Search results for ""The American University in Cairo Press""

Although there is a wealth of guidebooks to Cairo, this is the first to specifically target the needs of families with children. Cairo: The Family Guide provides all families living in Cairo-expatriate and Egyptian alike-with the resources and information needed to explore the city to the fullest. Organized by geographic area, each section begins with an overview of the area's history and residents. Then the authors take us on a detailed journey to the special treasures of each Cairo neighborhood, with photographs, line drawings, maps that pinpoint sites of interest, and plans of museums and other places of importance in the area. Each section also includes practical advice on how to get to each location, what to take on visits, opening hours, and much more.And, as many people know, an enjoyable afternoon means something entirely different to a six year-old than to a thirteen-year-old: to this end, suggestions are age-sensitive, and a variety of activities are proposed. Also included are a detailed historical timeline and a recommended reading list to help children and teens get in the mood for a Cairene adventure.

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The complete series of innovative new coursebooks in Egyptian colloquial ArabicDrawing on her years of experience as an Arabic instructor and course developer, Samia Louis has used a functional approach to create a bright, innovative set of coursebooks for the study of Egyptian colloquial Arabic—the spoken dialect most frequently studied and most widely understood in the Arab world. Now three new books, for beginner, early advanced, and higher advanced students, have been added to the series. Designed according to the ACTFL guidelines for teaching Arabic as a foreign language, each book of Kallimni ‘Arabi trains students through highly structured lessons in the crucial skills, with particular emphasis on listening and speaking, using real-life situations and expressions. The associated audio files, both available online and as a CD, carry recordings of the dialogs and exercises in each chapter, made by Egyptian native speakers. “The books in the [Kallimni ‘Arabi] series altogether present the best Arabic textbooks available . . . miles ahead of most others.”—David Wilmsen, American University of Beirut

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The novelist’s camera pans from the dome of King Fuad University (now Cairo University) to students streaming out of the campus, focusing on four students in their twenties, each representing a different trend in Egypt in the 1930s. Finally the camera comes to rest on Mahgub Abd al-Da’im. A scamp, he fancies himself a nihilist, a hedonist, an egotist, but his personal vulnerability is soon revealed by a family crisis back home in al-Qanatir, a dusty, provincial town on the Nile that is also a popular destination for Cairene day-trippers. Mahgub, like many characters in works by Naguib Mahfouz, has a hard time finding the correct setting on his ambition gauge. His emotional life also fluctuates between the extremes of a street girl, who makes her living gathering cigarette butts, and his wealthy cousin Tahiya. Since he thinks that virtue is merely a social construct, how far will our would-be nihilist go in trying to fulfill his unbridled ambitions? What if he discovers that high society is more corrupt and cynical than he is? With a wink back at Goethe’s Faust and Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews, Mahgub becomes a willing collaborator in his own corruption.Published in Arabic in the 1940s, this cautionary morality tale about self-defeating egoism and ill-digested foreign philosophies comes from the same period as one of the writer’s best known works, Midaq Alley. Both novels are comic and heart-felt indictments not so much of Egyptian society between the world wars as of human nature and our paltry attempts to establish just societies.

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Cynthia Nelson was an outstanding professor of anthropology at AUC and the founding director of the Institute of Gender and Women’s Studies. This collection of her essays, which highlight her distinguished scholarly career, is grouped under three main themes: phenomenology and the meaning of religious phenomena in Egypt; women, power, and politics in the Middle East; and the politics and ethics of location. Cynthia Nelson was the editor of the first Cairo Papers monograph in 1977: thirty years later, this issue marks her legacy to the humanistic and social scientific understanding of Egypt, a legacy balanced by the enormous institutional contributions she made to establishing feminist anthropology in Egypt. Cairo Papers Vol. 28, No. 2

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Ahmad ibn Tulun (835-84), the son of a Turkic slave in the Abbasid court of Baghdad, became the founder of the first independent state in Egypt since antiquity, and builder of Egypt's short-lived third capital of the Islamic era, al-Qata'i' and its great congregational mosque. After recounting the story of Ibn Tulun and his successors, architectural historian Tarek Swelim presents a topographic survey of al-Qata'i', a city lost since its complete destruction in 905. He then provides a detailed architectural analysis of the Mosque of Ibn Tulun, which was spared the destruction and is now the oldest surviving mosque in Egypt and Africa, from the time of its completion until today. Rare archival illustrations and early photographs document the changing appearance and uses of the mosque in modern times, while extraordinary 3D computer renderings take us back in time to recreate its architectural development through its early centuries. Plans, drawings, and maps complement the history, while striking modern color photographs showcase the elegant simplicity of the building's architecture and decoration.This definitive and generously illustrated book will appeal to scholars and students of Islamic art history, as well as to anyone interested in or inspired by the beauty of early mosque architecture.

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At the time of the Egyptian Revolution in 1952, the population of Egypt was around 22 million. At the end of 2002, it stood at 69 million, and was growing at a rate of 1.33 million a year. What happens to a society that grows so quickly, when the habitable and cultivable land of the country is strictly limited? After the success of Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?, Galal Amin now takes a further bemused look at the changes that have taken place in Egyptian society over the past half century, this time considering the disruptions brought about by the surge in population. Basing his arguments on both academic research and his own personal experiences and impressions, and employing the same light humor and keen sense of empathy as in his earlier work, the author discusses how runaway population growth has not only profound effects on many aspects of society—from love and fashion to telephones, the supermarket, and religion—but also predictable effects on the economy.

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In this title, eleven short stories take us back to an Alexandria past, the cosmopolitan city in the years before, during, and following the Second World War. Through vivid portraits of characters from his youth, Tzalas tells of lives caught up in the turbulent currents of history and the transformation of a beloved city, with 11 illustrations.

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A classic novel from one of the great contemporary writers of Egypt and the Middle EastCairo, January 1952. Egypt is at a critical point in its modern history, struggling to throw off the yoke of the seventy-year British occupation and its corrupt royalist allies. Hamza is a committed young radical, his goal to build a secret armed brigade to fight for freedom, independence, and national self-esteem. Fawziya is a woman with a mission too, keen to support the cause. Among the ashes of the city love may grow, but at a time of national struggle what place do personal feelings have beside the greater love for a shackled homeland? In this finely crafted novel, Yusuf Idris, best known as the master of the Arabic short story, brings to life not only some of the most human characters in modern Arabic fiction but the soul of Cairo itself and the soul of a national consciousness focused on liberation.

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Four areas in Southern Egypt, around Lake Nasser, now contain ancient monuments that were reconstructed and moved from their original positions during the building of the Aswan High Dam in the 1960s: Abu Simbel, New Amada, New Wadi al-Sebua and New Kalabsha. This guide provides an introduction to the history and culture of Nubia during the pharaonic period. It describes each monument in detail, highlighting its history, religion and art. Also included are a short bibliography and brief descriptions of the four temples that were transported and reconstructed abroad - the most notable now residing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.

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Art historian Yasmine has been working on restoring an unsigned portrait of a strikingly beautiful girl from the Napoleonic Era, when she discovers that the artist has embedded a lock of hair into the painting, something highly unusual. The mysterious painting came into the museum’s possession without record, and Yasmine sets out to uncover the secret concealed within this captivating work. Meanwhile, at the close of the French Campaign in Egypt, sixteen-year-old Zeinab, the daughter of a prominent sheikh, is drawn into French high society when Napoleon himself requests her presence. Enamored by the foreign customs of the Europeans, she finds herself on a dangerous path, one that may ostracize her from her family and culture. Seamlessly merging fiction with history, art and politics, modern day Cairo with its opulent past, this compelling story of two women caught between worlds and entangled in matters of the heart launches an entrancing new literary voice.

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The legacies of the Coptic Christian presence in Alexandria and the Egyptian Deserts from the fourth century to the present dayThe great city of Alexandria is undoubtedly the cradle of Egyptian Christianity, where the Catechetical School was established in the second century and became a leading center in the study of biblical exegesis and theology. According to tradition St. Mark the Evangelist brought Christianity to Alexandria in the middle of the first century and was martyred in that city, which was to become the residence of Egypt's Coptic patriarchs for nearly eleven centuries. By the fourth century Egyptian monasticism had begun to flourish in the Egyptian deserts and countryside. The contributors to this volume, international specialists in Coptology from around the world, examine the various aspects of Coptic civilization in Alexandria and its environs and in the Egyptian deserts over the past two millennia. The contributions explore Coptic a

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A groundbreaking ethnography of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood The Islamists' political rise in Arab countries has often been explained by their capacity to provide social services, representing a challenge to the legitimacy of neoliberal states. Few studies, however, have addressed how this social action was provided, and how it engendered popular political support for Islamist organizations. Most of the time the links between social services and Islamist groups have been taken as given, rather than empirically examined, with studies of specific Islamist organizations tending to focus on their internal patterns of sectarian mobilization and the ideological indoctrination of committed members. Taking the case of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (MB), this book offers a groundbreaking ethnography of Islamist everyday politics and social action in three districts of Greater Cairo. Based on long-term fieldwork among grassroots netw

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A comprehensive, in-depth study of Arab documentary filmmaking by leading experts in the field While many of the Arab documentary films that emerged after the digital turn in the 1990s have been the subject of close scholarly and media attention, far less well studied is the immense wealth of Arab documentaries produced during the celluloid era. These ranged from newsreels to information, propaganda, and educational films, travelogues, as well as more radical, artistic formats, such as direct cinema and film essays. This book sets out to examine the long history of Arab nonfiction filmmaking in the Middle East and North Africa across a range of national trajectories and documentary styles, from the early twentieth century to the present. Bringing together a distinguished group of film scholars, practitioners, and critics, Documentary Filmmaking in the Middle East and North Africa traces the historical development of documentary filmmaking with an eye to

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In 1980s Casablanca, Farah arrives from her small town life with big dreams: she wants to sing. She meets Outhman, but he longs to leave the city, to seek his fortune elsewhere. They fall in love, but trouble brews on the horizon. A bitter struggle rages over construction of the monumental Hassan II Mosque—it will destroy their neighborhood but the government insist this is a necessary sacrifice for the good of Morocco. The two young lovers find themselves caught up in events beyond their control, and in a world that seems to work against their happiness at every turn. A Shimmering Red Fish Swims with Me is a narrative tour de force: one of power plays and petty jealousies, deceit and corruption, written with masterful attention to detail.

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The ancient Egyptians were firmly convinced of the importance of magic, which was both a source of supernatural wisdom and a means of affecting one’s own fate. The gods themselves used it for creating the world, granting mankind magical powers as an aid to the struggle for existence. Magic formed a link between human beings, gods, and the dead. Magicians were the indispensable guardians of the god-given cosmic order, learned scholars who were always searching for the Magic Book of Thoth, which could explain the wonders of nature. Egyptian Magic, illustrated with wonderful and mysterious objects from European museum collections, describes how Egyptian sorcerers used their craft to protect the weakest members of society, to support the gods in their fight against evil, and to imbue the dead with immortality, and explores the arcane systems and traditions of the occult that governed this well-organized universe of ancient Egypt.

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Egyptian cuisine is one of the world's oldest and yet least know food traditions. This charming, pocket-sized collection of recipes is the perfect introduction to Egyptian cooking. From classic starters and breakfast dishes like ta‘miya (falafel) and fuul medammis (slow-cooked fava beans), to well-loved main meals such as stuffed cabbage leaves (mahshi cromb), and mouthwatering almond pudding and fritter balls soaked in syrup, Egyptian Flavors leads you on a wonderful discovery of this unique and delightful cuisine. Dyna Eldaief offers 50 easy-to-follow recipes that are rich with the vegetables, legumes, and meats that are central to Egyptian cooking, calling forth the sun-baked land of the Nile and inviting expert and novice alike to bring exciting new flavors to their home kitchen.

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The 25th January 2011 uprising and the unprecedented dissent and discord to which it gave rise shattered the notion of homogeneity that had characterized state representations of Egypt and Egyptians since 1952. It allowed for the eruption of identities along multiple lines, including class, ideology, culture, and religion, long suppressed by state control. Concomitantly a profusion of women’s voices arose to further challenge the state-managed feminism that had sought to define and carefully circumscribe women’s social and civic roles in Egypt. Women in Revolutionary Egypt takes the uprising as the point of departure for an exploration of how gender in post-Mubarak Egypt came to be rethought, reimagined, and contested. It examines key areas of tension between national and gender identities, including gender empowerment through art and literature (particularly graffiti and poetry) the disciplining of the body, and the politics of history and memory. Shereen Abouelnaga argues that this new cartography of women’s struggle has to be read in a context that takes into consideration the micropolitics of everyday life as well as the larger processes that work to separate the personal from the political. She shows how a new generation of women is resisting, both discursively and visually, the notion of a fixed or ‘authentic’ notion of Egyptian womanhood in spite of prevailing social structures and in face of all gendered politics of imagined nation.

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During the half-millennium from the eleventh through the sixth centuries BC, the power and the glory of the imperial pharaohs of the New Kingdom crumbled in the face of internal crises and external pressures, ultimately reversed by invaders from Nubia and consolidated by natives of the Nile Delta following a series of Assyrian invasions. Much of this era remains obscure, with little consensus among Egyptologists. Against this background, Aidan Dodson reconsiders the evidence and proposes a number of new solutions to the problems of the period. He also considers the era's art, architecture, and archaeology, including the royal tombs of Tanis, one of which yielded the intact burials of no fewer than five pharaohs. Afterglow of Empire is extensively illustrated with images of this material, much of which is little known to non-specialists.

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The history of Cairo’s football fans is one of the most poignant narratives of the 25 January 2011 Egyptian uprising. The Ultras Al-Ahly and the Ultras White Knights fans, belonging to the two main teams, Al-Ahly F.C. and Zamalek F.C respectively, became embroiled in the street protests that brought down the Mubarak regime. In the violent turmoil since, the Ultras have been locked in a bitter conflict with the Egyptian security state. Tracing these social movements to explore their role in the uprising and the political dimension of soccer in Egypt, Ronnie Close provides a vivid, intimate sense of the Ultras’ unique subculture. Cairo’s Ultras: Resistance and Revolution in Egypt’s Football Culture explores how football communities offer ways of belonging and instill meaning in everyday life. Close asks us to rethink the labels ‘fans’ or ‘hooligans’ and what such terms might really mean. He argues that the role of the body is essential to understanding the cultural practices of the Cairo Ultras, and that the physicality of the stadium rituals and acerbic chants were key expressions that resonated with many Egyptians. Along the way, the book skewers media clichés and retraces revolutionary politics and social networks to consider the capacity of sport to emancipate through performances on the football terraces.

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This easy-to-use beginner’s level guide to Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA) grammar is the ideal supplement for students of ECA as a foreign language. Keda Mazbuut is divided into twenty-five lessons, each devoted to a key grammatical rule, with examples to illustrate usage followed by a variety of exercises. Drawing on twenty-five years of experience as a full-time teacher of Arabic, Mona Hassan has organized the lesson topics to gradually progress in difficulty, from basic nominal sentences to more complex grammatical structures such as the imperative and conditional sentences. All rules are explained in straightforward English, while words and phrases are provided in both Arabic script and transcribed Arabic, accompanied by audio files to facilitate students’ ECA pronunciation. With its clear, user-friendly structure, Keda Mazbuut is designed to encourage students to work through grammatical rules at home, allowing them to devote more class time to the speaking activities that reinforce those rules.

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The ancient Egyptian tomb evolved rapidly over a period of about 2,500 years, from a simple backfilled pit to an enormous stone pyramid with complex security arrangements. Much of this development was arguably driven by the ever-present threat of tomb robbery, which compelled tomb builders to introduce special architectural measures to prevent it. However, until now most scholarly Egyptological discussions of tomb security have tended to be brief and usually included only as part of a larger work, the topic instead being the subject of lurid speculation and fantasy in novels, the popular press, and cinema. In Securing Eternity, Reg Clark traces in detail the development of the Egyptian royal and private tombs from the Predynastic Period to the early Fourth Dynasty. In doing so, he demonstrates that many of the familiar architectural elements of the Egyptian tomb that we take for granted today in fact originated from security features to protect the tomb, rather than from monumental or religious considerations. Richly illustrated with more than 150 photographs and tomb plans, this unique study will be of interest to students, specialists, and general readers alike.

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Every year, in the heart of the Nile Delta, a festival takes place that was for centuries the biggest in the Muslim world: the mulid of al-Sayyid Ahmad al-Badawi of Tanta. Since the thirteenth century millions of believers from neighboring regions and countries have flooded into Tanta, Egypt’s fourth-largest city, to pay devotional homage to al-Badawi, a much-loved saint who cures the impotent and renders barren women fertile. This book tells for the first time the history of a mulid that for long overshadowed even the pilgrimage to Mecca. Organized by Sufi brotherhoods, it had, by the nineteenth century, grown to become the scene of a boisterous and rowdy festival that excited the curiosity of European travelers. Their accounts of the indecorous dancing and sacred prostitution that enlivened the mulid of al-Sayyid al-Badawi fed straight into Orientalist visions of a sensual and atavistic East. Islamic modernists as well as Western observers were quick to criticize the cult of al-Badawi, reducing it to a muddle of superstitions and even a resurgence of anti-Islamic pagan practices. For many pilgrims, however, al-Badawi came to embody the Egyptian saint par excellence, the true link to the Prophet, his hagiographies and mulid standing for the genuine expression of a shared popular culture. Catherine Mayeur-Jaouen shows that the mulid does not in fact stand in opposition to religious orthodoxy, but rather acts as a mirror to Egyptian Islam, uniting ordinary believers, peasants, ulama, and heads of Sufi brotherhoods in a shared spiritual fervor. The Mulid of al-Sayyid al-Badawi of Tanta leads us on a discovery of this remarkably colorful and festive manifestation of Islam.

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The point of departure for this special issue of Alif is that knowledge is 'produced' rather than 'discovered,' and that translation is a core mechanism for the production and circulation of all forms of knowledge. This topic has received relatively limited attention in translation studies to date, and even less in related disciplines such as cultural studies and the history of ideas. This issue aims to encourage sustained engagement with the role played by translation in the production of knowledges across the entire spectrum of human activities. Contributors offer theoretical, empirical, and historical accounts of the impact of translation on the production, renegotiation, and reification of knowledge.

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Advanced Arabic through Discussion is a classroom-tested Advanced Arabic course. It uses an inquiry-based approach to challenge advanced learners of Arabic by engaging them in thought-provoking discussions about social, ethical, and legal issues related to advertising, censorship, dress-codes, environment, rap music, extreme sports, GMOs, and other topics. Drawing on her long experience as an Arabic instructor, Nevenka Korica Sullivan has organized the book into sixteen chapters, each accompanied by audio recordings of all reading and listening texts. While exploring each issue, learners are guided to expand their vocabulary, acquire complex structures, and discover the systematic relationships between language form, function, and meaning. The course is designed to create a lively, student-centered classroom where interaction is both the goal and the means of language study; it also can be successfully used with a tutor or for independent study.

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If you’ve ever studied a foreign language, you know what happens when you first truly and clearly communicate with another person. As Zora O’Neill recalls, you feel like a magician. If that foreign language is Arabic, you just might feel like a wizard. They say that Arabic takes seven years to learn and a lifetime to master. O’Neill had put in her time. Steeped in grammar tomes and out-dated textbooks, she faced an increasing certainty that she was not only failing to master Arabic, but also driving herself crazy. She took a decade-long hiatus, but couldn’t shake her fascination with the language or the cultures it had opened up to her. So she decided to jump back in—this time with a new approach. Join O’Neill for a grand tour through the Middle East. You will laugh with her in Egypt, delight in the stories she passes on from the United Arab Emirates, and find yourself transformed by her experiences in Lebanon and Morocco. She’s packed her dictionaries, her unsinkable sense of humor, and her talent for making fast friends of strangers. From quiet, bougainvillea-lined streets to the lively buzz of crowded medinas, from families’ homes to local hotspots, she brings a part of the world that is thousands of miles away right to your door. A natural storyteller with an eye for the deeply absurd and the deeply human, Zora O’Neill explores the indelible links between culture and communication. A powerful testament to the dynamism of language, All Strangers Are Kin reminds us that learning another tongue leaves you rich with so much more than words.

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The Copts, adherents of the Egyptian Orthodox Church, today represent the largest Christian community in the Middle East, and their presiding bishops have been accorded the title of pope since the third century AD. This study analyzes the development of the Egyptian papacy from its origins to the rise of Islam. How did the papal office in Egypt evolve as a social and religious institution during the first six and a half centuries AD? How do the developments in the Alexandrian patriarchate reflect larger developments in the Egyptian church as a whole-in its structures of authority and lines of communication, as well as in its social and religious practices? In addressing such questions, Stephen J. Davis examines a wide range of evidence-letters, sermons, theological treatises, and church histories, as well as art, artifacts, and archaeological remains-to discover what the patriarchs did as leaders, how their leadership was represented in public discourses, and how those representations definitively shaped Egyptian Christian identity in late antiquity.The Early Coptic Papacy is Volume 1 of The Popes of Egypt: A History of the Coptic Church and Its Patriarchs. Also available: Volume 2, The Coptic Papacy in Islamic Egypt, 641-1517 (Mark N. Swanson) and Volume 3, The Emergence of the Modern Coptic Papacy (Magdi Girgis, Nelly van Doorn-Harder).

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This expansive book reveals the great diversity and range of art of the Arab lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and later South Asia. Published to coincide with the historic reopening of the galleries of the Metropolitan Museum's Islamic Art Department, it presents nearly three hundred masterpieces from one of the finest collections in the world. The works range chronologically from the origins of Islam in the seventh century through the nineteenth century, and geographically from as far west as Spain and Morocco to as far east as India. Outstanding miniature paintings and illuminated manuscripts, ceramics, textiles, carpets, glass, and metalwork reflect the mutual influence of artistic practice in the sacred and secular realms. Many of these beautiful objects display the rich traditions of calligraphy, vegetal ornament (the arabesque), and geometric patterning that distinguish the arts of the Islamic world.With seven informative essays and almost three hundred catalogue entries-supplemented by introductory essays on the collection and its display-this handsome and comprehensive overview will enlighten the specialist and the general reader alike.

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Judging from the evidence available from depictions of daily life on tombs and in historical texts, the ancient Egyptians were just as enthusiastic about good food and generous hospitality as are their descendants today. Magda Mehdawy and Amr Hussein have done extensive research on the cultivation, gathering, preparation, and presentation of food in ancient Egypt and have developed nearly a hundred recipes that will be perfectly recognizable to anyone familiar with modern Egyptian food. Beautifully illustrated with scenes from tomb reliefs, objects and artifacts in museum exhibits, and modern photographs, the recipes are accompanied by explanatory material that describes the ancient home and kitchen, cooking vessels and methods, table manners and etiquette, banquets, beverages, and ingredients. Traditional feasts and religious occasions with their own culinary traditions are described, including some that are still celebrated today. A glossary of ingredients and place names provides a useful guide to unfamiliar terms.

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If you thought making an ancient Egyptian mummy was just a matter of wrapping a body in bandages, think again! It was a long, complicated, and sometimes gruesome process. What happened to the intestines, lungs, and other soft inside bits? How did they get the brain out of the skull? What did they use to dry the body out, and how long did that take? These questions and many more are answered here by Mr. Mummific, a king of Egypt who went through it all himself, and ended up a mummy with attitude. A little confused when he first died (but relieved that he no longer had toothache), he needed his own guide to explain things, so it's lucky that his dead but cheeky son was there to lead him by the hand. Together, they let us in on all the grisly secrets of the embalmers' tent. Illustrated with eighty colorful scenes from the life, death, and afterlife of the funniest mummy you'll ever meet, How I Became a Mummy is an icky treat for children and Egyptologists of all ages.

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Egypt's ancient pyramids, temples, and tombs along the Nile, which have inspired artists and writers for centuries, have also inspired poets--and particularly in the nineteenth century when romanticism was at its height. Egyptologist Donald Ryan here collects a wide variety of English verse composed by British, Irish, and North American poets fired up by the magic, the splendor, or the desolation of the pharaonic ruins and their echoes of a distant history. Includes verse by: Robert Browning, Lord Byron, John Keats, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Herman Melville, John Ruskin, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Alfred Tennyson, Lady Wilde, and many more.

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First published in 1844, these letters are the collected observations of Sophia Poole, who lived in Cairo from 1842 until 1849 with her brother, the well known Orientalist Edward Lane, and her two children. During her residence, Poole learned Arabic and adopted Egyptian clothing that enabled her not only to observe day-to-day life in the streets and markets but also to enter hammams and harems and interact on an intimate level with Egyptian women of different classes. Poole ultimately had access, in fact, to the highest levels of society, including the family of the viceroy Mohamed Ali Pasha, and recorded her experiences there with the same eye for detail and understanding of underlying customs as she brought to bear in the marketplace. She moves effortlessly from situation to situation-the pasha's daughter smoking her jewel-encrusted pipe, the homesick slave-girl, the occupation of ladies of leisure-one scene after another is unfolded in her writing that reveals not only a mind that observes and records but a human being who attempts to feel and understand a different culture.In contrast to her brother's dense works of research, Sophia Poole's was cast in the form of letters to a friend. These letters cover her arrival in Alexandria and trip up the Nile to Cairo, as well as her life in Cairo, with its visits to surrounding villages. The Englishwoman in Egypt is at once entertaining and informative. If Edward Lane kept alive for posterity a post-medieval Cairo that has since disappeared, then his sister in her work no doubt complemented that great achievement by presenting the same world from a feminine perspective that he as a man could not have access to.

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This novel from one of Tunisia’s leading writers, the first of his works to be translated into English, narrates a love story in all its stages, in all its glorious and inglorious details. Moment by moment we become acquainted with the morning rituals, the desires of the flesh, the turbulence of the spirit, and even a few unattractive personal habits. It is a journey that takes us inside the nuances of what passes between two lovers, from the first glances of attraction to the final words of anger. It is a journey filled with all the hallmarks of the complex relationship between one man and one woman‹the mystery and the ambiguity, the intricacy and the confusion‹which, in the end, serve to expose its fragility. This is an intimate tale that manages to tell not only the story of two individuals, but also that of the collision of two cultures.

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The discovery of ancient Egypt and the development of Egyptology are momentous events in intellectual and cultural history. The history of Egyptology is the story of the people, famous and obscure, who constructed the picture of ancient Egypt that we have today, recovered the Egyptian past while inventing it anew, and made a lost civilization comprehensible to generations of enchanted readers and viewers thousands of years later. This, the third of a three-volume history of Egyptology, follows the progress of the discipline from the trauma of the First World War, through the vicissitudes of the twentieth century, and into Egyptology's new horizons at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Wonderful Things affirms that the history of ancient Egypt has proved continually fascinating, but it also demonstrates that the history of Egyptology is no less so. Only by understanding how Egyptology has developed can we truly understand the Egyptian past.

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Coptic contributions to the formative theological debates of Christianity have long been recognized. Less well known are other, equally valuable, Coptic contributions to the transmission and preservation of technical and scientific knowledge, and a full understanding of how Egypt's Copts survived and interacted with the country's majority population over the centuries. Studies in Coptic Culture attempts to examine these issues from divergent perspectives. Through the careful examination of select case studies that range in date from the earliest phases of Coptic culture to the present day, twelve international scholars address issues of cultural transmission, cross-cultural perception, representation, and inter-faith interaction. Their approaches are as varied as their individual disciplines, covering literary criticism, textual studies, and comparative, literature as well as art historical, archaeo-botanical, and historical research methods. The divergent perspectives and methods presented in this volume will provide a fuller picture of what it meant to be Coptic in centuries past and prompt further research and scholarship into these subjects.

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This volume is the second joint publication of the members of the American-Egyptian archaeological team South Asasif Conservation Project, working under the auspices of the Ministry of State for Antiquities and directed by the editor. The Project is dedicated to the clearing, restoration, and reconstruction of the tombs of Karabasken (TT 391) and Karakhamun (TT 223) of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty, and the tomb of Irtieru (TT 390) of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, on the West Bank of Luxor. This volume will cover the next three seasons of the work of the Project from 2012 to 2014. Essays by the experts involved in the work of the Project concentrate on new archaeological finds, reconstruction of the tombs' decoration and introduction of the high officials who usurped the tombs of Karakhamun and Karabasken in the Twenty Sixth Dynasty. The volume focuses particularly on the reconstruction of the ritual of the Hours of the Day and Night and BD 125 and 32 in the tomb of Karakhamun, the textual program of the tomb of Karabasken, as well as Coptic ostraca, faience objects, pottery, and animal bones found in the necropolis.Contributors: Julia Budka, Mansour Bureik, Diethelm Eigner, Erhart Graefe, Kenneth Griffin, Salima Ikram, Matthias Muller, Paul Nicholson, Elena Pischikova, Miguel Molinero Polo Elena Pischikova is the director of the American-Egyptian South Asasif Conservation Project. She is currently a research scholar at the American University in Cairo, and teaches at Fairfield University in Connecticut. She is the author of Tombs of the South Asasif Necropolis: Thebes, Karakhamun (TT 223), and Karabasken (TT 391) in the Twenty-fifth Dynasty (AUC Press, 2013).

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In a fictional Gulf country, with its gleaming glass towers and imported greenery, the routine of day-to-day life is suddenly interrupted when the national football team qualifies for the World Cup. The Emir issues an edict ordering all native Emiratis to travel to France to support the team, leaving the country to the care of its imported labor. How do they handle such newly found freedom? As though steered by a perverse blend between Dante and Scheherazade, we descend layer by layer beneath the façade of modernity: from the colorful multilingual throngs rejoicing for the Emirati team to the hierarchies that underpin them, from the luxurious gardens and swimming pools into the darker secrets of the bedroom, from the rigid and inhibiting strictures of the present to a remote age of innocence. Three narratives interweave to form a tight and thought-provoking examination of the psychology of control. Drumbeat received the Sawiris Foundation Award for Egyptian Literature.

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The stretch of the longest river in the world that nurtured the world's first great civilization has drawn and impressed visitors since ancient times. The Greeks were fascinated by the mysterious annual flood of the Nile that brought both water and nourishing silt to the lands along its banks, while nineteenth-century travellers were amazed by the magnificent tombs and temples of Upper Egypt.A Nile Anthology brings together the accounts and reflections of visitors and travellers to the Nile between Luxor and Aswan through the ages, from Herodotus in the fifth century BC, and the Arab geographers of medieval times, to such nineteenth-century luminaries as Amelia Edwards, Florence Nightingale, Jean Francois Champollion, Edward Lane, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. From the practicalities of river travel to descriptions of the Pharaonic monuments, via the sights, sounds, and smells of the teeming souks, our writers guide us through a world and an age long gone.

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In eighteenth-century Palestine, on the shores of Galilee's Lake Tiberias, visionary political and military leader Dahir al-Umar al-Zaydani undertakes a journey toward the greatest aim anyone could hope to achieve in his day: the establishment of an autonomous Arab state. To do so he must challenge the rule of the greatest power in the world at the time--the Ottoman Empire--while translating the ideals of human dignity, justice, and religious tolerance into concrete daily realities. In this compelling story of love and loss, victory and defeat, loyalty and betrayal, award-winning poet and novelist Ibrahim Nasrallah, author of the Arabic Booker shortlisted Time of White Horses, once again brings Palestinian history alive with a set of characters and events both real and imagined to capture the essence of a rich and dramatic epoch in the turbulent annals of a land that has been fought over for millennia.

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Founded by Alexander the Great over 2,300 years ago, Alexandria has belonged both to the Mediterranean and to Egypt, a luxuriant out-planting of Europe on the coast of Africa, but also a city of the East - the fabled cosmopolitan town that fascinated travelers, writers, and poets in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, where French and Arabic, Italian and Greek were spoken in the cafes and on the streets. In the pages of An Alexandrian Anthology, we follow the delight of travelers discovering the strangeness of the city and its variety and pleasures. Most of all they are haunted by the city's resplendent past - the famous Library, the temple built by Cleopatra for Antony, the great Pharos lighthouse, one of the seven wonders of the world, of which only traces remain - we follow our travelers here too as they voyage through an immense ghost city of the imagination.

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Prized for their stamina and their acclimation to the harsh conditions of the Arabian deserts, the ancestors of the horses that are now recognized as the Egyptian Arabian purebred horse entered Egypt centuries ago, establishing the valuable bloodlines of the breed there. The breeding programs in Egypt therefore became the root source for the finest Arabian horses, attracting passionate enthusiasts from all corners of the world. Artists, poets, and historians have for centuries been inspired by their great beauty and romantic legacy. Nasr Marei is the third-generation owner of a stud farm in Giza, Egypt. His love for and knowledge of the Egyptian Arabian horse, coupled with his sensitive and striking photography, have inspired this visual tribute. His extraordinary photographs, accompanied by text that traces the history and evolution of the Arabian's journey into Egypt, celebrate the lineage of this living treasure of Egyptian heritage.

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In 1862, the Prince of Wales, eldest son of Britain's Queen Victoria, embarked on a grand tour of the Middle East, for his education and enlightenment. Accompanying the royal party was Francis Bedford, an accomplished practitioner of the still young art of photography, charged with taking views of the cities and historic places visited on the tour for the royal album. The result is an extraordinary collection of some of the best early photographs of Cairo and the temples of Upper Egypt, Jerusalem and the Holy Land, Lebanon and Damascus, Izmir and Constantinople. From timeless views of the Pyramids, the Dome of the Rock, Baalbek, and Hagia Sophia to scenes from another age of the streets of Cairo or tall ships on the Bosphorus, 120 of Bedford's most outstanding photographs are showcased here in this fascinating visual tour of ancient lands in royal company.

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Christianity and monasticism have long flourished along the Nile in Middle Egypt, the region stretching from al-Bahnasa (Oxyrhynchus) to Dayr al-Ganadla. The contributors to this volume, international specialists in Coptology from around the world, examine various aspects of Coptic civilization in Middle Egypt over the past two millennia. The studies explore Coptic art and archaeology, architecture, language and literature. The artistic heritage of monastic sites in the region is highlighted, attesting to their important legacies in the region.

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In Riyadh, against the events of the second Gulf War and Saddams invasion of Kuwait, we learn the story of Munirawith the gorgeous eyesand the unspeakable tragedy she suffers as her male nemesis wreaks revenge for an insult to his character and manhood. It is also the tale of many other women of Saudi Arabia who pass through the remand center where Munira works, victims and perpetrators of crimes, characters pained and tormented, trapped in cocoons of silence and fear. Munira records their stories on pieces of paper that she folds up and places in the mysterious bottle given to her long ago by her grandmother, a repository for the stories of the dead, that they might live again. This controversial novel looks at many of the issues that characterize the lives of women in modern Saudi society, including magic and envy, honor and revenge, and the strict moral code that dictates malefemale interaction. Yousef al-Mohaimeed is a rising star in international literature. Muniras Bottle is a rich and skillfully crafted story of a dysfunctional Saudi Arabian family. One of its strengths lies in its edgy characters: Munira, a sultry, self-centered, sexually repressed woman; Ibn al-Dahhal, the bold imposter who deceives and betrays her; and Muhammad, her perpetually angry and righteous brother, a catalyst who forces the events. Western readers will welcome it for its opening door into Arab lives and minds.Annie Proulx Mohaimeed writes in a lush style that evokes a writer he cites as an influence, Gabriel Garcia Marquez. [He] takes on some of the most divisive subjects in the Arab world.

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Egypt is primarily a land of deserts and mountains, the habitable Nile Valley and Delta occupying less than 5 percent of the country. Although the ancient Egyptians lived on only a small fraction of the land, they made extensive use of resources from the less hospitable areas, exploiting the opportunities and adjusting to the constraints of their physical environment. This updated and expanded edition of The Geology of Egypt: A Traveler's Handbook describes these features and more, providing a guide for the visitor to Egypt interested in learning about its history from a different perspective. The author presumes no background in geology or related fields and provides an introduction to the relevant geological concepts, presenting examples to illustrate how the country's geological features influenced Egyptian civilization. Most examples are selected from the pharaonic period and Greco-Roman period, though many cases also illustrate how geological factors continue to have an impact on modern Egyptian society. The text is organized as a trip on the Nile from Lake Nasser downstream to the Delta, with chapters devoted to such popular sites as Aswan, Luxor, and Giza. Also covered are the Eastern and Western Deserts, as well as the Sinai Peninsula. Maps, illustrations, fifty color photographs, and an extensive glossary help make a complex but intriguing subject accessible to everyone.

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Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the literary language of today's books, media, and formal communication throughout the Arab world, the region's principal shared language of written and official discourse. The fifth book in this new series for the classroom is designed for the Advanced levels, the low-mid stages of the ACTFL proficiency level, and C1 in the Common European Framework for Arabic learners. The aim of this book is to help students to read and write long and complex factual and literary texts in order to appreciate different writing styles. The students' facility with sentence structure and vocabulary is increased by reading newspapers and listening to news broadcasts, and by writing about real-life interests such as social, economic, political, and gender issues, technological advancements, and education. The chapters guide students through the gradual acquisition of vocabulary and grammar. Exercises at the end of each chapter cover all essential skills and translation, with emphasis on reading and writing. The accompanying DVD includes audio material for all listening activities, dialogs, and reading exercises. The book is further supported by online interactive reading, writing, and grammar drills.

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"This is your last day. Be strong. Don't hesitate. Cut and run. An exit with no return." Idris Ali's confessional novel opens with these words, spoken on an unbearably hot August afternoon in downtown Cairo, where the Nubian narrator has just decided, once and for all, to end his life. Delirious and thirsty, he wanders around venting his resentments large and small, his sexual frustrations, and his sense of powerlessness in the face of unremitting injustice. He seeks to expunge his failed life in the Nile: the river that had been the life blood of his country for millennia, and that - with Egypt's new dam - now drowns Nubia, flinging her dispossessed sons north and south into exile. Poor is the story of a life of hardship, adversity, and emotional starvation. It is also the story of opportunities squandered and hopes traded away for nothing - of a life lived, at times, all too poorly.

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