Tourism in Egypt and Sudan: a comparison
Like Egypt, its neighbour to the north, Sudan has amazing archaeological sites, including the 2,000-year-old pyramids of Meroe, ruins of cities and temples in the ancient capital of the kingdom of Kush. Sudan also has game parks teeming with elephants, lions and hippos rivalling those in Kenya.
Unlike Egypt or Kenya, which attract millions of tourists each year, Sudan brings in a meagre 60,000 visitors annually and is missing out on a windfall in tourism revenue. A reputation as an unstable country and a trade embargo have kept all but the most intrepid travellers away.
Sudan’s recent history does not read particularly well on tourist brochures. In 2005, the country came out of a 20-year war between the north and the south. The return of stability has brought investment and stimulated development across the country, but a rebellion continues to rage in the western Darfur region.
These types of events have largely scared off potential tourists. Most western governments have travel warnings for parts of Sudan.
The United States has had a trade embargo on Sudan since 1997. Credit cards are useless in the country because of the sanctions, and all financial transactions are done in cash or wire transfers.
Preferring to court foreign investors and businessmen, the government has done little to attract foreign tourists to Sudan. It takes at least a week to obtain a visa for Sudan, and nationals of some countries are routinely denied. Once in Sudan, travel permits are required to visit many parts of the country.
Excerpted from Matt Brown’s article for The National
Granite statue found in the Nile delta is probably of Ramses the Great
Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a granite statue probably depicting Ramses II. Researchers discovered the statue 150 cm (five feet) under ground in the eastern Nile Delta town of Tell Basta, which was once the capital of ancient Egypt, the culture ministry said.
The pink granite head had a broken nose and a missing beard, Zahi Hawass, the head of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities, said in a statement. Archaeologists continue to dig around the site in hopes of finding the rest of the statue and possible remains of a temple built by Ramses.
$1 million donated to Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY
Helen H. Berkeley, a member for more than 30 years and president of its Gallery Council from 1990 to 1992, donated $1 million to the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY, to transform the second-floor exhibit space into the Berkeley Gallery of Ancient Art. Its centerpiece will be the ornate inner and outer coffins of wealthy 4th-century Egyptian official Pa-debehu-Aset, acquired in 2001 and housed since 2003 in the downstairs Gill Discovery Center.
The donation — one of the largest in the museum’s history — will also establish an art conservation fund.
More re Kidnapping of Tourists in Egypt
Egypt’s tourism minister insisted the mass abduction in Gilf al-Kabir, where a gang of masked bandits have kidnapped five Italians, five Germans, one Romanian and eight Egyptians who were on a desert safari in an area on the edge of the Sahara, was a criminal rather than a terrorist act, and said that negotiations were under way for the captives’ release. The kidnappers were said to have asked for a ransom of up to six million dollars. Among those taken away was the Egyptian tour company operator, who used a satellite phone to call his wife and tell them they were being taken away by masked men speaking English “with an African accent”.
The area is so isolated that officials did not seem to know exactly when the kidnapping had happened, with some German sources saying it occurred on Friday. The visitors had been touring the desert plateau to view its rugged landscape and admire the Neolithic cave paintings, among the best preserved in the world, such as the Cave of the Swimmers, made famous in the 1996 filmThe English Patient. The nearest inhabited oasis is more than 300 miles away, and visiting takes at least 10 days of rough travel in jeeps or on camels. Its isolation made it an important base for British troops fighting Italian and German forces in Libya in World War II.
Attacks have until now been almost unheard of in the far-flung reaches of the southwest, where the Sahara washes up against a vast sandstone and limestone plateau rising 1,000 feet above the Great Sand Sea near the Sudanese and Libyan borders. No group has taken responsibility for the crime, raising hopes that the attack was merely a criminal act that could be resolved peacefully, rather than as an act of terrorism.
Satellite cataloguing finished at temple complex of Medinet Habu
Egyptian archaeologists have finished documenting with satellite images the temple complex of Medinet Habu, on the west bank of the Nile in the city of Luxor, some 700 kilometers south of Cairo. As reported by the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) in a statement, the latest technology in three-dimensional and aerial photography were employed to survey and take pictures of the area.
The cataloguing of Medinet Habu is part of a project to record and restore antiquities in Egypt, in addition to using advanced technology to discover new archaeological sites. It is expected that the project will also involve the archaeological sites in the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens in Luxor, and the plateau of the Pyramids of Giza and Saqqara in Cairo. SCA’s director of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities, Sabri Abdel Aziz, said in the statement that the satellite cataloguing project will span between six and twelve months in each archaeological site. Scientific studies will also be conducted for urban planning in the areas near the sites and to assess the effects of the environment and groundwater in the temples.
The SCA developed this initiative in collaboration with the National Authority for Remote Sensing and Space Sciences (NARSSS) and “Medinet Mubarak,” an organization which conducts scientific studies using aerial and ground laser photography.
The project has a budget of 950 billion Egyptian pounds (about 176 thousand dollars), funded by the SCA and NARSSS.
The complex of Medinet Habu includes a temple bearing the same name built by Pharaoh Ramses III of the 20th dynasty (1554 and 1075 BC).
Translated from El Universal
Foreign Tourists Kidnapped in Egypt
A group of 15 foreign tourists, including five Italians, were kidnapped Monday in southern Egypt, according to Egyptian officials and the Italian Foreign Ministry. Details remain unclear and a breakdown of the tourists’ nationalities wasn’t available.
A security official in Aswan, 425 miles south of the capital Cairo, said authorities there were trying to determine the circumstances of the abduction. An Egyptian government official said the kidnapping took place at a remote location near the Sudanese-Egyptian border south of Aswan. “We don’t know yet who did this and we don’t know the whereabouts of the tourists,” he said.
The last major attack on foreign tourists in the Nile Valley took place in 1997 when 58 were killed by militants in the ancient temple of Hatshepsut in Luxor.
Enormous Lego Sphinx showcased in Halifax
Canadian Lego Certified Professional, Robin Sather, 43, one of just six certified professionals in the world, spent the weekend in Halifax building an enormous Lego Sphinx. The colorful Egyptian iconic structure, which took about 50 hours to complete, is part of the Discovery Centre’s Secret of the Pharaohs exhibit, where scenes from the past, artifacts, and hieroglyphics are entirely made of Lego. Owen Grace, 37, a member of Nova Lug, a group of local Lego enthusiasts, helped Sather build the Sphinx, whose head weighs about 200-pounds. There’s an ongoing contest to guess how many blocks were used.
The exhibit will be at the Discovery Centre until January.
Oasis: Western Dreams of the Ottoman Empire
Napoleon’s military campaign in Egypt (1798–1801) sparked Western interest in the East, particularly the countries of the Ottoman Empire, an area extending from Turkey and Greece through the Middle East and North Africa. European and American artists became fascinated with what was then known as “the Orient” and the art movement known as Orientalism grew out of this preoccupation.
Oasis: Western Dreams of the Ottoman Empire from the Dahesh Museum of Art features more than sixty Orientalist paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints, drawings, and books. The exhibition provides important historic and cultural perspectives on the ways in which Western artists depicted, and sometimes distorted, the many cultures of the Ottoman Empire. It also highlights the power these images had, and continue to have, on the Western imagination.
“Reality and fantasy blend in the works on view in this exhibition,” said Margaret Bullock, Curator of Collections and Special Exhibitions. “Orientalist works are full of rich detail and lush colors based on fact but often romanticized or recombined to suit the artist’s fancy.”
Some of the first Orientalist paintings were intended as propaganda in support of French imperialism, depicting the East as a barbaric place enlightened by the French. Others were created as ethnographic records of the clothing and customs of the region. As the movement spread, subjects broadened to include scenes of domestic life and religious piety, re-created historical events, or works that used the region as a backdrop for Christian religious scenes. The potency of Orientalism remained undiminished into the twentieth century. Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Matisse, Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky all created work inspired by Orientalist themes.
The exhibition is on view Saturday, September 20, 2008 through Sunday, January 4, 2009 at Tacoma Art Museum in Washington.
Egypt donkey jailed for theft
An Egyptian donkey has been jailed for stealing corn on the cob from a field belonging to an agricultural research institute in the Nile Delta.
The ass and its owner were apprehended at a police checkpoint that had been set up after the institute’s director complained that someone was stealing his crops, the state-owned Al-Ahram daily said.
The unnamed ungulate was found in possession of the institute’s corn and a local judge sentenced him to 24 hours in prison. The man who had his ass thrown in jail got off with a fine of 50 Egyptian pounds (nine dollars, six euros).
SCA to take legal action in mosque robbery case
The Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) is taking legal action against the workers of Mengak Al Youssefi Mosque after some of the mosque’s antiques located in the citadel area were stolen last Friday. Decorative parts of the menbar (the preacher’s pulpit) of the mosque made of ivory and ebony were stolen along with its doors and platform.
The Ministries of Endowments and Culture were playing the blame game, with neither claiming responsibility for the incident. Hamdy Zaqzouq, Minister of Endowments, said in previous statements that the responsibility in such cases lies also on the antiquities authority that is supposed to supervise these mosques. On the other hand, Minister of Culture Farouk Hosni refuted these allegations saying that the antiquities entity’s role is to reconstruct these mosques and protect them from construction violations. He also called for establishing a department at the Ministry of Endowments to protect these sites and guarantee security presence at all times especially at night when these incidents are likely to occur.
Mengak Al Youssefi Mosque dates back to the Mamluki era and was built in 1349 (750 in the Islamic calendar) by Prince Mengak Al Youssef.
