posts and exploring forums until I finally came to an understanding.
During the Apollo 17 mission, astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Harrison Schmitt started an initiative to spread peace and harmony among the people of the world. During his Moonwalk, Cernan picked up a Moon rock which was later broken down into fragments and distributed to all countries of the world as well as all the American states. These rocks were called goodwill moon rocks.
I was really amazed by this discovery and felt quite happy for my country’s flag was as high as on the moon! Interestingly enough, it’s not exclusive to Egypt so your country’s flag as well has been taken to the moon! Now your job is to go find where your goodwill moon rock is kept and tell other people about it.
Spread peace and harmony and come back to Local Guides Connect and share how you felt about it with us.
