Sophie Boukhari, UNESCO Courier journalist
Greater Cairo’s tentacular growth reaches out to the pyramids.
Development and rebuilding in central Beirut have given short shrift to archaeological remains.
The defence
of archaeological treasures in the Lebanese and Egyptian capitals has triggered epic
battles and led to mixed results
The efforts to safeguard Carthage and the nearby village of Sidi Bou Said
(see
Carthage) are particularly
noteworthy because ancient remains in two other Arab capitals have not always enjoyed
the same good fortune.
In Cairo, the pyramids have had a narrow escape. “I don’t think anything can harm
them now,” says Zahi Hawwas, the energetic head of the Giza archaeological zone.
In 1995, however, this UNESCO World Heritage site, which contains
the last of the Seven Wonders of the World that can still be seen, was nearly cut
in two by the greater Cairo ring road being built to decongest the city of 15 million
or so inhabitants. After a campaign led by UNESCO and helped by the media, Egyptian President
Hosni Mubarak came down on the side of heritage.
As a result, the eight-lane ring road has not been paved for the four kilometres
that were supposed to cross the Giza Plateau, but the rubble is still there and the
route has been handy for truck drivers who use it as a short cut. “I ordered this
traffic to stop at the beginning of June,” says an annoyed Hawwas, who wants the
government to build a detour that avoids the site.
“We asked for the road foundations to be destroyed but that wasn’t done, so I fear
the plan to use the route isn’t completely dead,” says Said Zulficar, a former UNESCO
official who fought against the ring road and is now secretary-general of the French
NGO Patrimoine sans Frontières (Heritage Without Borders).
He deplores the fact that another part of Cairo, the protected site of Fustat, the
first city founded by the Muslim conquerors in the 7th century, is being harmed by
“rampant urban expansion”. The authorities, he says, “have built social housing and
an amusement park right in the middle of the town when it hasn’t even been excavated
by archaeologists.
“In Egypt, there are laws and officials but there are also people more powerful than
the laws, along with a lot of speculators,” says Zulficar, hinting at the weakness
of the state’s Higher Council for Antiquities in the face of big construction firms
headed by people in the inner circles of power.
This is something the inhabitants of Beirut know all about. After the recent civil
war, Lebanese archaeologists had an unexpected chance to explore and display the
precious bowels of the city centre which had been exposed by bombing. But the area
“was cleared by bulldozers and dynamite as part of a huge urban renewal project,”
says Lebanese architect and town planner Jade Tabet. The main shareholder of Solidere,
the company doing the clearance work, was wealthy former prime minister (1993-1998)
Rafik Hariri, who is now in disgrace.
This meant that a blueprint making the city into a kind of Manhattan on the Mediterranean
was forced on the centre of the Lebanese capital “even before archaeologists could
start digging,” says Leila Badre, the respected curator of the Museum of the American
University of Beirut. “From that point on, the die was cast—badly—and we realized
that the importance of the archaeological remains was going to be played down.”
Excavations sponsored by UNESCO between 1993 and 1995 uncovered some
very valuable remains, notably the ancient “tell” or mound which was evidence of
the city’s Phoenician origins. In 1996, the government even ordered three sites to
be preserved, but the order was never carried out. “If we don’t take action quickly,
the remains will be damaged,” warns Badre.
Who can do this? Solidere or the Directorate General of Antiquities? Solidere is
going through a bad patch, and in April 1999 the head of the Directorate General
and half of his aides were thrown in prison for embezzlement.
“It’s a mess,” says Tabet. “We should have based the plan for the new centre of the
city on sites that could have become centres of attraction. But just try persuading
someone who only thinks in cash-flow terms that archaeology can create added value!
All the developers see are square metres of space to be built on as fast as possible.
So some remains have been dumped in the sea, others are crumbling into dust and Solidere’s
‘dazzling’ project is in the doldrums. It’s dreadful to see the 3,000-year history
of a city sold down the river.”
