Egypt Again

We lived in Cairo for the first third of 2010. I went back to do fieldwork in the Fayoum in fall 2012, well after the revolution, but nearing the height of the Morsi government’s power (and unpopularity). I hadn’t been back since. I went for several days at the end of November to the start of December to celebrate the marriage of a good friend I know from our time in Cairo in 2010. We spent only a day and a half in Cairo itself; we spent two days in El Gouna, a planned beach city on the Red Sea near the regional capital of Hurghada; and we spent about four days in transit, all told.

Nearly all large European cities have torn down their defensive walls. Middle Eastern capitals like Cairo, Istanbul, Damascus, and Jerusalem left them up. This section of the old city walls marks the northern end of Muizz street, at the Bab al Futuh (the Gate of Conquest).

Al Bab al Nasr (the Gate of Victory) through the Fatimid Walls in Islamic Cairo.

Entering the famous Khan el Khalili (where your relatives bought that red Turkish hat they brought back for you) from the “back” side, you go through the warren Darb al Asfar in Medieval Cairo. The old main shopping street (Muizz street) has been upgraded for the post-revolution tourist boom that has yet to arrive. If you go, wear stout shoes and see the back streets.

There is so much in this one image that I think I’m going to write a lecture on it.

What I really wanted to do was visit the Egyptian Museum again, which I did not get the chance to do after the revolution. In one of the most encouraging episodes of the Tahrir Square battles, ordinary Egyptians from all walks joined hands to form a human chain to defend their shared cultural heritage from looters.

Main hall of the Egyptian Museum in Cairo.

Panorama-mania!

Bury a textile, wait 3500 years, and see what miraculous preservation means.

I believe that this chariot was among the artifacts found in Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter.

Old school grill.

The best kind of cultural appropriation: when it’s impossible to disentangle the influences from the authors; then it’s just Culture.

I missed this statue, apparently of Tutankhamun, when I was there in 2010: it shows him with a thresher for separating grains of wheat from chaff.

Finally, just some images of the Cairo skyline. These were taken from Zamalek, looking SE across the Nile towards Tahrir Square. The haze is smog, due partly to urban air pollution and water vapour (evaporated from the river), but in large part to ash drifting in from the Nile Delta. Every year at this time, farmers burn the chaff and stubble remaining on their fields (mostly rice, I believe), which shrouds Cairo in smoke for about a month.