Pharaohs, Prisoners and Trees That Remembered

San Francisco: A City of Surprises

                                                                                                    -Anupama S Mani

When the staircase has a story to tell.

Heavy gold jewellery, intricate wood work, gilded masks, delicately painted anthropoid sarcophagi—all beautifully preserved and sitting right in front of my eyes—shocked me out of my poor knowledge zone about ancient Egypt.

In the windy morning with the sun still uncertain about how it wanted to behave, as it often does in San Francisco, we headed to the de Young Museum to enjoy the Treasure of the Pharaohs, an exhibition of 130 exquisite works spanning 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian history, showing significance, aesthetic sense and values associated with kingship.

The Pharaoh was considered both king and God. But what fascinated me was the seriousness with which the Egyptians prepared for death. They did not merely live their daily lives; they apparently planned their next life too—with considerable attention to the choice and quality of the objects that would accompany them.

For the Egyptians, death was a new beginning. And clearly, they believed in beginning it well equipped.

Left: Gold Shebyu or broad collar of Pharaoh Psusennes I
Right top: Necklace with shell-shaped pendants, antelope & bull pendants
Bottom: Solid gold bracelets and an anklet inlaid with semi-precious stones.

Pharaohs and wealthy people were often buried with multiple nested coffins inside a single massive stone sarcophagus for ultimate spiritual and physical protection. Jewellery, cosmetics or pots were obvious companions, but tools and furniture went along too.

One wonders what exactly one needs furniture for in the afterlife. Perhaps ancient Egyptians were simply unwilling to compromise on comfort.

Top: Ceremonial censer featuring the falcon head of Horus, a central cartouche box, and a sculpted hand holding an incense cup.
Bottom: Throne of Princess Sitamun

San Francisco, which honors the name of St Francis of Assisi, is the economic powerhouse of the USA, and is known for its multi-ethnic population, diverse architecture, Golden Gate Bridge, beautiful parks, theatres, business headquarters, and many other attractions.

With only two whole days in the city, the question was what to see and what to leave. And what did we choose after the museum?

Alcatraz- from Pharaohs to prisoners.

A guided tour of the famous Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary, just about 2 km from the mainland, sounded considerably more interesting than trying to tick off every famous San Francisco landmark.

The name Alcatraz comes from the Spanish La Isla de los Alcatraces, or Island of the Pelicans, given by Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala in 1775. The name was later anglicised to Alcatraz. And fittingly, the island now has thousands of seabirds of several species, including gulls.

Between 1909 and 1911, military prisoners repurposed an old U.S. Army fortress on the island into a federal prison. It ceased to be prison in 1963.

And once it became a federal prison, this subject of Escape from Alcatraz & The Rock and several other films, became unbreachable. Among its famous inmates were Al Capone, George “Machine Gun” Kelly and Rafael Cancel Miranda of the Puerto Rico Nationalist Party.

The climb of 13 floors to the top is a gruelling sentence of its own for visitors. There is a ‘tram’ for those unable to walk and I shamelessly made use of it. Why should I force my lazy knees and feet to pull the rest of me all the way up? And wasn’t it faster!

Inside the maximum-security penitentiary, there were reading, writing, music and painting as creative outlets. The prison also did not appear to have been as overcrowded as some other prisons around the world are known to have been. It held an average of about 260 prisoners in a facility designed for 320.

In fact, the unbelievable bit was that some prisoners actually requested transfer to Alcatraz because of its single-cell occupancy and relatively good food.

And the inmates got warm showers. Why? Because the authorities wanted them accustomed to warm water. Anyone contemplating an escape would know that the freezing waters of the San Francisco Bay were not quite the same thing.

View of a Cell 

The most famous escape attempt involved Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin who broke out of their cells after six months of planning. They disappeared in the Bay, and there is no confirmed evidence if they escaped successfully or drowned.

The only genuinely bone-chilling place in the whole premises was something strange — The Holes. They were the half a dozen pitch-dark cells with heavy solid steel doors instead of standard bars at the very end of D-Block. When the doors shut, no light entered. Guards put unruly inmates here for up to 14 days in complete darkness and sensory deprivation. Prisoners received only bread and water, and had a hole in the floor for a toilet.

The next morning, we chose something decidedly peaceful. We visited the lush, slightly humid, Muir Woods, federally protected as a national monument since 1908.

Named after naturalist John Muir, the park is on Mount Tamalpais near the Pacific coast and forms a part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Muir Woods is an old growth coastal redwood forest. Most of trees are between 500 and 800 years old, with the tallest at 258 feet or about 79 metres. The oldest is said to be 1,200 years old. There are Douglas firs, big-leaf maples, and tanbark oaks too and the forest floor has a lush growth of various kinds of ferns.

Tiny streams in the forest area are home to silver salmon, an endangered species, and steelhead which are threatened species.

More than 50 species of birds nest in the trees. Interestingly, the tannin in the redwood trees repels insects or there would have been more bird species, said the ranger.

Left: Historical timeline displayed on a massive redwood tree cross-section. 
Right: Looking up into the canopy of towering trees at Cathedral Grove.

And before I move on, a point about women’s contribution to the park.

In 1903, the California Club and some other women’s civic organizations rallied behind conservationists William and Elizabeth Kent to save several hundred acres of old redwood trees forest in Marin County from logging. The Kents purchased the forest land for $45,000 in 1905 and later donated it to the federal government, recommending that it be protected through the Antiquities Act.

And that is how, a forest that would have reduced to timber, survived.

During the founding of United Nations Conference on International Organization in San Francisco in 1945, delegates travelled to the redwood grove. The idea was that these towering ancient trees would provide a quiet, almost sacred space where people could gain perspective, healing, and a sense of time away from intense diplomatic negotiations.

The Memorial Plaque in Cathedral Grove Muir Woods, 1945 reads:            

"Here in this grove of enduring redwoods, preserved for posterity, members of the United Nations Conference on International Organization met on May 19, 1945, to honor the memory of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, thirty-first President of the United States, chief architect of the United Nations, and apostle of lasting peace for all mankind."

After the Pharaohs contemplating eternity and prisoners contemplating escape, perhaps there was nowhere more appropriate than a forest containing trees that had already been standing for centuries- no human planning, no engineering, just nature doing its thing for hundreds of years.

The surface is firm and there are flat trails, making Muir Woods one of the more accessible places to see the redwoods. Since early 2018, the National Park Service has had a reservation system limiting the number of vehicles entering the park each day.

And before I forget, let me say something for the foodies.

San Francisco offers a mind-boggling array of cuisines. Mexican, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Indian, Filipino—the choices seem endless. And then there is the famous sourdough, seafood and the enormous Mission burrito. But what pleased my taste buds immensely was discovering that Burmese cuisine in the city does not limit itself to ‘khao suey’, our familiar version of ohn no khao swè. There was, thankfully, much more to it.

United Nation delegates from 46 nations, in a memorial service for President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Muir Woods National Monument. (Photo circa 1945.) Save The Redwoods League: National Park Service

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