Rendez-vous du CEDEJ
” La cité des morts au Caire, une merveille en danger ”
Mercredi 31 Mars à 18h00
Webinaire en français
Pour s’inscrire cliquez ici
English version below
La cité des morts, ou les nécropoles médiévales du Caire, appelées aussi Qarafa est un vaste espace funéraire comprenant les premiers cimetières musulmans de l’Egypte. Elle se compose de deux grandes nécropoles, qui couvrent une superficie d’environ 1000 ha et s’étendent sur 10 km du sud au nord de la l’agglomération urbaine dont elle constitue une composante importante. Fondée en 642 par les conquérants arabes à l’est de Fostat, première ville arabe construite en Egypte, elle est considérée comme étant la nécropole musulmane la plus importante utilisée encore comme cimetière depuis quatorze siècles. Intégrée récemment dans le périmètre de sauvegarde du Caire historique, un des sites du patrimoine mondial, cette nécropole est paradoxalement un patrimoine en péril, en situation de dégradation avancée et risquant de se transformer en un grand taudis urbain. Le maintien des 75 monuments funéraires datant de toutes le époques depuis la conquête arabe, la démolition des tombes qui les entourent et le transfert des sépultures dans un autre site désertique loin de la capitale, prévus par le schéma stratégique du Caire à l’échéance 2050 constituent d’autres menaces qui planent sur des tombes qui possèdent pour beaucoup d’entre elles des valeurs historique, esthétiques et symboliques. Les premières étapes de ce projet on été mises à exécution en juillet 2020 par la démolition de centaines de tombes dans les deux grandes nécropoles occasionnée par la construction de deux voies express en viaduc. Ces rénovations urbaines qui ont touché un site patrimonial, ont suscités émotion et indignation dans la société égyptienne. Nous allons nous interroger sur le devenir de la Qarafa, en mettant en lumière d’une part, les défis qu’affronte cette merveille du monde comme l’a qualifiée le voyageur arabe Ibn Jubair au 12è siècle, et de l’autre les trésors qu’elle renferme, que l’humanité risque de perdre à jamais.
Galila El Kadi, Directrice de recherche émérite à l’Institut de recherche pour le développement IRD.
” The City of the Dead in Cairo, A Marvell in danger ”
– Wednesday, March 31 at 6:00 pm
Online, register here
Abstract of the presentation
The City of the Dead, or Cairo’s Medieval Necropolis, also referred to as the Qarafa, is a series of vast Islamic era necropolises and cemeteries in Cairo, Egypt. They include two large areas and a small cemetery, which all together occupy one thousand hectares and stretch for twelve kilometres from north to south, constituting a major feature of the city’s urban landscape. Founded in AD 642 by the Arab conquerors next to Fustat, the first urban settlement established in Egypt, the Qarafa is considered to be the most important Islamic necropolis that has remained in continuous use as a graveyard for 1340 years. This necropolis was recently included within the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Historic Cairo, paradoxically representing a heritage at high risk of decay and rapid transformation into an informal, badly maintained residential area. The transfer of all tombs out to desert locations is one of the options included in the Cairo 2050 strategic master plan. It has already started brutally in mid 2019 when the authorities have demolished hundreds of valuable tombs belonging to famous figures in the worlds of art, literature, economy and politics to install two bridges linking highways. Another planned infrastructure will led to the demolition of 2700 family tombs and continue to disfigure a marvel of the world as described by the Arab traveller Ibn Jubair the thirteen century.
This presentation will shed the light on the architectural treasures contained in the city of the dead before focusing on the risks that threaten its existence as an important component of the City’s landscape and a world heritage site.
References:
Galila El Kadi et Alain Bonnamy, Le Caire, la cite des morts; IRD/Mardaga; Bruxelles 2001.
Galila El Kadi et Alain Bonnamy, Architecture for the Dead, Cairo’s Medieval Necropolis, AUC Press. 2007
Prof. Galila EL Kadi is emeritus research director at the Institut de recherche pour le développement (IRD/France), where she was responsible of the urban environment research unit. She is a professor in urban planning and architecture and was Head of Department of Architecture at the French University in Egypt (FUE). In 2010, she co-founded the master program on Cultural Heritage at the FUE in partnership with the University of Paris 1 Sorbonne. She is currently a member of the International experts of UNESCO in the conservation of the urban and architectural heritage on modernity’s in Arab world. She studied architecture at the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo University and urban planning at the Institut d’Urbanisme de Paris (IUP), Paris 12 University. She was seconded from 1983 to 1992 as lecturer to the Urban and Regional Planning Faculty at Cairo University; to Tours University as researcher and associated professor from 1993 to 2000, and finally to the Faculty of Engineering at Cairo university from 2000 to 2006. EL Kadi initiated and coordinated several European and Mediterranean research projects. She actively participated at the dissemination of the concept of Shared Mediterranean Heritage in the Med countries. El Kadi acted as a consultant to the Governor of Cairo for the rehabilitation project of Khedivian Cairo between 2013 and 2017. In addition to her teaching, research and expertise activities, she has numerous publications in the fields of urban and architectural heritage conservation, as well as urban and regional planning.
Publications principales
Le Caire centre en mouvement, Cairo Centre in movement, ouvrage, 2012, édit. IRD, collection Petits atlas urbain. La Cité des Morts au Caire, published first in french in 2001, édit. Mardaga/IRD, translated to english , published by the AUC Press: The Architecture for the dead, the Cairo’s medieval Necropolis, AUC Press 2007, L’urbanisation spontanée au Caire, (Spontaneous urbanisation in Cairo) URBAMA/Tours France en 1987, translated to arabic, published in 2009, édit. Dar El Ain et Markaz El Targama, Egypt 2009. Rashid, al Nachaa, Al Izdihar, Al Inhissar, (Rosetta, Birth, Prosperity and Decline), published in arabic in 1999, édit. Dar El Afaq al Arabia, Revisiting Khedivial Cairo, A facelift or removal of a Tumor, in O. Nagati and B. Stryker edit. « Creative Cities, Reframing Dowtown Conference, » The Americain niversity in cairo Press, Cairo 2017, pages 106-112. El KADI Galila, 2016, “Reviving Khedivial Cairo, a facelift or removal of tumor”, in, Creative Cities, edited by Omar Nagati and Beth striker, AUC Press,Cairo 2016, pages 106-111. El Kadi Galila and Sibley Magda, 2018, “Hidden and Unknown: Twelve “Belle Epoque” Cairo Museum Rediscovered Through Students’ Engagement in BRAU 4 proceedings, pages 445-454; CICOP edizioni, http://www.cicop.it/mmc http://www.cicop.it; info@cicop.it
Awards :
May 2017- International Council of Museums Award for Best Practice of the AHRC funded project BECAMI for which I was the Principal Investigator
2001- Organization for Arabic and Islamic Capital Cities; award for the best book of the year : Rashid: birth, prosperity and decline
