New website showcases Egypt’s heritage from various eras
IBM and the Egyptian Center for Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT) of Bibliotheca Alexandrina at the Smart Village announced the launching of www.egyptmemory.com.
The website gives users around the world the opportunity to purchase pictures relating to Egyptian history and society in different eras: Pharaonic, Roman, Coptic and Islamic. Egypt Memory also provides publications, namely books and CDs, such as the “Atlas of Archeological Sites,” “Guide to the Plants of Ancient Egypt,” “Encyclopedia of Great Arab Music Figures” and “Thesaurus of Egyptian Folklore.”
Content from the website is available in Arabic, English and French.
Reclaiming Sinai
The tourism boom along Sinai’s southern coast has reaped considerable revenues for the Egyptian government and foreign investors, but the local population has so far seen little to nothing of it.
The Bedouin tribes of Sinai have been marginalized in the race for development since Egypt regained the peninsula from Israel in 1982. In those 26 years, countless resort chains have popped up along the southern shoreline, tainting this historical and spiritual land.
Besides being generally shut out from the rest of Egyptian society, the Bedouin have also received a lot of vitriol for what some see as collaboration with Israel during the years of occupation. The string of bombings in Taba, Sharm El-Sheikh and Dahab between 2004 and 2006 certainly didn’t help their standing. Local tribesmen were largely blamed for the attacks, or at the very least assisting the attackers, resulting in the arrest and incarceration of well over 1,000 Bedouin over the two years.
Now, under a robust European Union (EU) initiative fueled by 55.5 million euros (LE 466 million), the tribes of South Sinai have a chance to turn their fortunes around. Started in 2006, the South Sinai Regional Development Programme (SSRDP) is set to be completed by 2010 and in theory will provide the local population with the means to sustain itself for generations to come.
THE LOST COMMON SENSE: When one World Wonder isn’t enough
Lately, it seems that something transcendental has been lost in Egypt, only to be found by the Supreme Council of Antiquities under the direction of Zahi Hawass, with the aid, of course, of the producers of TV mega documentaries from the Discovery Channel and National Geographic.
According to Hawass, only one third of ancient Egypt’s archaeological legacy has been found, leaving room for plenty of new discoveries. Strangely, though, these “new” discoveries inevitably involve someone or something extraordinary and widely known, such as “The Lost Tomb”, “The Lost Queen”, “Nefertiti Resurrected”, you get the picture.
The latest amazing discovery is nothing less than a pyramid mightier than “The Horizon of Khufu”.
History Channel will soon introduce us to the Fourth Pyramid of Giza, “The Lost Pyramid” of King Djedefre, a monumental structure that according to the show’s computer-generated reconstruction, must have astonished the ancient world beyond the Great Pyramid, already regarded in its time as one of the Wonders of the World.
The “lost pyramid” is today a pile of rocks located about five miles of the Giza plateau. The existence of this structure is known since the 19th century, but archaeologists have not been able to properly investigate it, since it is presently located in a military security zone.
What we may surmise from the trailer is that the “lost pyramid” shall be exalted as a structure even higher than Khufu’s, with no emphasis on the fact that the supposed pyramid, whose category has been questioned by Egyptologist Vassil Dobrev of Cairo’s French Institute of Archaeology, is built upon a hill that contributes to its height advantage, and that its absolute size is about half of that of its much more famous “relative”.
No doubt History Channel’s “The Lost Pyramid” will be cleared of its sands by those gust winds sound effects that give expectators an exciting rush that inevitably leaves us cold and hungry for the facts. Certainly, Zahi Hawass’s interventions will provide the carefully measured dose of credibility to this megalomaniac tale of fanciful technology and royal family intrigues.
Who has controlled the Middle East over the course of history?
Egypt history is as fascinating as it is long. The official name of modern Egypt is the Arab Republic of Egypt. But before becoming an independent state in 1953, Egyptians had to endure centuries of invasions and occupations, including Arabs and Turks from the Near East and Europeans too.
In this time lapse prepared by www.mapsofwar.com you can see how the control of entire Middle East has changed hands throughout history.
“An archaeologist’s dream and biggest challenge”
A comprehensive article by Will Hobson about the significance of having the rightful place to preserve and exhibit Egypt’s vast archaeological legacy. I especially like the following paragraphs for his views on ancient Egyptian’s obsession with life (not death as many suppose) and three good reasons why Egypt has so much archaeological wealth.
The Ancient Egyptians were obsessed by life rather than death. They were determined in every way they knew how to prolong the sheer sweetness and sensuousness and physicality of being alive – alive as perhaps you could only be when living on the plentiful banks of Nile in the midst of what, originally at least, you thought to be unending desert. They wished their dead “bread, beer, and prosperity”; hard to think of anything further removed from the Judaeo-Christian tradition of an immortal self shedding its corporeal form, its “prison”, at death. The body was a crucial part of their individual existence, hence the necessity of mummification, and their entire theology was designed not to justify death – for instance as God’s revenge on us for our original sin – but to defeat it with the help of any one of their thousands of gods.
At first only the Pharaoh was thought to be able to enjoy the pleasures of this world in paradise, but as time passed, huge swathes of society became eligible. Everything, depending of course on whether it was war or peacetime, became more elaborate and manifold: mummification techniques, spells, rituals, blithely contradictory myths, offerings, temples, pyramids, jewellery, literature. And because they were such good craftsmen and the desert is so good at preserving things and their civilisation lasted so long, Egypt is both an archaeologist’s dream and biggest challenge. Some simply give up. Around two million mummified ibis are thought to be stored in the catacombs of Saqqara, but no one is prepared to spend any more time working out exactly how many. But, even more pressing, once you do find something, what on earth are you supposed to do with it?
"The country that runs through my blood"
If more Egyptians remember and honor their wondrous past, a better Egypt is in the future.
Such is the belief of the Heritage Conservation Think Tank, a project co-founded by Hassan Shehawy, 21, and Sherif Abo Al-Hadeed, 23.
Tired of waiting for government action, the two men are strengthening cultural identity through educational programs and activities aimed to raise awareness among young Egyptians of their glorious past. They insist a reform in education is necessary.
The task is as daunting as Egypt’s history is long. The majority of today’s Egyptians are not direct descendants of their pharaonic era predecessors. Like earth strata, Egypt has been adding up to its national identity the beliefs and traditions of diverse cultures over millennia, some of which clash directly with the legacy of their illustrious ancestors.
Ancient and modern Egypt are long estranged brothers. Albeit admiration, how much the younger is willing to identify with and adopt the ways of the elder is another matter. Still, Egyptians have a rich cultural heritage that runs through their veins like the life giving Nile.
“A tree with no roots will not blossom,” says Abo Al-Hadeed. “I want to discover the real history behind Egypt — the country that runs through my blood.”
http://www.egypttoday.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=7972
Rare U.S. Coin Found in Egypt
A rare U.S. double eagle gold coin that could be worth up to $15 million has been found by an Egyptian couple as they cleaned out their flat, the Qatar Ar-Raya newspaper said on Monday.
The precious piece of gold was discovered in an old box that had once belonged to Mohammed Ismail’s grandfather while he and his wife, Fatima, were throwing old clothes and broken furniture out of a closet.
Mohammed subsequently sent the coin to experts, hoping that he would get a few dollars for it. However, the tailor was shocked when the experts told him that his grandfather had left him a unique coin of historical value.
Double eagle coins were first minted in 1850 and were used to settle accounts between banks and other financial institutions.
Specialists believe that the double eagle found in Egypt could be part of Theodore Roosevelt’s 1933 collection of coins redesigned by famed American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens and given to King Farouk of Egypt as a present.
http://mnweekly.ru/world/20080208/55308628.html
Egypt World’s Best Country Brand for History
Egypt has topped the Best Country Brand for History category in the 2007 Country Brand Index (CBI), ahead of a renowned group of historically rich destinations that include Italy, China, Greece and France. The nation also figured prominently in the Best Country Brand for Art and Culture category, joining Italy and France in the top three, ahead of India and United Kingdom.
The distinction underscores Egypt’s strength in the tourism sector and reflects a successful marketing strategy that has improved its status in the two categories and its performance in the tourism market.
http://www.ameinfo.com/139568.html
-
-
Translator
By N2H
