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Showing posts from April, 2018

the City of the Dead in cairo

There are five major cemeteries in this city there, the Northern Cemetery, Bab el Nasr Cemetery, the Southern Cemetery, the Cemetery of the Great, and Bab el Wazir Cemetery   Cairo rulers chose the area for their tombs outside the crowded city in a deserted location. This area was used as a burial ground for the Arab conquests, Fatimids, Abbasids, Ayyubids, Mamlukes, Ottomans, and many more The historic belief in Egypt is that the cemeteries are an active part of the community and not exclusively for the dead. Egyptians have not so much thought of cemeteries as a place of the dead, but rather a place where life begins.  In modern times, because of Egypts housing crisis, a lack of satisfactory and af...

The Cave Church of the Zabbaleen in Cairo Monastery of Saint Simon

Saint Simon the Tanner (St. Sama'an, in Arabic) lived towards the end of the tenth Century when Egypt was ruled by the Fatimid Caliph, Al- Muizz and Anba Abram was the Coptic Pope. At the time, the Copts (Christians) in Egypt were engaged in handicrafts. St Simon worked in one of the crafts widespread in Babylon (Old Cairo) which was tanning, a craft still known there till this day. This profession involved also other crafts that depend on the process, from where he carried several titles related to skins; St Simon the Tanner, the Cobber, the Shoemaker. The Monastery, located on the opposite side of the road leading to the Citadel contains seven Churches and Chapels hidden in a series of caves in the Mokattam (Muqattam) hills. The Monastery was erected and dedicated to him a thousand years after his miracle and his death. It lies behind "Mansheiyet Nasser", the Zabbalin village (garbage collectors). This village was erratically established in 1969 when the Governor decide...

The Cave Church of the Zabbaleen in Cairo

The Monastery of Saint Simon, also known as the Cave Church, is located in the Mokattam mountain in southeastern Cairo, Egypt, in an area that is known as ‘garbage city’ because of the large population of garbage collectors or Zabbaleen that live there. The Zabbaleen are descendants of farmers who started migrating from Upper Egypt to Cairo in the 1940s. a community of garbage collectors who make their living collecting and recycling 15,000 tons of garbage produced by Cairo's 17.8 million residents.Fleeing poor harvests and poverty they came to the city looking for work and set-up makeshift settlements around the city. Initially, they stuck to their tradition of raising pigs, goats, chickens and other animals, but eventually found collecting and sorting of waste produced by the city residents more profitable. The Zabbaleen would sort through household garbage, salvaging and selling things of value, while the organic waste provided an excellent source of food for their ...

The calendar of komombo

This carving is among the most famous carvings that are found at the temple of komombow. It was made by the ancient Egyptians around 2000 years ago. It represents the annual diary or the agenda for use of priests and priestesses of Komombow, in order to organize the service and the rituals of the local feminine goddesses; the use of it is so limited to this temple. The carving in komombo temple is divided into three panels ,the first describes the date and the month, the second details the type of service presented, while the third is about the local gods consorts .It is read from the right counts "day w hich is a sun disc ,23rd ,10 is like an inverted U letter till 28th then 29th is different as 9 is a sun disc with a dash in it's center while 30th day is given a determinative character in the form of an animal tail to the emphasize the end of the month". Then starts over again reporting a new month which the third one of the flood season which is four month ...