Big expanses of the City are at risk and many archaeologists, architects, historians and city planners inside and beyond Egypt are alarmed by what the government has in mind for the area
Ahmed Maher, 83, stands outside his home in the Majid house, built in 1880, which he hopes will not be demolished, across The City of the Dead, where a new construction project is underway on the Salah Salem road in the capital city of Cairo, Egypt, on May 25, 2023.Like many foreigners, I had avoided this vast necropolis during my visits to Cairo, choosing instead the classic haunts – the Pyramids, the Egyptian Museum, various popular mosques. The name alone sounded foreboding.
It was built around a vast courtyard and had residential quarters, schools and a mosque, which is still active. The male and female mausoleums are covered by soaring ornate domes, which, at more than 14 metres across, are the biggest of their kind from the Mamluk era. Saeed, one of the Egyptian guardians of the Khanqah, took us inside the male mausoleum, cupped his hands to his mouth and, with his deep, powerful voice, sang a prayer.
Saeed, one of the guardians of the Khanqah of Faraj ibn Barquq in the City of the Dead, sings a prayer in the male mausoleum of the funerary complex to demonstrate the reverberation effect of the soaring dome.No one knows how many people live in the City; estimates range from several hundred thousand to a million or more, with the northern section of the necropolis more livable than the southern one.
Last August, Omniya Abdel Barr, an architect whose specialty is cultural conservation, appealed for help as the demolitions continued. “Help! Inhumane creatures are destroying our heritage,” she said on X. The same month, several members of a government-appointed committee tasked with documenting heritage buildings of outstanding historical significance resigned in protest of the destruction of mausoleums.
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