[1], The Qarafa received new attention under the Ayyubid dynasty (established by Salah ad-Din after the Fatimid Caliphate was abolished in 1171), who repaired some monuments and aqueducts and re-initiated urbanization in parts of the cemeteries (despite also destroying Fatimid monuments). [1], By the end of the 19th century, however, the housing problems of Cairo began to be felt. [13] The intensified urbanization of Cairo itself, and the exclusion of the poorest from government initiatives, resulted in a more urgent need for informal or improvised housing. Dr Manniche is a well-known Danish Egyptologist and author of several books includingEgyptian Art (in Danish) and Erotic Life in Ancient Egypt. They include the Mausoleum and Khanqah of Amir Qawsun (founded in 1335) and the so-called "Sultaniyya" mausoleum (believed to be dedicated to Sultan Hassan's mother, in the mid-14th century).[1][7]. The city was fiercely guarded by the Medjai warriors and by warrior priests, with any that found the city silenced so as not to divulge its location; a burial within the city could only be attended by the High Priest of Osiris and his priests, accompanied by soldiers and slaves. The areas around the unfinished pyramid of Sekhemkhet and the so-called Great Enclosure have not yet been fully explored. Some of the most celebrated examples of Mamluk architecture are found in this district, particularly from the Burji period. [1] This population grew and shrank according to circumstances in different eras. The family of Muhammad Ali himself were buried in a lavish mausoleum known as the Hosh el-Pasha, built around 1854 near the Mausoleum of Imam al-Shafi'i. It is divided into two parts by the Citadel of Cairo: the "Southern" Cemetery and "Northern" Cemetery, referring to the regions south and north of the Citadel. The area was progressively developed by Mamluk sultans in the 14th and 15th centuries as they sought space to build their own grand funerary monuments outside the overcrowded city and the by-then saturated Qarafa south of the Citadel. Set in a remote area of the vast Sahara, Hamunaptra held such high importance that none but the Medjai and the High Priest of Osiris could ever know its location. [1], Ottoman rule was suddenly ended by Napoleon Bonaparte's invasion of Egypt in 1798. [1] In modern times, the City of the Dead has been surrounded by the urban fabric of greater Cairo, which has long since outgrown its historic core. [1], The necropolis that makes up "the City of the Dead" has been developed over many centuries and contains both the graves of Cairo's common population as well as the elaborate mausoleums of many of its historical rulers and elites. She was an immigrant to Fustat and acquired a strong reputation for baraka before her death in 824 CE, and her tomb is still highly important and popular today. A part of the Mamluk Aqueduct which once provided water to the Citadel runs through the northern areas of the cemetery, partly along the path of the old Ayyubid city walls and running parallel to Salah Salem road. Charlotte Edwards, The Sun November 10, 2020 7:15pm This place is also known and spelled as Sakkara or Saccara. From Egypt’s modern-day capital, Cairo, Saqqara is located some 40 kilometres to the southwest. Egypt teases biggest discovery of the year from ancient ‘City of the Dead’ Archaeologists excavating a site claim they’ve found something “very exciting” in an underground shaft labelled the “City of the Dead”. [6] Importantly, that area also became the site of many important tombs belonging to a number of the Prophet's descendants who emigrated to Egypt in this period, some of which, like those of Sayyida Ruqayya, Sayyida Nafisa and Sayyida Aisha, are still present today. The southern-most royal monument at Saqqara was built by Shepseskaf, the last king of the 4th Dynasty. Their purpose, as historian Margaret Bunson explains, \"was to instruct the deceased on how to overcome the dang… The cemeteries are located in what were arid desert areas outside the main city and just outside the traditional floodplains of the Nile. [1], The Mamluk sultans (1250 to 1517) were prolific builders, but most of the sultans and Mamluk elites preferred to be buried in monumental mausoleums attached to mosques and madrassas built in the city rather than in the Qarafa. [8], These developments and practices during the Fatimid era led to the emergence, or resurgence, of the popular traditions of visiting the graves of family members and ancestors for holidays and vacations. [17] ("Al-Khalifa" is also the name of the wider administrative district or qism in the Cairo Governorate which contains the Southern Cemetery today. The large majority of these mastabas are dated to the 5th and. A … It is believed by some that the oldest remains of Memphis are to be found underneath the modern-day village of Abusir, immediately to the east of the Archaic Tombs. Starting in 1348, a number of Mamluk amirs built mausoleums and religious foundations in this area, forming another small necropolis still visible today, though it did not blend with the rest of the Northern Cemetery until later. [3] These squatters were still a very small fraction of the total population of the cemetery zones: around 3% of nearly 180,000 people at that time. The early Muslim city was divided into multiple khittat or plots of land that were allocated to different tribes, and each tribe in turn built their own cemetery and funerary district - often including a mosque - in the desert area to the east of the city. [8][9] Caliph al-Amir (reigned 1100-1130) also reportedly resided in the palace. When a tomb was constructed, depending upon one's wealth and status, an offerings chapel was also built so that the soul could receive food and drink offerings on a daily basis. [1], The Fatimid Caliphs themselves and their family members were buried in their own mausoleum (called Turbat az-Za'faran)[1][7] on the site of what is now Khan al-Khalili, inside the city and adjacent to the Fatimid Great Palaces. The burning of Fustat in 1168 led to the decline of that city and its importance, and the ruined sections of the city may have become burial grounds integrated into the Greater Qarafa. [1][7] In 1320, Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad put an end to the games and the military functions of the area were abandoned, but it came to be inhabited by Sufi orders searching for space outside the crowded city. Netjerikhet’s funerary complex seen from the sky. Source: Lehner, Complete Pyramids, Thames & Hudson 1997, pp. RARE footage of an Ancient Egyptian 'funeral home' has been released by National Geographic. In the immense historical necropolis of Cairo, the fences fail to hide the rubble of the destroyed mausoleums of the City of the Dead, a UNESCO world heritage site, to build the controversial road to Ferdaus, the “paradise”. necropolis. (Page of tag city of the dead) Despite the disasters, Mamluk elites continued to build extensively across Cairo. There is also another smaller cemetery north of Bab al-Nasr. [7][1][11] The population of the cemetery in the mid-15th century is estimated to have been around four thousand people. [1] The UNESCO World Heritage Site entry for Historic Cairo lists the area as the "Al-Imam ash-Shaf'i Necropolis". These were especially important to the Shi'i version of Islam of which the Fatimids were adherents. It originally developed separately from the rest of the Northern Cemetery but it too dates back to the Mamluk period. Wooden coffins on display during the unveiling of an ancient treasure trove of more than 100 intact coffins at the Saqqara necropolis 30km south of the Egyptian capital Cairo, on November 14, 2020. The Mosque has been embellished and rebuilt by many patrons over the centuries, and is still popular today. [1][5]:26 In the mid-8th century, just before the rise of the Abbasid Caliphate, the city's necropolis is said to have covered about 300 hectares, though its exact boundaries are unclear, other than the fact that it was outside the eastern city walls. It started with the early city of Fustat (founded in 642 CE) and arguably reached its apogee, in terms of prestige and monumentality, during the Mamluk era (13th-15th centuries). [16], The cemetery is distinguished from the other two necropolises by its lack of monumental funerary structures, but also by the distinctive wooden enclosures that shelter the hawsh units here. [2], The northern part of the necropolis, north of the Salah Salem road, is known as the al-Khalifa neighbourhood. At some distance to the South of Sekhemkhet's unfinished complex, three kings built their pyramids. [7] However, these estimates are argued to be unreliable as they do not match the current population trends in Cairo and they may be based on previous exaggerations of the cemetery population. [16], Arguably the most important site in the Southern Cemetery is the Mausoleum of Imam al-Shafi'i and its adjoining mosque. [8][9] The palace was later destroyed by Salah ad-Din and the mosque is no longer extant today. It also set a precedent for people living in the cemeteries, as the new establishments inside the Qarafa required workers to operate, and the religious foundations attracted scholars and Sufis. [7] His mausoleum is also a monument of major architectural and historic importance in itself: it is the largest freestanding mausoleum in Egypt and its current structure was founded by the Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil in 1211 (with many subsequent modifications and restorations). At some distance to the South of Sekhemkhet's unfinished complex, three kings built their pyramids. [1][3] This phenomenon led to much media commentary and popular imagination about the condition of those living in the necropolises, linking them symbolically to Cairo's much-discussed overpopulation problems and sometimes leading to exaggerated estimates of the number of people squatting in the mausoleums. [4][1]:123, 297–298 In any case, however, these terms would be used in various ways later on. [1] (The construction of the Salah Salem highway, however, also implicated the destruction of some of the cemeteries along the edge of the Northern Cemetery. Letters to the Dead date from the Old Kingdom (c. 2613 - 2181 BCE) through the Late Period of Ancient Egypt (525-332 BCE), essentially the entirety of Egyptian history. [1], Estimating the population of the "City of the Dead" is problematic due to difficulties in defining it precisely. In 1907, the neighbourhood of Imam al-Shafi'i was connected to the rest of Cairo by a streetcar line which stretched from here to the Pyramids in Giza (though it no longer exists today). Storia della necropoli musulmana del Cairo. , at some distance to the northwest of Shepseskaf’s tomb; and the small pyramid of Ibi, to the Northeast. [1][8], The Fatimids built a number of palaces and residences within the Greater Qarafa cemetery and along the roads between Fustat and their new royal city of al-Qahira (from which the name "Cairo" originates) to the northeast. A number of lesser-known Fatimid-era funerary monuments, featuring architectural similarities with the Mashhad of Sayyida Ruqayya to the north, are also documented. Salah ad-Din also built the first Sunni madrasa in Egypt here, based on the Shafi'i madhhab, in order to counter the long-running missionary efforts of the Shi'a Fatimids (whom he had deposed). Bestselling author Warren Adler's (The War of the Roses) historical thriller Mother Nile is set in the City of the Dead during the reign of King Farouk of Egypt. The oddly shaped tomb of Shepseskaf at Saqqara. Dating to the seventh century, el-Arafa’s graves are not your typical coffin setup. It can be divided into the following cemeteries: Massive sarcophagus of a deceased sacred Apis bull in the Serapeum at Saqqara.Source: Phys.org. More than two millennia ago, 27 Egyptians were laid to rest in Saqqara, an ancient city of the dead. [1]:123 The land became abandoned and disused following a famine in the 11th century and was probably then used as a burial ground, which led to the name Qarafa being used to denote Cairo's urban cemeteries in general. He was also the first king to return to Saqqara after several of his predecessors had preferred Abusir, to the North of Saqqara, for their burials.The two other royal monuments built here belong to Pepi I and his son Merenre I, both of the 6th Dynasty. Such was the importance or fame of Pepi I's funerary complex, that its name, mn-nfr was applied to the nearby city of Memphis by later generations. 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