Tourism in the City of the Dead, Cairo
Al Ahram Weekly (Mohamed El-Hebeishy)
"Egyptians have always thought of tombs not as a place of death but rather a place where life begins", a statement that started with our ancient ancestors and which has still managed to hold its truthfulness through the ages.
A rectangular one-storey building set in an endless matrix, one row after the other, and nothing but a number of minarets and domes break the subtleness of the scenery. This might be the view of the City of the Dead up from a plane, but when you dare the inconsistent streets and stroll its zigzagging alleyways, you will be literally stunned by the historical richness it embraces.
A cemetery indeed, yet and for a handful of various reasons, mostly economical, it changed into a lively neighbourhood with all the elements of a resident quarter except for one mere fact -- its dwellers are actually living among the dead. A woman with a small stall selling cigarettes, a guy with a noisy tool fixing an old wrecked car, a queue of adolescents piling in front of the baker, and a group of bare foot children playing hide and seek in the barely fitting one-car streets. Within the parameters of five main cemeteries in Cairo, five million people are estimated to be living, some in small buildings that were raised haphazardly next to each other, others in slum-like forms that have nowhere to go but crumble if thunder strikes. But for the majority, they live in tombs. The way Egyptians build their tombs, whether they have reserved either a courtyard where the deceased is buried or an adjacent room, there is where people live.
But how does such a place hold monumental archaeological and historical value?
See the above page for the full story.
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