What's New in Old News?
The official newsletter of the Peripatetic Historian. February 2024, Vol. 3, no. 9.
Welcome to the February issue of What’s New in Old News.
In this Issue:
Peripatetic Field Report: The Egyptian Sojourn
Book News
Then and Now
Let’s get started…
Peripatetic Field Report: The Egyptian Sojourn
Confessions of a Disinterested Bystander
I know this will sound awful, but, despite having spent most of my working life as a historian, I’ve never been able to scrape up much enthusiasm for ancient Egyptian history. Pyramids? Mummies? A civilization that I freely concede was one of the wonders of the ancient world?
Meh.
My tepidity is certainly an intellectual, if not a moral, failing. I understand that I am privileged to have the chance to visit Egypt: I know that I am disappointing all of those who may never get the chance to come here. But, in the spirit of complete honesty and total transparency, Egyptian history doesn’t become interesting until Julius Caesar chases Pompey the Great ashore in 48 BC.
Then things get hopping; then my eyes brighten and I stir from my soporific state. But that which went before fails to set my tail feathers alight.
Unfortunately, the pre-Caesar past is what they are selling here in Cairo, and if you don’t feel inclined to swoon before the mask of Tutankhamen, you might struggle. It’s possible to explore later periods of Egyptian history, but you have to work at it.
Consequently, as a lifelong contrarian, I resolved to devote part of my Cairo stay to places connected to Egypt’s non-Pharaonic past. It would be foolish to skip the big ticket items—the Giza pyramids, for example—but I did want to visit sites connected with the country’s later history.
Saladin’s Citadel
The great fortress looming above Old Cairo, Saladin’s Citadel, seemed like an excellent starting point. Saladin (Salah ad-Din, to give a better transliteration of his Arabic name) was of Kurdish ancestry, born in what is now Iraq. A brilliant leader in the war against the Crusaders, he rose through the ranks to become the Sultan of Egypt. His brilliant generalship led to the expulsion of the Crusaders from Jerusalem (1187), and the defense of Israel against Britain’s King Richard the Lionheart (1189-1192).
In 1176, Saladin ordered the construction of a fortress atop the Mokattam hills, overlooking Cairo. Originally intended as a stronghold against an anticipated Crusader attack, the hilltop citadel served as the center of government for Egypt’s rulers until the nineteenth century.
In the early nineteenth century, the Ottoman emperor sent Mohammed Ali Pasha to drive Napoleon out of Egypt. After completing that mission, Mohammed Ali declared himself the Khedive (Viceroy) of Egypt. The line of Khedives he inaugurated ultimately build a new palace in central Cairo (Abdeen Palace) and transferred the seat of government there.
The Mosque of Mohammed Ali, placed at the apex of Saladin’s Citadel, is probably the usurper’s greatest architectural triumph. It is a stunning building, blazing like a beacon at night, towering above Cairo’s other religious edifices.
The lower half of the mosque is covered in well-weathered alabaster. Many of the stones that make up this building were repurposed from the pyramids at Giza; it is fair to say that the mosque is grounded in two great historical eras.
The National Museum of Egyptian Culture
I enjoyed my Citadel visit and had high hopes for the National Museum of Egyptian Culture—three kilometers away as the cannon ball flies. NMEC is a new museum (opened in 2021). The promotional literature suggesteds that it covered the entire span of Egyptian culture, from the Pharaohs to the modern age. It certainly sounded promising; with hope in my heart I set out for a visit.
It didn’t live up to the advertising. One medium-sized room offered a circle of exhibits that highlighted aspects of Egyptian history dating back to the Paleolithic, but this paltry display hardly justified the 500 Egyptian pound entry fee or the museum’s grandiloquent name. I quickly discerned that this was an egregious instance of the old bait and switch. The “Egyptian culture” was little more than filler, a token nod toward the past, a sorry display tossed together to fill the space above the real attraction:
Mummies.
Twenty mummies—a gaggle of mummies—packed in a series of vaults beneath the main floor of the museum. You descend an inclined ramp and wind through a maze of rooms, each with a glass case housing a mummy. Blackened leathery skin stretched tight over partially exposed skulls; desiccated feet poking out the end of linen wraps; an occasional claw-like hand stretching back for the door handle to life.
I felt cheated, outraged. Accuracy and truth in advertising demands that NMEC be renamed the “Museum of Mummy Culture” for that is what is on offer. Moreover, while I don’t expect everyone to embrace my peculiar ideas, what is the point of a display of twenty mummies? Unless you’re a specialist, able to discern variations in preservation techniques or linen patterns, a squadron of mummies is excessive. If you’ve seen one mummy, you’ve seen them all. Moreover, why not leave the dead in peace? If Egypt’s rulers had known, 5,000 years ago, that they were going to be plucked out of their peaceful sepulchres and displayed in glass cases for the gaping masses, they might have reconsidered their funeral arrangements.
Ghastly. Completely ghastly.
Book News
Done and Dusted
That subtitle is not to be confused with the dust storms of the Sahara Desert. In fact, L.A. Birdmen is now out of my hands and heading for the printers. Soon the presses will spin up and neatly bound copies will start dropping into book cartons for worldwide distribution.
An exciting time.
If you’re interested in preordering a copy, click this handy link:
Then and Now
The Sphinx, Cairo, Egypt
Despite my aforementioned antipathy toward Egypt’s ancient history, I did enjoy visiting Giza’s famous Sphinx. The statue is as inscrutable as a Sahara sand dune, and it has crouched on this spot since roughly 2,500 BC. Theories abound as to its significance, but the ancient artifact keeps its lips pressed tight, refusing all comment upon its purpose.
Did the statue have religious significance? Was it a deity assigned to guard the Great Pyramid of Khufu, just up the hill? Who chopped off its nose, and why?
Old stories credit Napoleon and his troops with the rhinoplasty. According to tradition, the French defaced the Sphinx with cannon fire. Recent studies argue that the nose was trimmed by workers with hammers and chisels during the Islamic period.
Their motive remains a mystery.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century, sand enveloped the Sphinx, covering all but the stony head. An Italian adventurer named Giovanni Battista Caviglia attempted to free the monument from its earthly tomb, but, as the picture above suggests, the sand resisted his efforts.
Maxime du Camp, a French writer and early photographer, captured the failed excavation in 1852. Du Camp spent two years traveling around the Middle East with fellow writer Gustave Flaubert. After returning to France, he published what we might now call a coffee table book—Egypte, Nubie, Palestine, Syrie. It was one of the first travel books to feature photographs.
The Sphinx remained entombed until 1926 when a team of archaeologists finished the excavation.
Today the Sphinx reclines, fully exposed, watchful eyes contemplating the East. What occupies its attention? Tourists? Camel touts?
One never knows with a Sphinx.
As this month’s installment of What’s New in Old News? goes to press, I am still peripateticating around Egypt. I’ve spent the last two days voyaging down the Nile toward Luxor. My journey will end in Alexandria, a “new” city that should boast “modern” attractions. Julius Caesar! Cleopatra! Mark Antony! My hope revives as we continue north.
Until then, be safe, be sensible,
I loved our description of the "mummy museum." Our guide skipped the Muhammad Ali mosque, and Saladin's temple. Alas.