The Unwelcome Dead: Denial and Destruction of Egypt’s Ancient Antiquities

By Andrea P. Jones

WHY DO TODAY'S EGYPTIAN'S HATE THE PHAROAH'S BUT PRETEND TO LOVE THEM?

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781948282048

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PREFACE

RESEARCH DEFINITIONS AND DETAILS

METHODS AND LIMITATIONS OF RESEARCH

I have utilized case study design methodology in order to analyze the narratives regarding differing conceptions of history and land. In order to do this, I needed to collect the narratives at work. My Arabic is elementary, and I did not understand the local Bedouin dialect of Arabic spoken within Kom Trougah. I was able to navigate within the local community, but my level of comprehension barred my understanding of the complex ideas presented during my interviews.

Kom Trougah remains a contested space where government claims to the land via the SCA are tied to the lands archaeological value. This claim of landownership is challenged by the villagers who, not recognizing the government as the owner of the land, ignore government laws as an authority over their lives and have built homes in this space (A similar observation of peasant-state relations was observed by Nathan Brown 1990). Problems arose while conducting my interviews with the villagers because many homes had been threatened or torn down by the inspectors I employed to translate for me. Poorer families, defined as such by their low social position, inferior kinship ties, and inability to own or control valued resources, often expressed their anger and frustration toward the SCA inspectors and guards during interviews. Wealthier families, defined as such by their position of authority, superior kinship ties, and ability to own and control valued resources, often had personal interests that were wrapped up with those of the inspectors. These families showed their loyalty to different inspectors by telling me what they felt I wanted to hear instead of their honest interpretations of the site, the village, and the historical remains. The conflicts over land and history would not have been apparent if I employed disinterested individuals consequently; a large part of my research included interviews with the inspectors and guards.

Because much of the research was recorded in English, incorporating Arabic terms would be sporadic and inconstant, so I chose not to incorporate Arabic translations or terms in this book. Some of my research notes are in Arabic to reassure those people who were concerned I may not be writing down their views accurately, but for the most part, I wrote down the inspectors’ English translations. My understanding of Arabic allowed me to verify the accuracy of these translations just through listening to the interviews and by employing different translators to conduct interviews with the same families.

I lived in Egypt for three and a half years, which allowed me to observe the importance of religion within Egyptian society as a whole. I knew the first thing to do was to introduce myself to the local imam, also referred to as sheikh, a highly respected member of the community. The village of Kom Trougah is completely Muslim. The local imam is responsible for calling out time for the daily prayers as well as delivering the Friday sermon, which is attended by men, women, and children. Visiting him first was a sign of respect. I knew he would discuss my project as part of the Friday sermon,¹ which I hoped would help community members feel comfortable talking to me.

The sheikh sat with me for two days while he asked me questions about my political views toward the United States, Israel, the Denmark Cartoons, and my views on Egypt. The sheikh has a house in the village. I respected local customs of dress and hospitality while presenting myself and my research to the sheikh, who then accepted me and acted as my gatekeeper. I spent two days with the sheikh and his family. Members of the community who feared my intrusion into their lives and originally closed their doors, now welcomed me into their homes. This was a great boon to the direction of my research.

Kom Trougah includes a wide variety of social agents. Interviews were conducted with village members from varying social classes, education levels, and economic backgrounds. I quickly realized that communal relationships between the inspectors, guards, and various community members were extremely complex and dependent on each other. I needed a way to gather accurate information without compromising my position as a social scientist within the community. I was able to discuss most of my subject in the Cairene style of Arabic, so the people I interviewed not only understood me when I spoke, but they often used words they knew I understood. They wanted me to understand them.

INTERVIEW PROCESS

I have conducted qualitative in-depth semi-structured interviews. Interviews were conducted four times a week over a three-month period. Four different inspectors translated during the interview sessions—one inspector per interview. All the inspectors I worked with were males between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-seven. All four inspectors and five guards, as well as the five police officers who participated in this research, lived in other villages outside of Kom Trougah, commuting to the village daily. Many of their homes are also built in villages that have been built over registered archaeological sites. They were all members of the landowning class who had inherited land from their fathers renting the land out for high sums as their main sources of income. Originally, my intention was to stay in the Delta for three months, but safety and health concerns became an issue, causing me to travel to the site from Cairo daily. Each month, I changed the days of the week that I conducted interviews to get a sense of changes in village activities throughout the week. In the village, I conducted interviews with SCA employees with and without the presence of villagers. This allowed me to analyze SCA employee narratives separately as well as part of the collective narrative.

Most interviews took place in family homes on site. The front room of a home, while often a private area, was also a public space where family could gather and guests were welcome. Homes in Kom Trougah also represented contested spaces as a home could only exist if built over the archaeology. Homes were ideal space to conduct the bulk of my interviews. In order to include women, I would also sit outside in public spaces to make sure that they were not socially compromised when speaking to unrelated male inspectors. Twenty-three women were interviewed for this research. I conducted interviews with women from the two dominant Bedouin tribes living in the village as well as women who identified themselves as fellahin, or of non-Bedouin decent. Forty-eight men ranging in age from fifteen to eighty years old were interviewed for this research. Of my male participants, thirty were from the Red Bedouin tribe, eleven from the White Bedouin tribe, and seven identified themselves as fellahin. These numbers do not include those village members who listened to interviews but chose not to participate. In order to ensure accuracy and honesty from my translators, I visited many of the same homes repeatedly with different inspectors, conducting the same or slightly different interviews, to observe if answers or reactions changed when different inspectors interpreted.

In an attempt to include as many people living in the village as possible with my limited resources and limited time frame, I conducted interviews in front of all three local mosques. Interviews were also conducted at the public school in Trougah, where five out of the seven school teachers present participated, at the police department in the nearby city of Abu Matamir,² as well as with the five police officers assigned by the government to escort me to and from the site. The village was organized in such a way that wealthy families lived primarily in the northern section of the village, and poorer village members lived around the edges of the village and in the center of the site. I measured social class by asking and observing different families social role in the village, kinship connections and prestige, and access to money, resources, and education. Families who owned large plots of land, who employed many poor villagers, and who were considered the owners of large homes in the village make up approximately 40 percent of my interlocutors. The remaining 60 percent of interlocutors struggled to find constant employment. Some owned small plots of land that they farmed themselves, but most of these families were virtually landless with the exception of the land their homes were built on. These families earned an income by performing various tasks. Some ran small businesses such as sheep herding or collecting pigeon eggs to sell, but most were hired as day laborers by wealthier families in Kom Trougah and the surrounding villages. The practice of hiring children out as day laborers rather than educating them limited their family’s access to government employment or more permanent forms of employment. This does not account for the high number of children in both categories who chose to drop out of school to seek employment for their own immediate financial benefit.

Initially, I approached my interviews by coming to the village with a list of questions that were meant to be vague. For example, I asked what is history? or how is the village organized? After a series of basic questions, I began to build off answers I was receiving. For example, most villagers were confused by my question, What is history? Most answered by talking about religion or their family genealogy. When asked about the history of Kom Trougah, most informants responded that Kom Trougah did not have a history. This led to a series of questions about family. These initial responses also began to distinguish ideas of history associated with people verses ideas of history associated with land. In the beginning, I kept many of my questions open-ended so as not to steer my participant’s responses. For example, when conducting interviews in family homes, I was often surrounded by twenty or more village members, either family members living in the home or curious neighbors. Therefore, the head of the home where interviews were being conducted would narrate his family’s history through its genealogy. After this narrative was complete, he would point to family members present and explain how they fit into the family genealogy.

Interviews were a communal project. After arriving in the village early in the morning, interviews often stretched until late afternoon. Time spent with a family often had more to do with how much time they could afford to spend with me during a day. I often scheduled further meetings throughout the three months to interview different families as well as to conduct repeat interviews with the same families. In a village of approximately 2,250 people, I interviewed seventy-one people. This number does not include the approximately 180 village members throughout the three-month period who came to listen but refused to participate. Because many villagers came to the interviews to listen and report back to their families and neighbors, the total number of people present may not accurately reflect the impact of the interviews on the village as a whole. During interviews, answers were often a group response and debates between villagers would direct the conversation. These intergroup debates were translated for me, although in many cases, I could understand and participate in them. I always came to the village with a list of questions, yet interviews often took on a life of their own, and I learned more as these conversations progressed than I would have through answers to my prepared questions. For example, when local systems of dealing with conflicts failed, my interviews became an alternate way of approaching conflicts between the SCA and the villagers. These unexpected events allowed me to more closely observe local practices of dealing with conflicts and local values, and I got a unique glimpse of the role the SCA employees played in the community.

In some cases, SCA employees also directed who was interviewed. Upon arriving at the site, inspectors often had predetermined plans to conduct business with families. This allowed me to observe the interconnected business relationships between the SCA employees and villagers from the upper class. SCA employees were angered by my requests to interview poorer families or families whose homes had been destroyed. The ability to observe the role of the SCA employees in the village proved invaluable.

Interviews were also carried out with school teachers at the local public school. In order to understand narratives of history, I felt it was important to go to where children learned history. I was fortunate to visit the school during teacher conferences. The head of the school, as well as the teachers, were excited to talk to me. Many knew English, which allowed me to comfortably conduct my own interviews without the help of translators. After the interviews, I was given two books used to teach first and second year Pharaonic and Islamic history. I was also able to interview many of these teachers again, separately, in their homes in the village.

As informative as they were, my interviews at the public school were limited. I was not able to visit an Al-Azhar school, located two villages away. I did interview one history teacher from this school who was married to one of the SCA inspectors working for me. She explained that they did not teach Pharaonic, Greek, or Roman history in the Al-Azhar school. This same narrative was confirmed by the village sheikh who was educated at Al Azhar University in Cairo.

Rejection of Pharaonic, Greek, Roman, Coptic, and other archaeological narratives of history is partly a product of how these histories have been narrated in or left out of the school curriculum. In local narratives of history, people did not feel a connection to the ancient histories presented by the archaeological remains of the site and were unified in the belief that Westerners should not have access to these histories. Foreigners in the field represented the failing and betrayal of the SCA to the local people. Even so, historical interpretations by government officials, local villagers, and archaeologists have one common thread—histories are not neutral. They can be used to justify actions or beliefs, to place blame or praise, or condemn the existing state of affairs. They are a powerful source of capital that can be used to mask self, group, and national interests. (Alonso 1988, 48 quoting Scott 1985, 178)

Many SCA inspectors are also trained and employed by the foreign archaeological missions excavating on these sites. Missions are required by Egyptian law to have Egyptians working on the site of foreign excavations. The inspectors I worked with attended lectures meant to shape the minds of these individuals along national lines in the Zamalak office of the SCA branch in Cairo. Literature published by the SCA strictly for the Egyptian inspectors instructs them on how to perceive the presence of foreigners in the field (Our Monuments 2007, 3; Law 117: Preface). The roles of SCA employees at Kom Trougah are twofold. On one hand, they represent the Egyptian government’s official and national interests. On the other hand, they are involved in negotiating and mediating between villagers, government, and foreign archaeologists, and are immersed in the local communities in and surrounding Kom Trougah through family and social networks. The inspectors and guards are bound by local social ties that require loyalty superseding their position as government employees. Their social ties require actions that are in conflict with their governmental responsibilities such as allowing the building of homes in Kom Trougah. SCA representatives blur the lines between local and national interests and government and community interests as exemplified in this case study.

The Egypt Exploration Society published a Delta Survey in 2008, reviewing conditions of known archaeological sites under the protection of the SCA in this region. An overwhelming number of these sites have been completely covered by modern villages, agricultural fields, and cemeteries, which have led to the obliteration of archaeological remains. Kom Trougah is one of the few sites that still have large areas not covered by modern structures, making it an ideal case study.³

MY WORK FOR THE SCA

I have worked for the SCA in the main office in Zamalak for three years, and on various archaeological excavations in Giza, and have observed the workings of this institution from administrative and field situations. My experience and knowledge of the SCA and Egyptology helped me point out discrepancies between the archaeological record, information presented in the public school curriculum and by SCA employees. The discrepancies led me to anthropological research in the field of Egyptology and archaeology from the prospective experiences of contemporary Egyptologists, archaeologists, inspectors, guards, and villagers, rather than how specific artifacts presented in the archaeological record are written about or appreciated in an archaeological context.

My previous experience as a volunteer for the SCA and archaeologist working on different sites in Giza, including my travels to various sites across Egypt, set the foundation for many of my biases toward my own research. I came to the site believing that the archaeological remains held little or no meaning among the people of Kom Trougah. I believed that the inspectors’ so-called foot dragging, referred to by anthropologist James Scott, was a sign of their neglect. After observing the SCA employees’ practices and through analysis of the work of Scott, I now view the inspectors’ behavior toward the site as a form of resistance to the preservation of these remains, the histories the remains represent, and the foreign missions attempting to record and preserve them.

Through the defamation of monuments, the people of Kom Trougah and SCA inspectors are able to voice their frustrations without using words against the organizations and policies in place meant to protect these sites and their histories. Community members, inspectors, and guards feel their government does not provide basic necessities such as water, electricity, or money. The community of Kom Trougah defined foreigners as people from the West who are considered white. Foreigners were believed to be controlling the Egyptian government and was the reason Egypt is a weak country. The presence of foreigners on the site was a visible affirmation of local fears and beliefs. To many people, the protection of archaeological remains was not only a foreign concept but reinforced idea that their government would rather protect old stones than provide its people with decent homes. I was clearly aware of this problem during the course of my research.

1. In the Friday Prayer or Sermon in Kom Trougah, the local imam or sheikh, as he is known, discusses how the community members should live, the life of the Islamic prophet Mohamed, and communal concerns.

2. The police department in Abu Matamir has a special office set aside to determine whose homes on site were to be torn down and whose homes were allowed to remain. An inspector who wished to tear down a home in Kom Trougah made an appointment with the head of this office. I was present for this appointment and was allowed to conduct interviews and observe this process.

3. See the British Academy Research Project. 2008. The Egypt Exploration Society: Delta Survey: An information centre for the archaeological sites of Lower Egypt. http://www.deltasurvey.ees.ac.uk/ds-home.html, Kom Trougah has been registered as an official site by the SCA in the Beheira register as site number: 100251.

THE HUNGARIAN MISSION

Kom Trougah is a complicated space defined by some as an archaeological site and by others as a village. Interviews were primarily conducted with the head of the Hungarian mission currently working on the site, although I ultimately interviewed all five mission members. Archaeologists have had a sporadic history in Kom Trougah. The first excavations took place in 1885, before the existence of a village. The excavations were conducted by British archaeologist David George Hogarth who left the site after removing two meters of Roman material and discouraged by the discovery of still more Roman materials. The next large excavations took place in the 1950s, after the village of Kom Trougah began to develop in this space, under the direction of the Egyptian archaeologist A. M. El-Khachab. El-Khachab moved many of the Roman baths and mosaics he found to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. According to the Hungarian mission, a third excavation began in 1990 by a group of foreign archaeologists, but the excavations ended without explanation after a week. In 1992, an Egyptian mission under the direction of the SCA removed a large number of Roman burial remains. The deep sarcophagus-shaped pits in the northeast part of the site indicate what they found, but no official report of this excavation was written. The absence of an official report is unprofessional