Cario and Egypt Tourism

A Changing City, 1970
Elizabeth Warnock Fernea

Along the river the changes are even more dramatic. Standing on the steps of the Museum of Antiquities, it is difficult to imagine that the view across Liberation Square to the river did not exist twenty years ago, that this central section of modern Cairo was occupied by the British Army. By cutting a riverside highway through the old army compound and building beside the highway the pleasant tree-shaded esplanade of the Corniche, the president gave to his people the view and the freedom of the Nile banks, which had once been reserved for a few British officials and titled Egyptians.

Cairo

He extended Maidan Ismailia across the British parade grounds, planted trees and grass and flowers, erected mobile film screens, folk art museums. In a decade the focus of the modern city has shifted to this maidan, renamed Liberation Square; a cluster of new buildings has risen to encircle it. Beside the old Museum of Antiquities, long still pools reflect the blue and orange mosaic tiles flaring across the facade of the Nile Hilton; nearby stand the Arab League headquarters, the new Shepheard’s Hotel, the Cairo town hall, and the Egyptian radio and television studios.

He may not have realised it, but President Nasser was only carrying one step further the tradition of other leaders and conquerors throughout the history of the Near East, who in times of peace have used their power to create gardens, surroundings of beauty in which to enjoy their leisure. The Arabic word for paradise is El Genneh, literally, the garden, and what could be more heavenly than a lush garden in a region of the world where eighty percent of the land is dry, arid desert?

In the past, of course, the leaders pleasured only themselves. As early as the sixth century, in Fustat, the original army camp from which Cairo proper grew, Khumarawayh, son of Ibn Tulun, was busy silvering and gilding the trees in his palace grounds.

The Mameluke lord, Emir Ezbek, home from the wars in the fifteenth century, built a pleasure lake in Cairo, where “floated the flowers of the yellow water lily.” Later, beside this lake Napoleon set up his headquarters and here the first Shepheard’s Hotel of whodunit fame was eventually built.

It was the great Albanian Mohammed Ali who was responsible for the first “public” garden. He filled in the lake, landscaped it and opened it to the fashionable citizens of Victorian Cairo.

But the Ezbekiyah Gardens, commemorating the old emir who watched the yellow water lilies, charged an entrance fee, which effectively screened its clientele. President Nasser’s idea of free gardens for everyone’s enjoyment is relatively modern; we were glad that one such garden was so close to us.

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The Baths of Cairo, c. 1200

The Baths of Cairo, c. 1200
Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi

The Egyptian baths are also worthy of admiration. I have never seen better constructed or better positioned, nor more excellent for beauty and wisdom. Their pools, to begin with, are capable of each containing two to four corner basins or more. The water is conveyed by two taps, one for hot water, the other for cold water. Those who would bathe themselves descend into the basin and plunge into the water.

Baths of Cairo

Inside these baths are cabinets furnished with doors, where one undresses; there are special cabinets for persons of distinction so that they do not mix with common persons, and do not appear naked in public. This room for undressing is well arranged and constructed. In the middle is a marble basin ornamented with columns which support a dome. The ceilings of all these places are ornamented with paintings; the walls are divided by white panels. The pavement is of marbles of various colours and sections, those of the interior being always more beautiful than those of the exterior. These baths are very light, the roofs are very high. All the vases are of various brilliant colours, clear and very elegant. In a word, when one enters one wishes never to leave, and in fact, when a prince at enormous expense builds himself a house, he spares nothing to embellish his dwelling, and he never fails to make a most beautiful bath.

Cairo’s gardens and parks are an inheritance from the past the green lungs of a throbbing metropolis. Elizabeth Fernea acclaimed the gardens and the people who created them; the German journeyman Holthaus found in the gardens, as elsewhere, sites that link Cairo to the infant Jesus.

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Streets, Houses and Palaces of Cairo Egypt

Streets, Houses, and Palaces of Cairo, c. 1612
George Sandys

Some of those streets I have found two miles in length, some not a quarter so long; every one of them is locked up in the night, with a door at each end, and guarded by a musketeer, whereby fire, robberies, tumults, and other disorders are prevented.

Palaces of Egypt

Without the city, towards the wilderness, to stop sudden incursions of the Arabs from abroad, there watch on horseback four Sanjiaks, with each of them a thousand horsemen.

This city is built after the Egyptian manner, high, and of large rough stone, part of brick, the streets being narrow. It hath not yet been above one hundred years in the Turks’ possession, wherefore the old buildings remain; but, as they decay, the new to be after the Turkish manner, poor, low, much of mud and timber; yet, of the modern fabrics, I must except diverse new palaces which I have seen, both of Turks, and such Egyptians as most engage against their own country and so flourish in its oppression. I have oft gone to view them and their entertainments, . . .

The palaces I found vast and high, no state or flourish outwardly; the first court spacious, set with fair trees for shade, where are several beasts or rare birds, and wonderful even in those parts; the inner court joined to delicious gardens, watered with fountains and rivulets; beside the infinite variety of strange plants, there wanted no shade from trees of cassia, oranges, lemons, figs of Pharaoh, tamarinds, palms, and others, amongst which pass very frequently chameleons.

Cairo Houses

The entry into the house, and all the rooms throughout, are paved with many several-coloured marbles, put into fine figures; so likewise the walls, but in mosaic of a less cut; the roof laid with thwart beams, a foot and a half distant, all carved, great and double gilt; the windows with grates of iron, few with glass, as not desiring to keep out of the wind, and to avoid the glimmering of the sun, which in those hot countries glass would break with too much dazzling upon the eye. The floor is made with some elevations a foot high, where they sit to eat and drink; those are covered with rich tapestries; the lower pavement is to walk upon, where in the chief dining chamber, according to the capacity of the room, is made one or more richly gilt fountains in the upper end of the chamber, which, through secret pipes, supplies in the middle of the room, a dainty pool, either round or four-square, triangular or of other figure, as the lace requires ... so neatly kept, and the water so clear, as make apparent the exquisite mosaic at the bottom; herein are preserved a kind of fish of two or three feet long, like barbells, which have often taken bread out of my hand, sucking it from my fingers at the top of the water.

But that which to me seemed more magnificent than all this was my entertainment. Entering one of these rooms, I saw at the upper end, amongst others sitting cross-legged, the Lord of the Palace, who beckoning me to come, I first put off my shoes, as the rest had done, then bowing very often, with my hand on my breast, came near; where he making me sit down, there attended ten or twelve handsome young pages, all clad in scarlet, with crooked daggers and scimitars, richly gilt; four of them came with a sheet of taffety and covered me; another held a golden incense with rich perfumes, wherewith being a little smoked, they took all away; next came two with sweet water, and sprinkled me; after that, one brought a porcelain dish of coffee, which when I had drunk, another served up a glass of excellent sherbet. Then began our discourse. ... In their questions and replies, I noted the Egyptians to have a touch of the merchant or Jew, with a spirit not so soldier-like and open as the Turks, but more discerning and pertinent.

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Buildings of Cairo Egypt

The Buildings of Cairo, c. 1200
Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi

One notices in the buildings of the Egyptians a marvellous art and a very wise disposition of the parts; it is very rare to leave any place unused which has no purpose. Their palaces are vast: usually they make their abode in the upper floors, and are practical enough to make the openings of their Cairo houses exposed to the agreeable winds from the north. One sees hardly any Cairo houses which have not their ventilators. Their ventilators are tall and wide and open to every action of the wind; they are placed carefully with much skill.

Buildings of Cairo

The markets and streets in Egypt are very wide and the buildings very high. They construct them of hewn stone and red bricks. . . . They construct the latrine drains very solidly, and I found in a ruined palace these drains still existing in good condition. They dug the trenches until water was found, in a manner so that for a very long time there was no need to clean them out.

Cairo Buildings

When they build a tenement Cairo houses , a palace for a prince, or a covered market, they get an engineer and entrust its execution to him. He comes to the place, which is on a slight elevation or platform, devises a plan in his mind, and arranges all the parts of the plan, following the kind of building required. After this he undertakes successively the various parts one after the other, and finishes the whole in a way so that as each part is finished it is inhabited, until all is completed. One part finished, he undertakes another, and so on till the whole building in all its parts is united, without their being any fault or omission to be remedied afterwards.

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Looking down across Cairo, 1834

Looking down across Cairo, 1834 
Hon. W.E. Fitzmaurice

The two following days we amused ourselves by seeing the various mosques and curious buildings about Cairo; in the evening I strolled up to Sifa, which overlooks the Citadel.

Mohamed Ali Mosque

It is a scene that one would never tire of: standing on a bed of high rocks you have a most beautiful panorama before you of every description of scenery. In the foreground are the Tombs of the Mamelukes, Old Cairo stretching out beyond the river; here and there the eye rests on an Arab village with its minaret and grove of palms; in the distance the Pyramids seem to increase in size as the sun sinks behind them in the gloom of the desert, and occasionally you catch a turn of the majestic river, as it winds its way down this beautiful valley, bearing verdure and fertility on its dimpled waters; reminding one of the beautiful lines in the opening of Rasselas [the novel by James Bruce, the Scottish explorer], where truly may it be styled, ‘The Father of Waters’, and as truly does it scatter over half the world the harvest of Egypt.

The most splendid and charming among the buildings of the city are the mosques some grand and dominant in their neighborhoods; others a homely part of a small community. Other great buildings, too, have made their impact on travelers.

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Canals Cut through the Cairo Egypt

Canals Cut through the City, 1039
Naser-e Khosraw

In the midst of the houses in the city are gardens and orchards watered by wells. In the sultan’s harem are the most beautiful gardens imaginable. Waterwheels have been constructed to irrigate these gardens. There are trees planted and pleasure parks built even on the roofs. At the time 1 was there, a house on a lot twenty by twelve ells was being rented for fifteen dinars a month.

Egyptian Mosque

The house was four stories tall, three of which were rented out. The tenant wanted to take the topmost floor also for [an additional] five dinars, but the landlord would not give it to him, saying that he might want to go there sometimes, although, during the year we were there, he did not come twice. These houses are so magnificent and fine that you would think they were made of jewels, not of plaster, tile and stone! All the houses of Cairo are built separate one from another, so that no one’s trees or outbuildings are against anyone else’s walls. Thus, whenever anyone needs to, he can open the walls of his house and add on, since it causes no detriment to anyone else.

Going west outside the city, you find a large canal called al-Khalij [Canal], which was built by the father of the present sultan, who has three hundred villages on his private property along the canal. The canal was cut from Old to New Cairo, where it turns and runs past the sultan’s palace. Two kiosks are built at the head of the canal, one called Lulu [Pearl] and the other Jawhara [jewel].

Cairo is huge, yet from almost every part of it one can glimpse the Citadel high above the city, built there by Salah al-Din, or Saladin, and now dominated by the twin minarets and dome of the mosque of Muhammad ‘Ali.

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Cairo Citadel Facts

The Citadel above Cairo, 1819
John Fuller

The Citadel is built on a rock detached from the chain of the Moccatam mountains, which approach very near to the town on the eastern side. Before the invention of gunpowder its position was considered very strong, but it is commanded from the neighbouring ridges. This circumstance, however, has not hindered the Pasha from expending large sums of money in repairing the walls and approaches, which had become much dilapidated by time, and by the several cannonadings which the castle had suffered during the occupation and after the expulsion of the French.

Citadel above Cairo

The works were not yet completed, but the Pasha’s Seraglio, built on the side of the rock which is steepest and which overlooks the city, was finished, and occasionally occupied by him. It consists of a very spacious hall, communicating with several large apartments, which besides the usual Turkish luxuries of cushions and divans, are furnished with mirrors, clocks and other specimens of European refinement, and are ornamented with some tolerable landscapes, painted in fresco on the walls by Greek and Armenian artists from Constantinople. Without, the prospect is vast and impressive, combining the extremes of prosperity and desolation. The governor of Egypt may view with pride from the windows of his palace the city of Cairo, with its countless domes and busy population, the rich fields of the Delta, and the Nile which brings him the tribute of twenty provinces.

Cairo Citadel

Pyramids on one side, and the deserted tombs of the Mameluke sultans on the other, memorials of dynasties which have passed away before their works have perished, may remind him of the instability of his power. The other curiosities of the Citadel have been fully described by every traveller who has written on Egypt for the last two hundred years.

The Well of Joseph as it is called, whatever may have been its origin, is a very remarkable excavation, being cut nearly three hundred feet deep in the solid rock, with a spacious gallery round it, extending spirally from top to bottom. The Hall of Joseph or Yussuf, is now referred to the prince of that name, better known as Sultan Saladin; ... a large and lofty oblong building, constructed with what we would call Saxon arches, supported on granite pillars.

Though it has long been roofless, yet such is the serenity of the climate that some inscriptions in the ancient Cusic character on a wooden frieze which runs round the interior, remain almost unimpaired. It is now used as a magazine for artillery, of which we saw a great variety of different ages and countries, from the Venetian of the fifteenth to the French and English of the nineteenth century [this magazine blew up in 1824], In front of the Seraglio was stationed a large body of the cavalry of the Pasha’s guard, whose appearance reminded us of what we had read of Mameluke splendour, and exceeded in picturesque effect any military display which I have seen in Europe. From the bright and varied hues of the dresses and turbans, and the richness of the equipments, the square which they occupied when seen from a distance looked like a bed of the gayest flowers.

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Interesting Facts about Cairo Egypt

Water and Minarets, 1868
Reverend A.C. Smith

Then the strange architecture, the really handsome fountains, which abound at the comers of the bazaars for the continual refreshment of this water-loving people; the mosques, many of which have no slight pretensions to beauty, above all the minarets, the most graceful and elegant of buildings, and which catch the eye at the distant ends of the streets; the light and airy lattice-work of the windows, which admits the air, but keeps out prying eyes from the rigidly secluded interior; these and many a charming bit of detail, on which one continually stumbles in the more retired part of this extensive city, made our daily rides through the streets of Cairo fascinating and amusing during the whole of our stay.

Ancient Egyptian Nile

At intervals, and more especially at the quieter hours of evening and night, came the musical chant of the Muezzins from the galleries of the tall minarets, calling the faithful to prayer; and as the solemn sound of these aerial invitations to devotion float over the city, it seems like the melodious voice of angels calling out of heaven: “God is great. God is merciful. There is no Deity but God: Mahommed is the Apostle of God. Come to prayer, come to prayer. Prayer is better than sleep. There is no Deity but God.”

But what continually came uppermost in the minds of us all, and I suppose of most of my fellow countrymen in Cairo, was the strong feeling we had that we were living in the midst of the scenes so familiar to us in childhood from that favourite book, The Arabian Nights Entertainments, but never realised till now.

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Khan El Khalile in Cairo Egypt and Interesting Facts

Somewhere to Stay, 1855
Richard Burton

The “Wakalah”, as the Caravanserai or Khan is called in Egypt, combines the office of hotel, lodging-house, and store. It is at Cairo, as at Constantinople, a massive pile of buildings surrounding a quadrangular “Hosh” or court-yard. On the ground-floor are rooms like caverns for merchandise, and shops of different kinds tailors, cobblers, bakers, tobacconists, fruiterers, and others.

Khan El Khalile

A roofless gallery or a covered verandah, into which all the apartments open, runs round the first and sometimes the second story: the latter, however, is usually exposed to the sun and wind. The accommodations consist of sets of two or three rooms, generally an inner one and an outer; the latter contains a hearth for cooking, a bathing- place, and similar necessaries.

The staircases are high, narrow, and exceedingly dirty; dark at night, and often in bad repair; a goat or donkey is tethered upon the different landings; here and there a fresh skin is stretched in process of tanning, and the smell reminds the veteran traveller of those closets in the old French inn where cats used to be prepared for playing the part of jugged hare.

The interior is unfurnished; even the pegs upon which clothes are hung have been pulled down for fire-wood: the walls are bare but for stains, thick cobwebs decend in festoons from the blackened rafters of the ceiling, and the stone floor would disgrace a civilised prison: the windows are huge apertures carefully barred with wood or iron, and in rare places show remains of glass or paper pasted over the framework. In the court-yard the poorer sort of travellers consort with tethered beasts of burden, beggars howl, and slaves lie basking and scratching themselves upon mountainous heaps of cotton bales and other merchandise.

This is not a tempting picture, yet is the Wakalah a most amusing place, presenting a succession of scenes which would delight lovers of the Dutch school a rich exemplification of the grotesque, and what is called by artists the “dirty picturesque”.

I could find no room in the Wakalah, Khan Kahlil, the Long’s, or Meurice’s of native Cairo; I was therefore obliged to put up with the Jamaliyah, a Greek quarter, swarming with drunken Christians, and therefore about as fashionable as Oxford Street or Covent Garden. Even for this I had to wait a week. The pilgrims were flocking to Cairo, and to none other would the prudent hotel keepers open their doors, for the following sufficient reasons.

When you enter a Wakalah, the first thing you have to do is to pay a small sum, varying from two to five shillings, for the Miftah (the key). This is generally equivalent to a month’s rent; so the sooner you leave the house the better for it. I was obliged to call myself a Turkish pilgrim in order to get possession of two most comfortless rooms, which I afterwards learned were celebrated for making travellers ill; and I had to pay eighteen piastres for the key and eighteen ditto per mensem for rent, besides five piastres to the man who swept and washed the place. So that for this month my house- hire amounted to nearly four pence a day.

Above the seething city of Cairo the minarets continue to point heavenward, still dominating the skyline, and, unless one is too dazed by the traffic-covered veneer of the city, the visitor can still be as astonished by Cairo as Reverend Smith was in 1868. Many have felt in Cairo that they had wandered into the world of the Thousand and One Nights.

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Fostat in Cairo Egypt

The Cities that Make Up Cairo, c. 960
Ebn Haukal

The chief city of Egypt is called Fostat, situated on the bank of the River Nile to the north. The Nile flows from the east; and this city is situated on one side of it. Near to it are certain edifices, called Jezireh, or the Island, to which they pass from Fostat on a bridge; and from this Jezireh they have constructed a bridge to the other bank, where there is a place called Jeirah [Giza], The extent of the city is about two thirds of a farsang: it is very well inhabited, and supplied with provisions; all their houses are seven or eight storeys high. . . . Hamra is a town situated on the bank of the River Nile.

Fostat Egypt

It has two principal mosques: one in the middle of the town built by Amru ben Aas; and the other in the place called Mouekef, erected by Laaher ben Toulon. Without the town is a certain place of about a mile in extent, which that Laaher Toulon called to be built for his troops: this they call Fetaia or Ketaia. . . . On the northern side of the river Nile, near Fostat, there is a certain hill, called Moazem, in the vicinity of which is found the khemahein, and this hill extends to the land of the Ionians (Greeks). And near that hill, in the district of Fostat, is a burying place, where the tomb of Shafaei is situated, the Lord be merciful to him!

In the vicinity of Fostat, there grows a plant, called balsam, from which the oil is extracted. This is not to be found in any other part of the world.

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Cairo the Mother of Cities

Cairo | Mother of Cities
Cairo changes daily and yet has remained the same for centuries. The Cairo of al- Muqaddasi at the end of the first millennium and that of Ibn Battuta, in 1326, is the Cairo that visitors and residents know today. One only has to step off a busy street into the garden of a mosque or into one of the narrow lanes that run between buildings or pass into the spice market to step back to timeless Cairo.

Cairo

Cairo, c. 1000 
al-Muqaddasi
Al-Fustat [old Cairo] is a metropolis in every sense of the word; here are together all the departments of government’s administration, and moreover, it is the seat of the Commander of the Faithful. It sets apart the Occident from the domain of the Arabs, is of wide extent, its inhabitants many. The region around is well cultivated. Its name is renowned, its glory increased; for truly it is the capital of Egypt. It has superseded Baghdad, and is the glory of Islam, and is the market place for all mankind.

It is more sublime than the City of Peace [Baghdad], It is the storehouse of the Occident, the entrepot of the Orient, and is crowded with people at the time of the Pilgrimage festival. Among the capitals there is none more populous than it, and it abounds in noble and learned men. Its goods of commerce and specialities are remarkable, its markets excellent as is its mode of life. Its baths are the peak of perfection, its bazaars splendid and handsome. Nowhere in the realm of Islam is there a mosque more crowded than here, nor people more handsomely adorned, no shore with a greater number of boats.

It is more populous than Naysabur, more splendid than al-Basra, larger than Damascus. Victuals here are most appetizing, their savouries superb. Confectionaries are cheap, bananas plentiful, as are fresh dates; vegetables and firewoods are abundant. The water is palatable; the air salubrious. It is a treasury of learned men; and the winter here is agreeable. The people are well-disposed, and well-to-do, marked by kindness and charity.

Their intonation in reciting the Qur’an is pleasant, and their delight in good deeds is evident; the devoutness of their worship is well-known throughout the world. They have rested secure from injurious rains, and safe from the tumult of evildoers. They are most discriminating in the selection of the preacher and the leader in prayer; nor will they appoint anyone to lead them but the most worthy, regardless of expense to themselves. Their judge is always dignified, their muhtasih deferred to like a prince. They are never free from the supervision of the ruler and the minister. Indeed were it not that it has faults aplenty, this city would be without compare in the world.

The town stretches for about two-thirds of a farsakh, in tiers one above the other. It used to consist of two quarters, al-Fustat and al-Jiza, but late on, one of the khalifs of the house of al-Abbas had a canal cut around a portion of the town, and this portion became known as al-Jaziri (the island), because of its lying between the main course of the river and the canal. The canal itself was named the “canal of the Commander of the Faithful,” and from it the people draw their drinking water.

Their buildings are of four storeys or five, just as are lighthouses; the light enters them from a central area. I have heard it said that about two hundred people live in one building. In fact, when al-Hassan bin Ahmad al-Qarmati arrived there, the people came out to meet him; seeing them, as he considered, like a cloud of locusts, he was alarmed, and asked what this meant. The reply was: “These are the sightseers of Misr; those who did not come out more numerous still.”

Coming through North Africa from Tangier to make the pilgrimage to Mecca, Ibn Battuta traveled up the Nile from Alexandria to the city of Misr Cairo.

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By Train to Cairo

By Train to Cairo, 1883 
Gabriel Charmes

I return to Alexandria, to take the train there which is to conduct me to Cairo. Hardly have we crossed the Lake Mareotis, where are produced on fine days the most fairy-like mirages, when we find ourselves really in Egypt. Vast plains, richly cultivated, spread out on all sides as far as the horizon, not closed by a single hill. Canals intersect them everywhere. On the banks of these canals, fellah, with or without costume, raise water by means of a chadouf and nattaleh.

Train to Cairo

The shelving banks serve for roads, and a considerable crowd may be seen there moving on. Sometimes it is an Arab who is fleeing on horseback at full gallop; sometimes a fellah walking slowly, leaning on a long staff; sometimes a woman covered with a black veil, her head bearing a heavy burthen, which does not hinder her from carrying on her raised hand a gargoulette filled with water, and holding a naked child astride her shoulders. A file of camels, with the head of each tied to the tail of the one that precedes, moves on solemnly. Black buffaloes graze in the fields on the giant trefoil called bersim. A child watches them while a flock of herons fly around them, and pitch, without ceremony, on their hardened backs.

A series of towns and villages are met with: Damanhour, which the soldiers in Bonaparte’s expedition imagined to be a city of the Thousand and One Nights, Tel-el-Barout, Kafr-el-Zaiat, Tantah, whose fair recalls the most scandalous saturnalia of antiquity, etc.

The wide river rolls its yellow waves under a sky of azure through an endless plain covered with the richest products. The temperature changes abruptly; it becomes sensibly warmer; now, we indeed enter Egypt.

By degrees the valley gets narrower; the yellow line of the desert appears; the Pyramids, rose tinted in the morning light, rise in the horizon; at last the mosque of Mehemet Ali, which commands Cairo, lifts its cupola and two-pointed minarets on the summit of the hill of Mokkatam. A forest of cupolas and minarets rise everywhere. We are arrived.

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Sahara City in Cairo Egypt

From the Hotel Mena House it takes an hour on horseback for the round-trip excursion to Sahara City. “Sahara” means “desert,” and as the name implies, the city lies right in the middle of the desert.' The city itself is really just a collection of tents which are nightclubs. The nightclubs operate throughout the summer season with their own belly dancers.

Sahara City Cairo

A few of the more adventurous tourists do their sightseeing from the back of a camel. Staying on a camel’s back, especially with the disturbing undulating motion as the animal walks, can be hard work if the rider is inexperienced, so this should be carefully considered before attempting camel riding.

The turf of the golf course in front of the hotel is not the best because of the dry desert climate. Nevertheless, there is a rather expansive feeling about taking a swing in the direction of the Pyramids, as if one is somehow propelling a small white ball backward in time, through thousands of years to antiquity.

Many tourists erroneously think that the three Great Pyramids at Giza are the only ones in Egypt, but there are actually some sixty or more located a little further south. The most famous of these lesser-known monuments is the Step Pyramid of Saqqarah. The Step Pyramid was built around 2800 B.C. for King Zoser Neterikhet. The king had come from Nubia in the soifth and established the Memphis Dynasty which ruled the Sinai Peninsula and Nubia. He constructed a capital at Memphis on the west bank of the Nile, just east of the pyramid fields at Saqqarah. These pyramids were the burial places of the kings of Memphis, but at the city of Memphis is a small alabaster sphinx with the face of Ramses II and a mammoth statue of him lying full-length on the sand. Erosion has done its work on the part of the statue directly in contact with the sand so that it now crumbles away at a touch. A second statue of Ramses II was moved from Memphis in 1955 and placed in front of Cairo Central Station.

Sahara City Cairo

A sight that should not be missed at Saqqarah is the Serapeum, one of the subterranean tombs of the sacred Apis bulls. In the great alabaster slab containing their mummified remains, one can almost see the animals’ blood flowing in the veins.

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End of my Journey in Cairo Egypt

On Adly Road, going west from Opera Square is a tea shop called “Groppy” which serves the most delicious ice cream and sherbet I have ever tasted. King Hussein of Jordan is supposed to be extremely fond of it and reportedly he orders from the shop whenever he comes to Cairo. There is also a restaurant and grocery store with the same name on Talaat Harb Square, famous for its dried fish roe which is sold as a souvenir to foreign tourists.

Opera Square Cairo

The famous Continental-Savoy Hotel stands in front of Opera House Square. An old hotel, it became the favorite of archaeologists engaged in the 1922 excavation of the tomb of Tutankhamen. From the balcony of the hotel, the view includes the luxuriant growth of the trees in the Ezbekieh Gardens, Mt. Mokkatthuam, the twin minarets and the beautiful soft green dome of the Mohammed Ali Mosque in the distance.

The site where the mosque now stands was once occupied by the Citadel of Saladin, the fort of the brave Saracen warrior who broke up the armies of the Crusaders. The area northeast and southwest of the citadel is a living historical stage crowded with exquisite mosques and the Khan-el-Khalili Bazaar, the City of the Dead, and Old Cairo.

Son et Lumiire performances given every evening at the Citadel of Saladin relive the past. In a.d. 641, General Amr of the advancing Islamic army made his camp on the east bank of the Nile at the spot known as “Al Fustat” (The Tent) which later became the site of the city of Cairo. Amr Mosque, built by General Amr is the oldest mosque in Cairo. It still exists today at Al Fustat, as do the remains of part of the walls of the old citadel. At its height, this was a flourishing capital, second only to Bagdhad. With the discovery of a number of relics of Chinese pottery in the vicinity in recent years, there is growing interest in the theory that the Silk Road, which linked the Middle and Near East with China, may have come as far as Al Fustat.

Citadel of Saladin

The town moved every hundred years or so, mirroring the changes in the dynasties. In a.d. 751, with a military dynasty, it was called Aska. In a.d. 870, this was superceded by Qataiya, which in turn was followed in 969 by a move towards the north with the advent of a new dynasty.

During the Fatamite Dynasty (904-1171), the rulers ordered a new capital to be built. As the architects worked through the night to design the new capital, the light of the planet Mars, which they knew, inspired them. The name of this planet, Kahira, was given to the new capital. Kahira, which also has the meaning of “victory,” was rendered in English as Cairo the name of the present city.

This is the story that is retold nightly on the stage of the old citadel. In the nineteenth century, Mohammed Ali, who had been dispatched by the Turks, lured about 500 Mameluke soldiers into the citadel, and then, suddenly closing the gates, killed them all just one tale in the bloody history of the citadel. Warriors killed in the battle were buried in the cemetry at the foot of Mt. Mokkatthuam.

Old Cairo is pervaded by smells of earth and sweat. On entering this part of the town, one is bombarded by dust, noise and perfume. Foul-smelling piles of rotting fruit and vegetable scraps are thrown daily into the streets. Energetic children splash enthusiastically in the muddy puddles that spot the street. The area pulsates positively with life. But it also has several taxidermists’ shops, and it is a rather weird feeling watching a taxidermist prepare a stuffed animal or bird and wondering whether he would be able to undertake the mummification of a human being.

No tourist leaves Cairo without visiting the 600-year-old Khan-el-Khalili Bazaar. Its tiny, winding streets glitter with gold, silver and copper jewelry. They overflow with leather crafts, accessories and antiques of every kind. The air is heavy with an exotic mixture of the smell of roast lamb, the street cries of fresh water vendors and the wafting fragrance of incense of every imaginable kind. For some, the scents can be a bit heady and are likely to cause a sneeze or two. The bazaar features shops selling dubious aphrodisiacs. According to one proprietor, the main component comes from some part of a whale and can be taken in coffee. He needs no encouragement to show off bundles of letters, reputedly to have been sent in appreciation from “satisfied customers” around the world. With a grin, he will say, “Of course, I can guarantee absolutely satisfactory results.”

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Liberation Square in Cairo - Tahrir

Stepping into Liberation Square at the back of the Hilton Hotel, one finds the Egyptian Museum right in front. A magnificent collection of artifacts are laid out rather haphazardly, and if a specialist devoted his whole life to browsing through the museum, he would never see everything there is to see. Some years ago when a number of the more precious items were being evaluated for insurance purposes, their value was estimated at around five billion Egyptian pounds (U.S. $13 billion).

Liberation Square in Cairo - Tahrir

The museum is cramped, some of the windows are broken, and occasionally birds fly into the exhibition hall. Only the exhibits in the Tutankhamen Collection have been well arranged, and there are plans for building a separate museum which will be entirely devoted to this collection. If it is built, “Old King Tut’s” burial accouterments will be displayed in a museum located beside the Great Pyramids at Giza.

I must have visited the museum more than fifty times but one of the few things that always disappointed me was the fact that the Rosetta Stone displayed there is an imitation. The actual stone is housed in the British Museum in London. The Rosetta Stone was found in 1799 by Napoleon’s invading armies. It contained identical inscriptions in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, demotic characters and ancient Greek. By comparing the three languages, the learned French Egyptologist Jean Francois Cham- pollion in 1822 succeeded in deciphering the inscription.

The deciphered hieroglyphs were the key that opened the gate to understanding ancient Egyptian civilization. Since I could not see the actual stone in Egypt, I tried to see it during a brief visit to London but could not even see it there because the stone was then on loan for an exhibition in Paris! The British Museum was, however, selling exact plaster replicas of the stone for as little as U.S. $100, and those surpassed the poor copy on display in the museum in Cairo.

The Rosetta Stone is not the only treasure that the Egyptians have lost. A native guide at the museum told me that much larger pieces such as famous obelisks and relics from the age of the Pharaohs had also been taken abroad, because, as he said, clenching his fists, “It is regrettable that in the past so many of our leaders were fools.”

Most people think that the Red Sea and the Mediterranean were linked for the first time by the opening of the Suez Canal, but there was a smaller canal already in existence at the time the Suez was opened, and through the ages there have been a number of canals connecting the Red Sea and the Nile. The earliest record of a water link between the two waters dates to the reign of Darius I who lived from B.C. 521 to 486. The Darius Stele exhibited in Gallery Thirty-Five in the east wing of the ground floor of the museum carries an inscription describing the celebrations marking the opening of a canal.

Just a short walk from where the ten roads meet in Liberation Square is the Kasr El Nil Theatre. Here Umm Kalthoum, the famous Egyptian singer, who was loved not only by her own people but by Arabs everywhere, occasionally gave recitals. She died in February, 1975, at the age of seventy-seven, buf the songs she made famous—songs showing her love for the Arabs—are still played daily on the radio all over the Arab world, and her records are still selling. Y Habibi—Oh! My Love—which she was singing right up until her death, was her theme song. I can remember the sultry tones of her voice even now.

Mrs. Kalthoum had a most extraordinary voice. Whereas the ordinary singer can hold a single note for a maximum of forty seconds, she could hold a note for more than a minute and a half. Because the chorus was repeated, she could make one tune last for over two hours. Someone even did a doctoral thesis for the University of Cairo titled “An Analysis of the Voice of Umm Kalthoum.” According to his thesis, her voice vibrated 14,000 times per second, three times that of the average person.

Mrs. Kalthoum’s private villa was situated on the west bank of Zamalek, quite near my own apartment. During my strolls, I often saw her sitting on the verandah of her rose-colored villa overlooking the Nile drinking tea with her family.

On the eastern edge of the 26 of July Street are the Ezbekieh Gardens, which were bound on one side by the Opera House. Built in 1869 to commemorate the opening of the Suez Canal, Verdi composed Aida to mark the construction of the Opera House. He was unable to finish Aida in time for the opening, so it was celebrated instead with a performance of the composer’s Rigoletto. The Opera House had to wait three more years before its commemorative work was finally performed there.

The Opera House and all of its historical records were completely destroyed by fire one morning in 1971. No opera house has been built to take its place.

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Israeli Air Force was still making air raids around Cairo

For some time after my arrival, the Israeli Air Force was still making air raids in the area around Cairo. The residential quarter of Cairo, the Maadi, is situated in the south. When the Maadi was being attacked, the glass in the windows of my apartment shook and rattled ominously. For a while the noise of the traffic would die down, and the silence that usually accompanied the hottest part of the afternoon would reign. The camels would sit out the attack at the side of the road, their bodies neatly compact, their long legs folded under them and their eyes tightly shut. I can remember often watching them, completely fascinated.

October 1973 Egypt

A frequent topic of conversation at the Press Center during that time was how to cross the Nile from the island if the bridges were attacked. Someone came up with the idea of chartering a boat. But this worry was like comments on rainy weather, everyone talked about it, but nobody would do anything about it.

The Nile is a photogenic river. I once attempted to take a picture of the feluccas, the traditional boats of the Nile, with their distinctive triangular sails, from the first-floor balcony of Television Center. I was using a telescopic lens which captured the feluccas and the people strolling along the banks of the Nile or gazing over the parapets into the water in the foreground. I had the apartment blocks of Zamalek with their rows of palm trees and Cairo Tower in the background. Unfortunately, before I snapped the shutter, an officer from the Ministry of Information reached for the camera and quietly asked me why I was trying to take a picture of the two bridges. The bridges are regarded as military installations. Both are fitted with antimine devices around their girders. At that time, armed soldiers patrolled their approaches, and others were bivouacked in the vicinity of the bridges.

I found it difficult to believe that I was threatening the safety of the bridges by taking a picture with them in it. I explained my intention and the fact that the bridges had not been the object of the photograph. The officer seemed to understand at once.

As there had been no one near me when I was lining up my shot, I can only assume that someone in the distance had spotted me and reported me to the authorities. The secret police are extremely powerful in Cairo and are particularly vigilant around hotel lobbies and shopping areas, places which are frequented by visitors. One could not be blamed for regarding waiters in restaurants, shoeshine boys, maids, porters or taxi drivers as possible secret agents.

A few days after this incident with the photograph, I saw a female tourist have her picture taken with a smiling soldier, right beside the bridge. I didn’t know what to think. Had the security measures been relaxed suddenly, or was it just a case of the Egyptian soldiers having a soft spot for a pretty girl?

Generally speaking, Egyptian children are fascinated by cameras, and if you happen to be carrying one they will immediately gather around you. Adults, on the other hand, are extremely cautious. This may have some connection with the fact that the painting of human images is forbidden by the law of Islam, but it is also apparent that many of them feel that something is being snatched from them if someone snaps their picture. Once, when I had taken the photograph of one of the waiters in the dining car of the train on the way to Aswan, my subject told me very sharply that I had “injured his face and would have to pay him compensation.”

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Glance on Cairo Tourism

The hundreds of first-time visitors I have taken around Cairo are usually most impressed by two places in particular. Their emotions are first touched as they enter the city and come out onto the banks of the Nile, traveling along the road from the airport. And many have had their breath taken away when they first see one of the Great Pyramids. They are finally seeing with their own eyes something they have been told about all their lives. At last they can confirm the actual existence of something which was no more than a shadow in their minds before.

Cairo Tourism

Viewed from above, the desert stretches out in all directions, the color of cafe au lait, divided only by the Nile, a blue ribbon running in an almost straight line across the country from north to south. Some say that since the completion of the Aswan High Dam, the waters of the Nile have become much clearer, and many think that the fertile loam which used to be carried down to the Delta from the upper reaches of the river is now trapped by the dam.

Where the Nile passes through central Cairo, two famous islands rise out of the river, resembling a pair of floating battleships. These are the islands of Gezira, in the north, and Roda, in the south. By tradition, long-time foreign residents of Cairo live in the expensive and luxurious apartments surrounded by trees in the Zamalek district on the island of Gezira. I was fortunate to find an apartment in this district and I rented it for the time I was living in Cairo. One of the visitors I entertained in my apartment was worried that if the area was flooded when the waters of the Nile rose I might drown. I was able to assure him that, unlike the time of the Pharaohs, the amount of water carried down by the Nile is now strictly controlled.

In the center of Gezira Island is a fully equipped sports club which includes golf links, a racetrack, a swimming pool and football field. The racetrack’s fame escalated when the cover of the Israeli spy-Wolfgang Lotz was broken. Masquerading as a racehorse breeder from West Germany, Lotz came and went freely to the racecourse, becoming an intimate of high-ranking politicans and army officers. Living a life as luxurious as that of a James Bond, he was dubbed the “Champagne Spy.”

Standing at the southern edge of the Sports Club is the Cairo Tower, built, so it is said, with funds from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The money was apparently given to Nasser, who felt it should be used for the country, so he had the tower built. The story is that the CIA secretly built a device at the base of the tower which would have enabled them to blow it up from a ship in the Mediterranean by remote control. When Nasser made his proclamation nationalizing the Suez Canal, John Foster Dulles, then U.S. secretary of state, allegedly ordered the tower be blown up, but before the order could be carried out, Nasser’s intelligence officers discovered the device and disarmed it. As a result, the tower is still standing. From the observatory on the roof it is possible to see all of Cairo spread out below, and to look right across to the Great Pyramids. From the tower’s height, the great width of the Nile flowing past becomes apparent.

Two bridges link Gezira Island to the east bank of the Nile, where the government ministries and other municipal buildings are located. The northern bridge, which gives its name to the road it carries, is called the 26 of July Bridge. It was given the name in 1952, in commemoration of the day when King Farouk signed his abdication, marking the success of the Republican Revolution. On the same day, four years later, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, so that the date has a special significance for Egyptian nationalism. The southern bridge, its approaches guarded by four stone lions, has a name that is also connected with the revolution. Liberation Bridge is crossed by a road of the same name which passes by the Hilton Hotel where it looks out over Tahrir Square. The names of both bridges seem to reflect the deep political consideration of the leaders of the time, because each of them carries one of the two trunk roads of Cairo.

Gezira Island Cairo

The conglomeration of skyscapers on the east bank of the Nile, which were built following the revolution, is popularly known as “Nasser’s Pyramids.” At the northern end of the complex is Television Center, a huge, cylindrical building. Not far from it is the headquarters of the most powerful political party in Egypt, the Arab Socialist Union, as well as the Hilton Hotel and the head office of the Arab League. During the time of the British occupation of Egypt, British troops were garrisoned in this area. Strategically positioned, they could close the bridges immediately at the first sign of unrest among the Egyptians and protect the civilians living in the foreign quarter of Gezira Island.

Television Center contains not only transmission centers for both radio and television, but also the Ministry of Information and the Press Center, the haunt of resident and visiting foreign journalists alike. During my stay in Cairo, I drove to the Press Center everyday from my apartment in Zamalek.

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Noise Pollution in Cairo Egypt

The concept of noise pollution, or the idea of blasting horns being an infringement of the public’s right to quiet, is nonexistent in Cairo. If anything, the opposite is true. There is a feeling that each individual has to make his or her own contribution to the general noise, as though the number of decibels is still insufficient. Everyone and everything is involved.

Population in Cairo

Despite the recent growth in the number of automobiles, the donkey still remains an important means of transportation in Cairo. Gentle beasts, their heads bent slightly forward and their long eyelashes pointed modestly to the ground, they seem capable of carrying loads many times their own weight. “Homar,” the Arabic word for donkey also has the meaning of “idiot.” While, personally, I am loathe thinking of them that way, I must admit that a donkey’s foolish-sounding and high-pitched “hee-haw,” which can easily grate on one’s nerves, is extremely idiotic.

And when an Egyptian is speaking on the telephone, it is quite easy to hear what the person on the other end of the line is saying. They YELL to each other over the line. It does not matter if they hold the receiver in a normal way or if they hold the receiver six inches away, they YELL!

The fact that sound does not carry easily in the boundless wastes of the desert may be one reason why Egyptians insist on being so loud. Speaking quietly is ineffectual, and therefore loud voices are cultivated naturally. I do not know if this explanation is true, but it seems plausible.

Not only do people here have loud voices, they are also emotional, and the Arabic language is one that appeals strongly to the emotions. The night before the revolution in 1952, Nasser is said to have addressed his fellow revolutionaries in English, urging them to remain calm during the forthcoming upheaval. Asked why he had chosen to speak in English on such an important occasion, Nasser explained, “The Arabic language possesses no words to express the idea of calm.”


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Egyptian Islamic Culture in Cairo

Sometimes it was frustrating for foreign newsmen, and a number of them made a break to the more liberal climate of Beirut. But journalists engaged on their mini-exodus would only receive a smile from the officials at the Ministry of Information, who would nod and say, “You will return to the Nile.” Or they might mutter the oft-quoted words of the celebrated explorer of the desert, Ahmad Hassanein, “The desert is harsh and severe, but once you have known it, you will always return.” And the reporters usually did.

Mohamed Ali Masjid

Then in 1973 there came a change, probably the result of the success of Egypt’s campaign for the possession of the Suez Canal. President Sadat announced that it was time the Egyptian people were made aware of the facts “even if they are sometimes painful.” The news climate relaxed considerably; it finally was possible to buy copies of American magazines such as Time and Newsweek even if some stories were critical of Egypt. Prior to this, these publications had been banned by the authorities.

Along with the smell and the exceptional weather, the third element that gives one the true feeling of Cairo is NOISE! The city is a cacophony of varied and unceasing sounds. The solemn tones of the Koran being chanted and voices raised in prayer are not merely empty forms of religious ritual, they are an important thread in the fabric of life in Egypt, both public and private. The May Day Celebrations and the National Assembly open with the chanting of the Koran and the offering of prayers to Allah. Then President Sadat delivers his opening speech. Speaking intensely in his distinct persuasive voice, his remarks are full of force: “The words of the Soviet Union have proved false. . . . They promise weapons but send none.”

Not only in Cairo but throughout the Islamic world it is not unusual to be awakened in the morning by the sound of a sonorous wailing male voice from the next room. Someone is chanting the Koran. In my travels through the Middle East I have frequently been awakened by this chant. I always imagined that the voice belonged to an old man, his white hair giving him the semblance of a holy man, kneeling on the floor, facing Mecca and solemnly reciting his prayers. But bumping into my next-door neighbor on the way to breakfast, I was often surprised to find that the owner of the voice was a young man in his late teens or early twenties, carrying an attach case and enveloped in the scent of cologne. I would be slightly taken aback at the sound of his cheery “Good morning,” proffered in a somewhat high-pitched voice.

One of the unforgettable sounds of Egypt is the voice of the muezzin at dawn and sunset, solemnly calling the faithful to prayer. The voice is loud and resonant, and while it reverberates over the city the barking of the dogs and the cries of birds seem to be stilled. Even nonbelievers hearing the voice of the muezzin feel impelled to stand still, close their eyes and pray.

The position of muezzin is hereditary, and boys start to receive voice training at a very early age. The muezzin of the Azhar Mosque, one of the oldest and most famed mosques in Cairo, enjoys a high social standing.

Masjids in Cairo

When it isn’t praying, Cairo is a noisy, bustling city. With the rapid increase in the influx of people from the rural areas, Cairo has suddenly become a major world capital with a population of around eight million. The rise in the urban population has been accompanied by an equally dramatic increase in the number of automobiles. For example, in the late afternoon a steady stream of cars moves along the busy roads radiating like spokes from the city’s hub, Talaat Harb Square a place I prefer to call by its old name of Soliman Pacha Square. Suddenly there will be a screech of brakes and the flow of traffic will come to a halt to the accompaniment of a terrifying number of horns honking and the loud voices of drivers hurling abuses at one another. The windows of the automobiles are open, with the car radios blaring at full volume Arab music to the monotonous beat of the tambourine. Sitting in my car in the sweltering heat, I would soon join the chorus of yellers telling the world to get moving, almost without realizing I was doing so.

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Winter is the best time of the year in Cairo

Winter is the best time of the year in Cairo. It starts in November and the dry, refreshing winter air usually lasts until March. Winter is followed by the Khamshin season, “khamshin” being the Arabic word for “fifty.” It is called this because frequent sandstorms scour the city during this fifty-day period. The sand colors the sky ochre and a fine yellow dust hangs in the air, covering everything, getting everywhere. The sand gets into one’s ears, nose and pores. Even the precaution of keeping doors and windows closed during this hot season does not prevent the sand from sifting into the house, and filtering into clothes shut up in wardrobes and closets. Landing at Cairo Airport during Khamshin, one gets the impression that the city is at the bottom of a yellow lake. When Khamshin conditions are too bad, flights are cancelled.

Winter in Cairo

The air in Cairo tends to be dry all year, and everything becomes dehydrated as the water in the atmosphere evaporates. One’s throat seems to be permanently dry. As a result, whenever friends call on each other in Egypt, the host immediately offers his guest coffee or tea. If coffee, it will be the thick Egyptian coffee known as “ahwa”. The heavy dregs of ahwa sink to the bottom of the cup and one drinks only the liquid that floats on top. Not only do coffee and tea soothe a parched throat, they also help replace some of the body’s continuously evaporating water.

Coffee and tea drinking is a serious business in this desert city, so conversation does not begin until they have been consumed. Then the well-bred Egyptian guest asks his host a multitude of questions in rapid succession. The questions generally cover the state of his host’s health, what his wife is doing nowadays, whether hischildren are taking their schoolwork seriously, if his hens are laying and so on. This kindly interrogation is an extremely important factor in establishing friendly relations in Egypt. It is one’s duty as a friend to make pleasant conversation over a cup of coffee or tea. And when the last of the coffee is drunk, there is the chance for even more chatting as the coffee grounds, like tea leaves, supposedly indicate the future. Coffee and tea are not just thirst-quenching drinks, they mean much more. In Egypt, they are the lubricants which keep the wheels of human relationships rolling smoothly.

Egyptian Street

The dry climate creates extremes of temperatures. Temperatures rise quickly during the daytime, and fall with equal rapidity after sundown. It can become suprisingly cold in the evenings, so it usually is necessary to wear extra clothing.

Each day dawns fine and bright. Because the weather is consistently good, it seldom becomes a topic of conversation—except on those rare days when it rains, and then quite a commotion is made about it.

I recall an incident that occurred when I was rushing by taxi to the airport to catch my plane. It started to rain, and because there are no drainage ditches in the roads in Cairo, the road to the airport soon was flooded. I shut the car window against the downpour, but the rain found a crack and began to seep in. Before long, water had gotten into the engine, and the taxi came to a sloshing halt. All I could think about was missing my flight.

The driver got out, propped up the hood and began mopping the rain water with a rag, puffing his cheeks out as he did to blow the raindrops away.

“This must be a real old junk heap if a drop of rain puts the engine out of order,” I growled. Worried about making it to the airport in time I thoughtlessly began to be abusive. But the driver took it all in stride and replied, in all seriousness, that I was mistaken. There was nothing wrong with the car. It was the rain that was causing all the trouble.

Even now I have to smile when I remember the driver’s explanation. Rainfall is something Egyptians do not really understand. Their lives and their awareness have become attuned, over thousands of years, to clear skies and dry weather. I know of no shop in Cairo where it is possible to purchase an umbrella or overshoes, although every third shop sells either clothes or shoes.

The clothing stores overflow with goods made of Egyptian cotton, the finest cotton in the world, and tourists frequently buy Egyptian cotton shirts to take home as presents or souvenirs. Egyptian-made leather shoes, however, are not in the same category. At first glance they appear to be well made, but the moment they get wet, they start to fall apart. They seem to be made only of leather and glue, and only for fair weather.

No one carries an umbrella in Egypt, and anyone who does is the object of curious glances. When it rains in Egypt, the thing to do is to stay indoors. Everyone is so used to the weather being fine, that their only reaction is to wait for the sky to clear up.

However, there are more clouds in the sky than there used to be, and the number of rainy days is increasing. Some blame the increased humidity on the Aswan High Dam. The completion of the dam increased irrigation facilities for the fertile land around the Nile. The additional surface area of water in the region means that more evaporation takes place and the extra water vapor created in the atmosphere forms clouds.

The increased humidity has already begun to affect life in Egypt. A major problem that has arisen is the preservation of the country’s ancient monuments and excavated relics which are of such great historical importance to Egypt and the rest of the world. Some believe that the more humid conditions will intensify their erosion and that the monuments, which have been preserved for thousands of years by the dry climate, will crumble away. One step that has already been taken to preserve the valuable information yielded by the country’s ancient monuments has been the establishment of the Documents Center within the Ministry of Culture for the specific purpose of gathering and cataloguing material on Egyptian relics.

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