Egypt: Volunteers save ancient relics as City of the Dead is demolished

The historic City of the Dead in Cairo is being demolished by bulldozers to make way for a highway.

#Cairo’s historic city of the dead is being demolished by bulldozers to give way to flyovers, regardless of the monumental architectural value of these tombs, that are invaluable pieces of art! But history, art, and beauty, apparently, don’t top the list of priorities here!

— Sally Nabil (@sallynabil) May 21, 2023

Part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Historic Cairo, the City of the Dead is a collection of cemeteries which includes the Mosque of Qaitby, the Complex of Sultan Ashraf Barsbey and the Mausoleum of Ibn Barquq.

Many families live inside the mausoleum rooms of the cemetery and will be made homeless.

Among the ancient artefacts marked for demolition are the Mausoleum of Rashwan Pasha Abdullah.

https://twitter.com/thebluecairo/status/1659229777687990273

The City of the Dead is one of the historical landmarks of Cairo but hey, what’s History when you need a highway. https://t.co/M4oheg4leY

— Nuria Tesón (@masteson) May 18, 2023

A group of volunteers regularly visit the area to document ancient artefacts and try and save them before they are lost.

Last week, they found ancient Kufi Arabic engravings on a slab of stone built into a wall believed to be 1,187 years old.

READ: Egypt prisoner sends help plea after repeated attacks by officers at Wadi Al-Natrun prison

https://twitter.com/thebluecairo/status/1658720150009282560

The new highway will link Cairo with the multi-billion-dollar New Administrative Capital being built 50 kilometres from Cairo on a patch of desert.

As it pushes ahead with sweeping urban redevelopment projects, the Egyptian government has destroyed historic neighbourhoods with its new highways, flattened green spaces and generated even more pollution.

Between August 2019 and January 2020 these plans destroyed almost 40,000 square metres of green space, the equivalent of 50 football fields, in the Cairo neighbourhood of Heliopolis.

In February last year authorities evacuated residents from Al-Jayara, Hosh Al-Ghajar, Al-Sukar and Al-Lemon neighbourhoods in Old Cairo so they could build a tourism, culture and entertainment project.

President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi claims to have built some 2,700 new highways over the course of his eight-year rule.

In 2020, Egypt announced it was building two highways eight lanes wide across the pyramid plateau outside Cairo, also a UNESCO world heritage site.

READ: Egypt denies sending artefacts to Israel for examination