Karanis - Cult of the Crocodile!

The title of this post should be a B Movie! With Mrs T off gallivanting round the fine English countryside of Suffolk busy thatched–roofed-cottage-hunting I am left home alone to work on my golf handicap. Saturday however means a little gallivant for myself and Ahmed the Driver with the camera into the wilds of Cairos mean streets or in the case of this weekend, a jaunt down the Fayoum Road.

So we set off early and spent a good while trying to find 92 petrol. Finally getting some in Giza we climbed past the Big Pointy Buildings on the Giza limestone escapement and set off south.

Ahmed said he had never been this way before (this was untrue, as he took a wrong turn this way when we were trying to find Joe at one of his football tournaments, but I didn’t want to be picky). The road is quick and straight and dual carriageway, which all equates to high speed crashes. It was not long before we came across and double lorry that had glanced a microbus. Tarantinos movies have nothing on the view from a passenger seat in Egypt.

Quite fittingly half-way acorss the desert towards the Fayoum Oasis there is a massive cemetery in the middle of nowhere. City of the Dead (another B Movie)

Karanis, or Kom Ushim or, my favourite, Crocodilopolis is one of the best known sites of Roman Egypt. Never heard of it? Nor had I. Well the ruins are not that spectacular compared to the big pointy buildings in a country with more classic ruins than you can shake a stick at. Archeologists do get excited however because Karanis is the best known town on paper, or more specifically papyrus. The town was once a thriving, lower-middle class agricultural town on the banks of Lake Quron and the Romans, like most “civilizations” collected copious amounts of paperwork documenting the minutiae of every day life. As the waters of the lake receded, along with the Roman empire the town slowly died only to be rediscovered as an unremarkable pile of ruins. The discovery was made by farmers attracted by the organic rich soil, left by the ancient inhabitants. The farmers came across many well-preserved tax records/notes/letters/official memoradums and sold them on. There value was eventually appreciated and proper excavations of the town occurred in the 1920s by, no doubt well dress chaps in the style of Howard Carter.

The visitor centre restuarant - apparently not open.....

Now I know its not a “A” grade tourist site but it looked completely trashed and we had to wake the 3-4 police from their morning slumbers (10.30am) to open the gate. They were surprised to see us, not many tourists this month! The visitor centre did not look like it had seen any visitors since Churchill coming here (apparently). The building looked like something out of the “Time Machine” when the guys goes centuries into the future (in fact the ruins looked in better shape than the visitor centre). They police insisted on following us around, which did not bother me as the sun was now high and they were flagging soon in the heat and got very bored very quickly. For some reason they did not want me to take my tripod, camera was ok, and would only agree to it for 1000 egyptian pounds – all very curious

Aswan granite Egyptian columns recycled by the Romans

The Southern Temple
Large pots were strewn everywhere

The name Crocodilopolis comes from one of the two ruined temples dedicated to the crocodile gods (hence the cult of the crocodile. Mummified crocs were found in the temples. The paperwork gives an insight into the life of an everyday town, weavers, wool sellers, potters, farmers, carpenters, hairdressers. This population paid heavy taxes to the government, mostly consisting of grain (Egypt - the breadbasket of the Roman Empire). The town interestingly was also inhabited by the mercenaries of the Roman army (you got a bit of land for slaying a few Britons/Gauls as a pension).

Fayoum oasis in the background from South Temple

The old town buried for centuries

Door with a view (but no room)
A couple of examples I retrieved from the internet of the paparyses (papayri?). My favorites was some poor guy complaining a soldier guarding the town would not let him pass with this donkey hay/olive oil cart unless be gave him a bribe (lessons that the Mubarak era did not take heed off). Also in year 198, a dispute took place with a violent tax collector, while there was a robbery of a woman whose brother was in the army at an unknown date. In 214, a fire destroyed a field of crops, while in 216, there was the burglary and vandalism of a house

Several millstones around - look good as a water feature in my garden

The site reminded me of Byblos in Lebanon, the foundations of a city left to eroded away. The impressive thing in Karansis is the amount of 1^st-4^th century pottery on the floor, everywhere you step as piles of pot shards. Either these guys had some smashing parties or the pots were of poor quality.

Piles and piles of broken pots

The north Temple - dediciated to the Crocs

Leaving our little antiquities police to their beds we headed toward the lake along some great agricultural roads. These roads are fantastic as there is so much to see going on. It was obviously Market day in Fayoum and the lorries were chock-full of farmers and cows.

Farmers and Cows travel together

Cows up front, farmers in the back
No overtaking....
Although 1st class is not luxurious, 2nd class is worse
A whole flock of farmers for sale

A generator powered by donkey - or donkey powered by generator

A whole lot of Ahmed Al Armitage Shanks

We hit the lakeside, and drove down the “cornice” Every so often a fisherman or fisherwife tried in vien to flag use down to buy their wares. I took a few pictures of the fisherman, lake and birds. As it was scorching we gave up, visited one of the two hotels on the lake (its seems Churchill is like bonnie Prince Charile, everywhere claimhe visited and stay).

"Frreeesh fish" (from the Laurel and Hardy film)

Selling fish is tough when customers are travelling at 60km/hr
A few tiddlers
This was quite a pose - reminder me of Eric Idle dress as a woman in Monty Python
Fishermen getting ready to go out again...its a family affair

Photo-shy Egrets
Fishing boats
And so we headed back to the smoke. Much more to see in this area (Wadi Rayan, Hitam, Fayoum itself) so its on my list of things to do.

Pesky Pied Kingfishers

As the sun went down I "went over the wall" onto the golf course and down to the lake by the 15th tee where I had watched the pied kingfishers dive bombing small fish at the weekend as I creamed a beautiful drive straight up the fairway. There's a small hut and some trees so I thought I could skulk around and creep up on the little blighters.

Armed with telephoto I went around the lake as the kingfishers tantalisingly moved out of distance every time I stopped. So I inserted myself into the undergrowth and waited. Eventually one forgot I was buried in the palms and landed very close on one of the perches I had seen them use. However he was too close and boy, have they got sharp eyesight because every time I moved the camera to my eye he would look carefully at me ready to dart away. I got a couple before he shot off. Maybe I try again, it gives you great respect for wildlife photographers.

Garbage, a Church and a Mosque

Friday, first day of our weekend and it was a beautiful day, I spent the morning on the golf course and from the elevated tees the pyramids could clearly been seen, first time thats happened! Afternoon we took boys plus friends down town to City Stars where they had a great time bowling and eating. Never seen such little traffic on the road, maybe everyone was down at Tahrir protesting.

Saturday I went out with Ahmed again with my camera, intent on goint to a couple of spots that have been on my list for a while, St Simians Church in Muqattum Hills and al Hakim Mosque in Islamic Cairo. I also wanted to try a new photographic technique (new to me at least) called High Dynamic Range photography or HDR.

Using google earth I had found St Simians the Tanner Monastry and Church. Its in one of the poorest areas of Cairo called garbage city. Around town you can see rubbish collectors assembling huge bags of rubbish for later recycling and sorting, Muqattum is where they end up and a whole neighbourhood processes them.

Entrance into Garbage City

You could see the bags on the roof tops from a distance and there is rather less than piney fresh smell in the air. We made our way into the neighbourhood along the road we shared with overlain rubbish trucks bring the days assortment in. Every nook, crany, little doorway, alley was crammed full of rubbish, they were even dragging the bags up to the roof as we drove under. Just as I thought there "must be a lot of rats in here" a poodle-size rodent ran alongside the car and up an alley. This was not typical tourist Cairo, and there were not many white faces around, but its is the only way to the church. Like all neighbourhoods though the basics of life go on, bread shops, mechanics, and of course coffee shops all doing good business. Eventually we found the turn, after asking a few people "welcome Mr, shamal, shamal" we were directed up the hill through even narrower streets stacked high with cardboard either side eventually coming out at the church entrance arch, and the single tourist police man, making sure we signed in “Wahid Ingelise” and we were allowed to drive up to the church.

The saying is there was a miracle here (the miracle being how the busses ever bring the faithful). Muqattum is built at the base of the Muqattum cliff and the church is located along and in the cliff face and its natural ampitheatres. Its pretty spectacular, as a venue, and takes about 15 000 people apparently though that look a bit much, although it had about 50 when we were there. The cliff walls are carved with various iconology and biblical phrases which are pretty impressive. Its named after a chap called Saint Simon the Tanner or shoemaker who lived towards the end of the tenth century. Story goes at the time the muslim ruler used to invite different religious leaders to debate in his presence. During one of the debates the jewish side quoted Matthew, 17:20 “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to the mountain, Move from here to there, and it will move, nothing will be impossible for you”.

The muslim caliph demanded that this very miracle be performed by or else he and all the Copts would be killed, seems perfectly reasonable. One morning the Holy Virgin told the Jewish chap to go to the market to find a one-eyed man carrying on his shoulder a jar full of water. The man whom the Virgin spoke of was Simeon the tanner. As an aside being a shoe maker Simieon, who obviously takes things literally, had once lustfully looked a ladies ankle, so he promptly who had plucked out his eye because of a passage from the bible which said: If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away (Matthew 5:29-30). Anyhow back to the story. Simeone told everyone to shout O Lord, have mercy three times, “and the mountain was lifted” – i.e there was an earthquake and everyone was saved. Interestingly there are plenty of faults in the area (perhaps Simeon was a geologist) and there have been numerous earthquakes (this is a fault zone) since and many poor people have been killed due to landsides, rock falls and poor building standards.

The church in a cave

The citadel and Muqattam
Driving out through the narrow streets
Rubbish on the "main road"
Bags everywhere

Dragging a couple of bags to the roof

After taking a few photos, unfortunately the sun was behind the hill, we headed down to Islamic Cairo and Bab Fatouh. I wanted to explore a mosque I previously took a nice photo of the entrance. The Al Hakim mosque or Alabaster mosque made a cool visit in the increasing heat. The mosque dates from 985 and is on Muizz Street, my favourite. A small Shia sect performed a "pimp my mosque" in 1980 and really did a nice job refurbishing the place, however the original Minarets stand proud in the background behind the white alabaster.

Through the Bab in the old city walls

Sun through the palms and Al Hakim minaret

Al Hakim mosque in stark black and white.....

Drink containers of Tamarind juice I think

A Khoshari - real working mans food
Ahmed getting a juice from the bar

I got a few nice ones there we walked a little bit down Muizz Street, I was trying to find a copper Hilal (top of a Minaret) for the garden in the UK but the shop I know was not open. So we stopped at a juice bar for a fresh OJ and came back to Kattameya.

Ill post my first attempt at HDR soon. Basically with a tripod you take a normal exposure photo, one under and one over, and then smash them together using some computer-jiggery pokery, and then play around with the final product. The photos are super definition, and by changing the parameters you can get many different styles of photos and atmospheres. Will see what I can do (when I have time!