ta.wy Projects Articles Insinger House Luxor A Home from Home

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1 ta.wy Projects Articles Insinger House Luxor A Home from Home

2 T3.wy Projects Since 2009, Marcel and Monica Maessen have been looking in to the history of Egyptology, rather than pursuing the history of Ancient Egypt itself. Their focus was, and still is, on the history of dig houses, Historical photographs and correspondence between Egyptologists and their family and/ or institutions they worked for. The result is a series of articles which are now freely available on-line, both at as well as AEIRD.org, the Ancient Egypt Internet research database. Welcome to t3.wy Projects articles. For a long time, Monica and I have been doing research into various aspects, dealing with the history of Egyptology. Initially as a hobby. But, this hobby grew out of hands, to such an extent that we even established a foundation in order to be able to raise funds to continue and expand our research. Unfortunately, after two years, we had to face the fact that there was not enough (financial) interest out there, in the world, for us to continue our research on a semi-professional basis, so we had to dissolve the foundation and go back to doing it the way it all started. A hobby. Now we are at a point, where we, due to very busy day-time jobs, can no longer spend ours, days or weeks at a time researching and writing, so we decided that it was about time to slow down. However, we did not want to let all of our efforts go to waste. We still want to share what we have found, for others to benefit from. That is why we decided to publish what we have, as PDF, on our current website t3.wy.nl and share all our Internet links on a new website called aeird.org (Ancient Egypt Internet research database). This way, we can still do what we like to do most, without the pressure of publishing new articles and information every week. The articles are freely available. Photographic material, however, has in most cases been granted to us, for use on our website, not for free distribution. Should you want to use any of the photographs in this or future articles,please consult the last page of each article to see who s the current copyright holder and contact them. Although not a dig house in the true sense of the word, Insinger did occupy himself with research into the history of Ancient Egypt (he, e.g. brought the famous Insinger Papyrus to the Netherlands) and one of the most eye-catching structures in Luxor. It; s a shame it has been demolished, but wouldn t it have been a beautiful site, had it still existed today? Marcel and Monica Maessen, 1 September Page 1

3 Insinger House: Dutch castle on the Nile (Written By Dr. R.J. Demarée) Jan Herman Insinger was born in 1854 of well to do banking family. He was sent by his parents to Egypt in 1879 for health reasons (some of his brothers had died from tuberculosis). Insinger became fascinated by the country and almost immediately undertook expeditions by boat southwards, first in 1880 to Aswan and in 1883 even beyond the second cataract in what is now Sudan, on the eve of the Mahdist uprising and the heroic deeds of General Gordon later. About this last journey he wrote a diary which was published finally some years ago (in Dutch) by Maarten Raven of the Museum of Antiquities Leiden. Since 1884 Insinger first lived mainly in Luxor on his own dahabiyah, the Meermin ( Mermaid ). fig. a. Jan Herman Insinger in 1882 He was a great friend of the French community in Egypt and especially Maspero, assisted him as a photographer (e.g. he made the first pictures ever of the finds of the royal mummies in the Cachette at Deir el-bahari), a friend also of Charles Wilbour. Insinger was well-to-do, but also made a living as a local money lender and middle man in antique dealings. In the late 1880s (around 1888) he had bought a plot of land where he began building his own home, called Palmenburg ( Palm Castle ) a play on words of his ancestral home in the Netherlands which is called Pijnenburg ( Pine Castle ). It took several years to complete this gigantic building which he designed himself. It was south of the present-day Iberotel. During these years he was in regular contact with a curator of the Museum in Leiden and these contacts resulted in the accession of a number of objects by the museum: The famous Papyrus Insinger, but also pottery and ostraca etc., and an extremely valuable set of early photographs of monuments (he was an excellent photographer). On his journeys southwards he also collected ethnographical objects, many of which are now in the Tropics Museum Amsterdam. After his death in 1918, his wife and children soon left Egypt. fig. B. Jan Herman Insinger and his daughter Mina on Insingers Dahabyah Meermin (Mermaid). Page 2

4 The house was thereupon taken (It is still unknown whether it was bought or just taken ) by the royal family and became the second home of the second wife of Khedive/Sultan Hussein Kamel, known as Sultana Melek. Since then the house bore the name Sultana Melek Palace. After the 1952 revolution it was briefly used as a girl s school and in the final years it was a store for watermelons). The house was finally demolished in the 1960s. I (Rob Demarée) think that even as late as 1967 a part of the house was still standing (because I made an aerial photo of Luxor myself in September 1967, which seems to show part of a building between trees). The National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden is planning an exhibition, but no time has been fixed yet. Sultana Melek The Netherlands in Upper Egypt As an introduction to further research into the history of a huge house, at one time present in Luxor, and because there is so little actual information to study, we would like to present to you the translation of a short account, written in 1904 about the house, built by Jan Herman Insinger, the man who discovered the world famous Insinger Papyrus. The article was written by G. van Stolk for the magazine Neerlandia, published by the Algemeen Nederlandsch Verbond (General Dutch Alliance). And when you arrive in Luxor, you will there find a fellow Dutchman Insinger is his name ; he lives in a house, build like a castle This was the first clue I received about The Netherlands in Upper Egypt and it was one of the first Dutch judges of the so-called mixed court in Cairo, Mr. De Stoppelaar, who told me so. I deemed it to be and old Egyptian stronghold. Naturally, a flag could not be seen. It had been lowered at sunset. All the greater my astonishment and pride, when I saw the Dutch, tricoloured flag on top of the tower! It goes without saying that, on that day, I immediately made my way to the castle, where I found Mr. J.H. Insinger, a man of true oriental hospitality, extraordinary well-read, with extensive knowledge of the country and its people, which becomes obvious immediately after he starts recounting his twenty-four years of experience in this amazing Upper Egypt, so rich in all kinds of things, nowhere else to be found in this world. To build such a large mansion, anywhere else in the world, would foremost and almost exclusively require money. Here, in Upper Egypt, things are, and especially were, totally different. Page 3

5 In those days, the railroad didn t go all the way from Cairo to Luxor. There were no Compagnie internationale des Wagons-Lits et des grands Expres européens run Trains de Luxe either, like they have now. Anyone who wanted to travel to Luxor, had to arrive by boat. Usually, one arrived just after sunset, as was the case when I arrived. De skies in the west were lit in a golden glow to which all eyes turned. Automatically, my eyes were drawn to a large, strange building in the south-west, about half a kilometre upstream. The reader can see it on the first image (here fig. 3.) Nileview and the Insinger House at Luxor. Here, one first needs perseverance, then knowledge and only after that, money. But, in no way as much money as in Europe, because wages are low in Upper Egypt (an Egyptian worker is satisfied with fl(*). 0,25 per day). Furthermore, there are no architects and not enough burned bricks. Lime stones are not produced in a large enough quantity, because rich local people use Nile clay to hold together there unbaked bricks (the majority of the Egyptians only use clay and straw as building materials). Proper carpenters are nowhere to be found, so Mr. Insinger had to be his own architect, bake his own bricks, burn parts of his own limestone and had to educate a couple of young boys to become good carpenters. Castle Insinger, seen from the East. The house has not been built by beforehand made plan. Mr. Insinger started by building two rooms and one kitchen, but as his family grew, the house had to grow with it; another floor arose on top of the southern part of the house. After that, the tower was build, then the northern half and finally the grounds were closed by a monumental gate, as can be seen on photograph no. 3. (here fig. 5.) This gate is an exact copy of the Puerto del Sol in Toledo. From on top of the tower, one has a magnificent view; to the East confined by the desert mountains, to the West, across the river, by the Limestone hills of Lybia. To the North and the South-West one can see, as the famers say, A face far. In Egypt, with its dry, and subsequently clear, atmosphere, that means that one can see véry far. The immediate area exclusively consists of farmland, as far as the canals will bring the water, caused by the yearly inundation of the river Nile. The entrance to Castle Insinger. Page 4

6 Hallway of the Castle. Insinger castle, seen from the Nile The title of this little essay might sound a bit exaggerated. Nevertheless it quite specifically indicates how this house as a castle should be looked upon. Figurative the title is correct, because Mr. Insinger has such a great interest in the Dutch people, that any Dutchman, who resides in this hospitable house, tends to forget how far away he is from home. But also verbatim, little can be said against the title. The house is Dutch territory, under the capitulations, no Egyptian official may enter the house without the permission of the owner. And, in case Mr. Insinger should be set prisoner ( I hope and trust this will never happen), such could only be done by or on behalf of the Dutch Consulat in Cairo. G.v. Stolk Luxor, 1904 Research into the history of the house is still ongoing; both myself as well as Dr. Rob Demaree are still looking for clues, information and partucularly photographs to document the house that, at one time, dominated the southern skyline of Luxor. One day, I am sure, this information will turn up for all of us to read and see. Until such time, a lot of the house remains a mystery, regardless of photos from the time of Sultana Melek, in the Gaddis archives in Luxor (some of which will be presented on the next pages). A a lot of information and documentation regarding Jan Herman insinger ended up in the archives of the Consulate in Alexandria. Unfortunately, part of that building burnt down in the 1930s and the Dutch National Archives are only now in the process of scanning and archiving these docuyments. So far, nothing regarding Insinger has turned up, but Every Dutch citizen is free to go there and do his or her own research. Who know, maybe one day, I will go there and see if I can find the evidence I am looking for. Until such time, this article has an open ending. wiating for new gems to pop up. Marcel Maessen, September 2017 Page 5

7 Jan Herman Insinger and his house in Luxor. Photographs. Jan Herman Insinger and his wife.hana Mansour in appr Insinger s Dahabeyah De Meermin (The mermaid) Page 6

8 Entrance to the castle, when Sultana Melek lived there (appr. 1935) Copyright Gaddis The house after several expansions in appr Copyright Gaddis. Page 7

9 Insinger Castle, when Jan Herman Insinger still lived there, appr Copyright: The Insinger family. The way the house MIGHT have looked in its haydays: Own color reproduction Page 8