{"id":72,"date":"2007-06-07T22:59:57","date_gmt":"2007-06-07T12:59:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/?p=72"},"modified":"2007-06-07T22:59:57","modified_gmt":"2007-06-07T12:59:57","slug":"nile-river-cruise-visit-to-an-alabaster-factory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/egypt\/nile-river-cruise\/nile-river-cruise-visit-to-an-alabaster-factory","title":{"rendered":"A visit to an alabaster factory &#8211; Nile River Cruise"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"float: right\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"pub-1009507070974015\";\r\ngoogle_alternate_ad_url = \"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/google_adsense_script.html\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 300;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 250;\r\ngoogle_ad_format = \"300x250_as\";\r\ngoogle_ad_type = \"text_image\";\r\n\/\/2007-06-30: TSBlog 300x250\r\ngoogle_ad_channel = \"2928184950\";\r\ngoogle_color_border = \"FFFFFF\";\r\ngoogle_color_bg = \"FFFFFF\";\r\ngoogle_color_link = \"FF6600\";\r\ngoogle_color_text = \"000000\";\r\ngoogle_color_url = \"339933\";\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\n  src=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script><\/p>\n<p>After an intense historical\u00a0experience at the Valley of the Kings, we were treated to a visit of a lighter mode, which was a visit to an alabaster factory.\u00a0 In Egypt alabaster is found in two places, a few miles behind the Valley of the Kings\u00a0and the Malawi area.<\/p>\n<p>As we reached the factory building, there were men sitting on the floor and working on their pieces of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/Destination\/v\/Egypt\/ValleyKings\/IMG_4283.jpg.html\">raw alabaster<\/a>.\u00a0 We were treated to a demonstration of how they sanded the rock into beautiful objects like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/Destination\/v\/Egypt\/ValleyKings\/DSC_0692.jpg.html\">vases <\/a>and lamps.\u00a0 When we finally went into the building, it was like an aladdin&#8217;s cave full of alabaster products of all types.\u00a0 Most of them were machine made.\u00a0 The handmade alabaster objects are usually very thin, lighter in weight, waxy in feel and with a matte finish. The colors range from pure white to a rich creamy white, and sometimes they are streaked with various hues of warm, rusty reds.<span> <\/span>We were told that to see the true natural beauty of the colors and patterns, you should always ask to have the pieces you are looking at held to\u00a0the light.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia\">Alabaster is a fine-grained, translucent type of gypsum. <\/span><span style=\"font-family: Georgia\">It can be off-white or contain streaks of reddish brown. Alabaster is formed through the evaporation of bedded deposits which are precipitated from evaporating seawater. As it is a soft crystalline stone, it can be easily scratched by fingernail or easily broken. Because of its softness, alabaster is often used for decorative\u00a0vases or sacrificial vessels.\u00a0\u00a0 It was also common for walls and floors in pyramids to be covered by alabaster.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia\"><\/span>As we were leaving the factory, a young guy came up to me and wanted to trade his piece of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/Destination\/v\/Egypt\/ValleyKings\/DSC_0694.jpg.html\">alabaster for my ballpoint<\/a>.\u00a0 We haggled a little and when I finally gave him my pen, I could sense that he felt he had struck a great deal.\u00a0 I still have this piece of alabaster at home in my bowl of ornamental collections.<\/p>\n<p>Helen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After an intense historical\u00a0experience at the Valley of the Kings, we were treated to a visit of a lighter mode, which was a visit to an alabaster factory.\u00a0 In Egypt alabaster is found in two places, a few miles behind the Valley of the Kings\u00a0and the Malawi area. As we reached the factory building, there [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nile-river-cruise"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A visit to an alabaster factory - Nile River Cruise - Travel Signposts Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/egypt\/nile-river-cruise\/nile-river-cruise-visit-to-an-alabaster-factory\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Helen Page\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/egypt\/nile-river-cruise\/nile-river-cruise-visit-to-an-alabaster-factory\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/www.travelsignposts.com\/wordpress\/egypt\/nile-river-cruise\/nile-river-cruise-visit-to-an-alabaster-factory\",\"name\":\"A visit to an alabaster factory - 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