MEMPHIS AND ITS NECROPOLIS THE PYRAMID FIELDS FROM GIZA TO DAHSHUR WORLD HERITAGE SITE, EGYPT

Transcription

1 MEMPHIS AND ITS NECROPOLIS THE PYRAMID FIELDS FROM GIZA TO DAHSHUR WORLD HERITAGE SITE, EGYPT Designated a World Heritage Site in 1979 WHY IS THIS A WORLD HERITAGE SITE? Memphis was the capital of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, from its foundation (ca BC) until 2200 BC. The ruins of Memphis are 19 km (12 miles) south of Cairo, on the west bank of the Nile. There are some extraordinary funerary monuments, including rock tombs, ornate mastabas, temples and pyramids. In ancient times, the site was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The site was added to the World Heritage List in 1979, recognizing the universal admiration for the Pyramids, their antiquity and the exceptional civilization they represent.

2

3 MEMPHIS AND ITS NECROPOLIS WORLD HERITAGE SITE

4 Flag of Egypt

5

6

7

8 Ancient and modern Egypt come face to face July 1997, UNESCO Courier In the last few years rampant population growth and urban sprawl have combined to pose an increasingly serious threat to Egypt's archaeological monuments and sites. The ugly side-effects of urban development - water, air and noise pollution, constant vibrations and damage to the environment - are well known to all the world's city-dwellers. Cairo's older inhabitants remember that only fifty years ago the main road to the pyramids, beginning in Giza Square, ran through fields before reaching the pyramids in the desert. At that time the pyramids could be seen eight kilometres away. Now only a forest of buildings is visible from Giza Square. Traffic congestion choked the road so severely that another road was built parallel to it, encroaching on farmland which was replaced by more bottlenecks and anarchic ribbon building. There are no car park facilities or garages in these settlements and in some cases there is no running water. In the absence of any kind of town planning, using these two roads can be a hairraising experience. To improve the links between Cairo and the new towns around it, the idea was raised of building a huge ring road, 95 kilometres long and 42 metres wide, at a cost of one billion Egyptian pounds. The route of the highway would take it very near the Giza pyramids - an area which has been on UNESCO's World Heritage List since Nonetheless work on the ring road began in 1986, without prior consultation with the World Heritage Committee and in flagrant violation of Egyptian heritage law, which protects land that might contain historic monuments. The alarm was sounded in 1994 by the British daily The Independent, which drew attention to the risks posed by the road to any monuments that might be buried in an area where no

9 archaeological research had yet been done. As a result of the debate triggered by the press and subsequent UNESCO intervention, work was suspended until the completion of a study by an expert committee. This was not the first round in the fight to preserve the plateau of the Pyramids. In the late 1980s UNESCO sent an expert committee to draw up a project to protect the area, including restoration of the Sphinx and construction of a wall between the archaeological site and the nearby villages of Nazlet Essallab and Kafr Elgabal, which had been joined together by urban growth. The,project was abandoned, however, in face of a storm of protest from local interest groups.

10 URBAN GROWTH IN CAIRO The population of the Cairo metropolitan area has increased from less than 6 million in 1965 when the first picture was taken, to more than 10 million in 1998 (United Nations Population Division, World Urbanization Prospects, the 1999 revision). Population densities within the city are some of the highest in the world and the urban area has doubled to more than 400 square km during that period. Extraordinary rates of population growth are expected to continue, with a predicted population of around 14 million by 2015.

11