Page 16 - Boca Exposure - March '21

Page 16, Boca Exposure
Cairo And Giza

Separated By The Nile … has many fine examples of Arab architecture,
Today Cairo is two distinct cities. Old Cairo
Thousands Of Years Apart but most of the city stands with its mud-brick
tenements, which have become the slums.
By Don Kiselewski, MCC, The streets are narrow and unpaved, and
D.S., Palm Beach Gardens transportation in this part of the city is by donkey
Travel Leaders or camel. New Cairo, on the other hand, is a
By today’s standards, modern city. Its streets are lined with modern
Cairo is one of Egypt’s newest apartments, skyscrapers, office and government
cities. Cairo just celebrated buildings, hotels and over two dozen museums.
its first millennium only 30 Would-be archeologists and those who have
years ago, while other cities in even the slightest interest in history will find
Egypt – Thebes and Memphis, hours flying by when they visit the Egyptian
for example – have already museum. Collections of Byzantine and Pharaonic
chalked off their third. art and sculpture fill its many exhibit halls. The
Sometimes our sense of museum contains the world’s largest and most
history becomes distorted as to what was where and when it impressive collection of Egyptian history with
was there. The fact is, there was no city located at Cairo in the the celebrated treasures of Tutankhamun as its Saladin Citadel in Cairo
time of the pharaohs or in later Roman or Greek days. It was most prominent exhibit. Gold, gold and more gold
only after the Muslim armies, which came from Arabia, crushed was the subject of this lesser pharaoh’s worldly
the Byzantine power of Egypt, that the city had its beginning. possessions. These were buried with him and are
Alexandria, the great city at the western end of the Nile Delta, now prominently displayed.
surrendered without a fight. The victorious General ‘Amr ibn al- Cairo is Egypt’s largest city, and the capital. It
‘As wanted to make Alexandria the great seaport of his conquest. is also the largest city in Africa with an estimated
However, Umar I, the second Muslim caliph, quickly pointed out metropolitan population of 22 million people.
that when the Nile flooded, as it did every year, the city would be Large migrations from the rural areas have caused
cut off from the Arabian homeland. To overcome this problem, the city to grow at twice the average national
a city would have to be constructed on the east bank of the Nile. rate. Because of this influx of people, both Cairo
‘Amr made the final site selection for the city, across the and Alexandria have severe housing problems
Nile from the great burial grounds of the pharaohs at Giza. coupled with lack of basic services. As a solution
In the centuries that followed, the Muslims continued to war to this problem, entirely new towns are planned
against each other in the area, and as a result, the settlement and under construction throughout the country.
was destroyed and rebuilt several times. The Fatimid Caliphate One of the benefits of the Aswan Dam project was
founded the present city in 968 and called it al-Qahira or “The the reclaiming of the Nile Delta, which allowed The pyramids at Giza
Victorious.” Al-Qahira was subsequently altered to Cairo. planned settlement areas to relieve population
The great Muslim ruler Saladin built a citadel at Cairo in the pressures. to construct the Great Pyramid. One of Napoleon’s engineers
12th century. For security he also began to wall in a quarter of Those of us in the somewhat older generation will remember estimated that if the block used for the pyramids were stacked
the city for the various people who had settled in the area. These the construction of the High Dam at Aswan. It was completed in into a wall, 10 feet wide by 10 feet high, the wall would enclose
actions set the stage for great growth and prosperity in the city. In 1970 and supplemented the low dam, completed in 1902. Most the country of France. I didn’t check his calculation, but after
the later Middle Ages, Cairo became the center of trade between recall the controversy caused by the Egyptian heritage that was seeing the pyramids in person, I wouldn’t doubt his work. The
Europe and the East and one of the chief seats of Muslim culture. lost due to flooding created by the structure. Many archeological Great Pyramid, which covers about 13 acres, is 768 square feet
And, by the mid-14th century, Cairo had a population of 500,000 sites were relocated because of the extent of Lake Nasser, created and 482 feet high. To give perspective to the structure, there is
people who lived on the east bank of the Nile, and it had become by damming the Nile. The lake extends some 350 miles to the approximately 31 to 35 feet of surface missing on each side of
greater than any city in Europe, Africa or Asia Minor. southeast and averages six miles in width; it is considered the the pyramid below the cap, which has remained in place. That
As with anything of great value, Cairo became the object largest artificial lake in the world. The high dam makes possible smooth surface on the top is actually Tura limestone, which was
to be had. In 1517, Cairo became part of the Ottoman Empire low-cost electrical power and an adequate water supply for used to dress the monument.
when it fell to the Turks, who reduced it to a provincial capital. the population in this parched county, and most importantly, it Giza is actually a suburb of Cairo; it is also the capital of the
Napoleon seized the city in 1798 in the Battle of the Pyramids, controls the Nile against natural flooding. Giza governorate of Upper Egypt. It was linked to Cairo across
but Admiral Horatio Nelson destroyed his fleet. The French were The west bank of the Nile holds the real reason that people the Nile in the ninth century by a bridge of boats and later a
driven out of the city three years later by British and Turkish visit the area: the pyramids at Giza. These grave markers, located permanent structure. The year 961 brought the chief mosque to
forces. The city was then handed back to the Turks, although the southwest of Cairo, date back more than 3,500 years. The three the city. Giza is also the home of Cairo University, founded in
British retained special interest in Cairo. A modern city grew up great structures located here were erected for the pharaohs 1908 and reestablished in 1924, and the Egyptian film industry.
in the 19th century between the Saladin Citadel, with its walled Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure. Not far from the pyramids is the Giza was a settlement in prehistoric times and has numerous
settlement on Mokattam hill, and the Nile. Sphinx, an enigma whose secrets have yet to be revealed. It has
been estimated that it took some two million separate blocks Cairo And Giza on page 17

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