Lecture Offers a Virtual Journey Through Historic Cairo and Ancient Egypt

ALAMOGORDO — Local audiences can tour the pyramids, temples and royal tombs of Egypt without leaving southern New Mexico when David Greenwald of the Jornada Research Institute presents "Historic Cairo and Ancient Nile Explorations" on Tuesday, Oct. 20, at the Otero Artspace.

The free-standing lecture, part of the Otero Arts and Jornada Research Institute Lecture Series, begins at 6:30 p.m. Doors open at 6 p.m. The Otero Artspace is at 1118 Indiana Ave., at the corner of 12th Street and Indiana Avenue.

The presentation previews the Jornada Research Institute's Overseas Journeys Program trip to Egypt, which Greenwald will lead later in October and November. Attendees will follow the planned route as Greenwald describes each historic site and monument the tour group will visit.

The journey begins at Giza, with the Great Pyramids, the Great Sphinx and the wider Giza Necropolis, including a look inside the Pyramid of Khufu. From there the talk moves to Saqqara, home of the Step Pyramid and its mortuary complex, much of which has recently been opened to visitors.

The route then shifts south to Aswan and Abu Simbel, where Greenwald will discuss the massive salvage operation that relocated the Temple of Ramesses II and the Temple of Hathor and Nefertari to save them from rising waters. From the Aswan Dam, the group travels north by ship down the Nile to Luxor, stopping at temples dedicated to pharaohs who became historical legends, along with their elaborate tombs.

At ancient Thebes, the center of Egyptian power and a landscape of major temple building, the talk explores the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens, the burial grounds of Egypt's royal families for roughly 500 years. Greenwald will use the site to explain Egypt's decline at the end of the Bronze Age, around 1150 B.C., the later rise of the Ptolemaic Dynasty and Egypt's eventual absorption into the Roman Empire.

The presentation closes with a brief look at the spread of Christianity in Egypt and the era of Islamic rule in Cairo, including a visit to the medieval Citadel of Saladin.

Greenwald is affiliated with the Jornada Research Institute, which co-sponsors the lecture series with Otero Arts.

If you go

What: "Historic Cairo and Ancient Nile Explorations," presented by David Greenwald

When: Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026; doors open 6 p.m., lecture at 6:30 p.m.

Where: Otero Artspace, 1118 Indiana Ave. (12th and Indiana), Alamogordo

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