Just outside the Valley of the Kings a set of ancient tombs has created a very modern controversy.
Western archaeologists accuse the Egyptian Government of forcibly displacing thousands of people from a unique local community to open up the site as a new tourist attraction, while the authorities say that the villagers have damaged tombs and stolen mummies.
The village of Qurna, on the outskirts of Luxor, arose more than a century ago when farmers on the banks of the Nile fled seasonal flooding and moved into the shelter of pharaonic tombs that dot the rocky bluffs above the river. People built elaborate houses of mud brick and wood around the caves and, with the advent of tourism, made a living showing visitors their in-house tombs and selling souvenirs.
But five years ago President Mubarak decided that Luxor was becoming a slum, overrun with hawkers and unauthorised buildings that were obscuring and damaging its ancient treasures. He appointed a former army general, Samir Farrag, to clean up Luxor.
“One of the first orders of the President was to transfer the people of Qurna,” said General Farrag, now the city’s governor. So arose the village of New Qurna, a grid of pink and cream concrete terraces farther into the desert, lacking the character of its predecessor but provided with running water, a post office, schools and sewerage for the 3,000 families moved there.
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Most families did not go willingly and they complain that the tiny modern houses have broken up traditional, sprawling households and squeezed them into stifling boxes with facilities scarcely better than those of their former primitive homes. “They just wanted us out. There’s no benefit for us to be here,” said Umm Mohammed Tayyeb, a mother of six, who complained that the water ran so infrequently that she had resorted to storing it in large earthenware urns, as she had done in the old village.
Most villagers said that the authorities had forced them out of their old homes by turning off the electricity. More worryingly, some of the first houses built in New Qurna, two years ago, are already falling apart.
“My kids sleep here — it could collapse on them,” said Ahmed Rustum, whose house, like those of his neighbours, is webbed with deep floor-to-ceiling cracks.
Some international experts on Egypt say that the Government is sacrificing a unique community to cash in on tourism. “The Egyptian authorities are now determined to sterilise the area, creating a kind of archaeological tourist park stripped of any trace of anything living or anything relating to the more modern [Roman onwards] history of the site,” said one expert from Britain, who asked not to be named for fear of being banned from the country.
Ahmed Tayyeb, who earns his living by restoring tombs, denied that the old villagers had damaged the burial sites. He said that bull- dozers used to demolish many of the houses probably did far more damage, although General Farrag insisted that houses over tombs were demolished by workers using only sledgehammers. “It destroyed a unique way of life,” Mr Tayyeb said.
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Sabah Mahmoud, a resident of Qurna, said the international community had done nothing to protect the villagers, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco), which has deemed the huge temple at nearby Karnak a World Heritage Site. “Unesco is asleep,” he said.
The controversy over Luxor may hurt Egypt’s nomination of its former Culture Minister, Farouq Hosni, as the next head of Unesco. Mr Hosni’s campaign is already faltering after it emerged that he had publicly called for the burning of Hebrew language books in the Alexandria library.
But Zahi Hawass, the head of the Egyptian Supreme Council for Antiquities, backs the Government. He said that Qurna residents had stolen treasures from the graves and even hidden mummies to display to tourists for cash. “Not all of these were good people. Some of them destroyed inside the tombs,” he said.
Under the plans, a handful of the houses in Old Qurna will remain standing over their ancient tombs and be open to tourists. One is still inhabited by Umm Sayyid, a 76-year-old woman who was born and married in it and brought up her children and grandchildren there. She was unsentimental about moving, saying she would be ready to move if offered decent housing.
One of her daughters muttered: “Don’t listen to what the men say. This house is too much work.”
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Temple of Luxor
— The temple was built by two kings, Amenhotep III and Rameses II. It was started 4,000 years ago and was dedicated to Amun, king of the gods, but has also been used as a mosque and church
— Karnak temple A vast conglomeration of ruined temples, pylons and chapels, it is the largest temple complex built. It was constructed over 1,300 years as Pharaohs vied to outbuild one another. The ruins stand within the modern city of Luxor
— The Valley of the Kings Contains the ornate rock-cut tombs and monuments of 63 kings and nobles from the 16th to the 11th century BC, including the tomb of Tutankhamun, a Pharaoh from the 14th century BC, which was found almost completely intact. The Valley of the Queens is where their wives were buried
— Deir el-Madinah Opposite Luxor on the bank of the Nile, this valley contains the foundations of an ancient village of workmen and artisans who constructed the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Many artefacts and papyrus texts have been recovered there
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Source: Times research