Pharaoh Fanatics I

After years of bureaucratic wrangling that saw most international film productions heading to Jordan or Morocco for location shooting, Egypt’s Media Production City recently announced that an international film on ancient Egypt’s queen Cleopatra would be partially filmed in its studios.

Youssef Sherif Rizkallah, head of international productions at Media City, revealed that Syrian-American director Jalal Marhi would be on his way to visit Cairo in April to scout locations and cast Egyptian actors to co-star in the film. The four-week shoot will begin in May [2007].

But the red tape is still very much uncut, and permission from Egyptian censorship is pending. Approval will take place after the production company submits the film script.

Cleopatra is only the first in Historical Legends, a series of 10 films chronicling the youth of historical figures.

Pharaoh Fanatics II

Trouble was brewing over at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), which last month objected to the historical content in the French-Belgian animated feature The Princess of the Sun, currently showing in Cairo theatres.

SCA Secretary-General Zahi Hawass had reportedly called for a committee to view the film, which is based on the era of Kings Akhenaten and Tutankhamun. The committee is said to have ruled that the film is full of historical inaccuracies and that the events portrayed in the film are very different from the political, historical, religious and military events of the era.

The committee has asked the distributing company, GoodNews4Me, to include a message clarifying that the events of the film are imaginary and bear no resemblance to Ancient Egyptian history.

Culture 101: Pharaoh Fanatics, Manal el-Jesri and Sherif Awad, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 28, Issue 04, April 2007.

Animated Ancients

Distribution companies often run afoul of censorship heavies over international blockbuster releases, but over a cartoon film? Officials at the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) have taken offence at French animated film La reine soleil (The Princess of the Sun, 2007), the Good News Group’s latest import.

In the film, princess Akhesa, daughter of eighteenth-dynasty Pharaoh Akhenaten, enlists the help of Tutankhamun to search for her exiled mother Queen Nefertiti. Pursued by the Pharaoh’s enemies, the teenagers survive a torrid desert trek and capture by the mercenary Zannanza.

The SCA howled that the plot does not come even close to historical fact; officials were appeased only after Good News agreed to run a statement saying that the movie is pure fiction...

Animated Ancients, Sherif Awad, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 28, Issue 04, April 2007.

Previously:

Zahi takes a pot-shot at Christian Jacq film, March 09, 2007.

Christian Jacq book being filmed, January 16, 2007.

For centuries Egypt has served as a cradle of civilizations, religions and cultures, and it would be next to impossible to include all the historic Islamic and Coptic sites riddling the nation’s streets...

The heart of Islamic Cairo is Khan El-Khalili and Al-Azhar, where you’ll need a few days and a good pair of walking shoes to canvas the maze of mosques and monuments. You could spend a lifetime here and still find surprises, but there are a number of sights and sounds any visitors wanting to get a true sense of spiritual Egypt should never miss out on...

With Coptic once being synonymous with the word ‘Egyptian,’ it’s little wonder that Egypt is home to a myriad of Christian sites inside and outside the capital. For a concentration of Coptic churches, head to Old Cairo, which is best reached by taxi or metro (Mar Girgis Station) because of the winding streets and lack of parking spaces. First on any visitor’s list should be El-Muallaqa, or the Hanging Church, believed to have been built in the seventh century on the site of an older fourth-century church. Perched on top of the Roman walls, it is actually more suspended than hanging and is possibly the first built in the Basilican style. The church is home to a beautiful collection of restored ancient icons and an old iconostasis inlaid with ebony and ivory...

Quest for Knowledge, Noha Mohammed, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 28, Issue 04, April 2007.

Siwa, one of Egypt’t continually inhabited settlements dating back to 10,000BC, is like nowhere else on Earth.

At 12,000 years and counting, the lush oasis of Siwa is ancient on a scale that makes the Pyramids seem like teenagers. To a first-time visitor, the town can seem from another world — a place where people really do still live in mud-brick dwellings under the shade of palm trees, in sight of bubbling mineral springs. Siwa represents a beautiful, peaceful slice of how life once was — both for its residents and a growing number of tourists...

There are of course a few things that should not be missed, such as the Pharaonic antiquities in Gabal Al-Mawta, where you’ll find early Graeco-Roman sites, four of which are open to tourists. Others are the Temple of Amun — worth a visit despite reconstruction — and the Temple of the Oracle. Situated up on a hill amid the ruins of a salt-mud village, it has withstood the test of time much better.

The Temple of the Oracle had a powerful patron in Alexander the Great, who came seeking the oracle’s confirmation that he was the son of Zeus — a key endorsement in the conqueror’s ambitions to rule Egypt (and eventually, all of Asia). A little deeper into the palm grove is Cleopatra’s Bath, a hot spring that historians believe owes its name more to clever marketing than documented history. Right on the tourist circuit though, Cleopatra’s Bath gets a lot of local traffic...

Eternal Siwa, Hassan Hassan, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 28, Issue 04, April 2007.

A short drive out of the city will put you in a whole new world of vast dunes and bare rock.

There’s so much to see and experience that you don’t necessarily have to be a happy camper to enjoy the desert. And with sand stretching from the Western Desert to the oases of Bahariya, Farafra, Dakhla and Kharga, you don’t even need a long weekend to try your hand at desert exploration.

What makes taking a desert day trip so special is that you don’t have a fixed itinerary and can explore as much as you want ’ as long as you know where you’re heading and how to get back to where you started...

Wadi El-Hitan is a 30-kilometer drive west of Lake Qaroon and one of the largest fossil graveyards in Africa. Wadi Al-Hitan translates to ‘Valley of the Whales,’ so named because it features fossilized skeletons of primitive whales. There are also fossils of ancient species of shark, Dogfish and some land mammals...

Also located west of Fayoum is Kasr El-Sagha, which snuggles up on the side of Gabal Qatrani range. Kasr El-Sagha, or what remains of it, is a small temple that dates back to the Middle Kingdom.

If you go south of Kasr El-Sagha, you’ll find the remains of the Ptolemaic cities of Dimeh El-Siba and Kranis [Karanais?]. Few tourists visit here, but they’re definitely worth checking out...

Desert Day Trips, Yasmeen El Mallah, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 28, Issue 04, April 2007.

Look up, look down, look all around and in every district of Cairo you’ll find something to catch the eye be it architecture, shops, galleries or restaurants. Let our walking tour be your guide.

It’s easy to forget just how much Cairo has to offer, but the city remains a Mecca of art and culture. Plunge into all the city has to offer with our walking tour.

Slip on your most comfortable (ideally very ragged) set of trainers, your oldest pair of jeans and head down to your chosen district for the culture and refinement that only Cairo can offer. The easiest way to see everything is to divide it into a district for a day. Most bookstores have specific maps for both the Zamalek and Downtown areas, which makes it infinitely more fun — and easy — to get around...

The tour then goes on to mention Giza, Zamelek, downtown, The Egyptian Museum, Azhar and Khan El-Khalili, and the Cairo Opera House.

The Quest for Culture, Hassan Hassan, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 28, Issue 04, April 2007.

If Egypt is the gift of the Nile, then Alexandria is the gift of the Mediterranean, and a great destination for a weekend break...

To make sure you get a chance to see everything, get an early start, beginning at one end of Alexandria. Go to Anfushy, where you can visit the Qaitbey citadel, which was renovated in the fifteenth century and is home to a naval museum (open daily from 9am-2pm). You can work your way down along the Corniche and admire the Greco-Roman themed architecture — most of these buildings remain untouched since they were originally built. If you’re lucky, you’ll find a couple of small grocery stores owned by Greeks with the same décor seen in old black-and-white Egyptian movies.

By the time you’ve walked around these sights, no doubt you will have worked up an appetite, and what better to eat in Alexandria than seafood? With a fresh selection of squid, octopus, a variety of fish, shrimps, calamari, mussels and crabs, you can’t go wrong at the Arous El-Bahr restaurant in Anfushy...

Egypt’s Mediterranean Jewel, Yasmeen El Mallah, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 28, Issue 04, April 2007.

Zahi Hawass, the head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities and the man who is perhaps the world’s most-recognized archaeologist, scoffed when Egypt Today asked him what he would do if he had a long weekend.

“Me?” he asked, incredulously. Hawass is a busy man and was interrupted repeatedly during our brief interview with calls and questions from his staff, underscoring the notion that very idea of a short vacation was laughable.

He was game, though, and recounted what he would do if by some miracle he were to have a three-day weekend...

The biggest mistake in my life was ruining the Bahariya Oasis. The Bahariya Oasis before 1999 was a paradise: beautiful, quiet, silent. But since I made the discovery in the Valley of the Golden Mummies? Well, there were no hotels when I went there except one. Now there are more than 25 hotels. This is how I ruined paradise — I call it Paradise Lost...

A sad but inevitable consequence of the discovery. The tourist trade marches ever forward. Hotels are even springing up around Amarna and even at Abu Simbel.

Three Days Without a Necktie, Dan Reese, Egypt Today, Egypt, Volume 28, Issue 04, April 2007.

[A]n obscure State Department advisory panel has become the bête noire of collectors of everything from Roman vases to African statuary. The panel, the Cultural Property Advisory Committee, has been the focus of fierce battles between archaeologists, who say that the art market fosters the looting of historic sites, and dealers, who say that broad import restrictions threaten collecting by private individuals and museums in the United States.

Congress established the committee in 1983 to balance the interests of these adversaries, deterring pillage abroad while also protecting the legal antiquities trade. But critics claim that it now tilts heavily in favour of the archaeological lobby, even in cases when the foreign countries seeking import restrictions have not met the criteria set down by the law.

"I don't think the committee has been fulfilling the intent of the original legislation," said Meredith Palmer, a New York dealer in 20th-century art who worked on cultural patrimony issues at the State Department in the 1970s and helped establish the Cultural Property Advisory Committee, known as CPAC.

Just how did an entity intended as a grand compromise and welcomed by archaeologists and dealers more than 20 years ago come to be seen as the enemy of the commercial art market? ...

In the U.S., a clash of concerns in the antiquities market, Jeremy Kahn, International Herald Tribune, France, April 09, 2007.

cf. Is the U.S. Protecting Foreign Artefacts? Don't = Ask,

Jeremy Kahn, The New York Times, New York, USA, April 08, 2007...

Treasures and wonders of ancient Egypt will be showcased in the Tutankhamen exhibition opening at the Bahrain National Museum at 9.30am today.

Bahrain is the first country in the Arab world to host an exhibition of Egyptian antiquities, which have been seen by millions of people all over the world and in 14 countries including the US and Europe.

Treasurers of Ancient Egypt is held under the patronage of Prime Minister Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa.

Thousands of people from Bahrain and abroad are expected to visit the exhibition, which continues until July 31 [2007].

A total of 122 objects dating back thousands of years ago will be displayed at the exhibition... The oldest artefacts date back to 2,600 BC during the time of Pharaoh Sneferu... Other pieces come from the time of ancient Egyptian King Rameses II... Artefacts found in the tomb of King Tutankhamun ... will also be on display...

Treasures of Egypt on show, Rebecca Torr, Gulf Daily News, Bahrain, Vol XXX, No. 22, April 11, 2007.

Previously:

Chance to see King Tut's tomb treasure, January 10, 2007.

Bahrain to host Tutankhamun exhibition, January 08, 2007.

'King Tut' coming to Bahrain, November 07, 2006.

'King Tut' set for Bahrain, September 27, 2006.

US scientists using satellite data have found evidence of an ancient mega-lake in northern Darfur that might lead to new groundwater sources in Sudan.

Boston University researchers Eman Ghoneim and Farouk El Baz made the finding while investigating Landsat images and Radarsat data. Radar waves were able to penetrate the fine-grained sand cover in Darfur province's hot and dry eastern Sahara area to reveal buried features.

The scientists said that the lake occupied an area of about 19,100 square miles (30,800 square kilometres) but they made no inferences regarding its age. However, they said that its vast extent suggests that it existed for a long period of time when rainfall was plentiful in the eastern Sahara.

"One thing is certain," said Baz, "much of the lake's water would have seeped through the sandstone substrate to accumulate as groundwater."

Ghoneim said that the ancient lake represents indisputable evidence of the past rainy conditions in the eastern Sahara. "It will have significant consequences for improving our knowledge of continental climate change and regional paleohydrology," he added.

A paper detailing the discovery is to be published in the International Journal of Remote Sensing.

Ancient 'mega-lake' discovered in Sudan, UPI via Middle East Times, Cyprus, April 12, 2007.

Previously:

Largest Crater in the Great Sahara Discovered by Boston University Scientists, March 07, 2006.