June 24, 2007

Today's surprise is . . . a tour through the City of the Dead. Sounds gruesome, but really its not. As Mostafa explained it, hundreds of years ago, the cemetery was designed to accommodate the dead and house the keepers of the plots. Each plot is rather like a walled brick room approximately 4m x 3m with no ceiling, and a locked wrought iron gate. The tombs are below ground, so you look in and see only a sand floor. The vault is accessible through a 1m x 2m block that must be swept off to find it. In the tomb there is a room for males and a separate room for females. Now, back to the keepers of the plots. A small house was built for the people who maintained the plots and watered the trees outside them. Each person looked after a row or two of plots. Then, of course, they married and had children. In the Egyptian tradition, they built on to their house for their children's children for 700 years. So now, many plots have a roof over them on which these generations of plot keepers live. Hence, the City of the Dead. And, since wooden caskets are only used to transport the bodies after they are washed, perfumed, and wrapped in at least three but could be five, or seven or more (prime numbers only) layers of cloth (different colours), there is lots of room in the tombs.
So, tomorrow I catch up on basic necessities like groceries and laundry, which I am sure you will await with baited breath, and maybe another crack at the old map.
Love,
Laurel