The church of Abu Sarga

ABU SARGA

Abu Sarga is the oldest church in Egypt dating back to the 5th century A.D. The church owes its fame to having been constructed upon the crypt of the Holy Family where they stayed for three weeks during their sojourn in Egypt.



According to a biblical narration by evangelist Matthew (Chapter 2), Virgin Mary, Joseph and the baby Jesus fled from Palestine to Egypt out of fear from the persecution of the Jewish King Herod the Great. The Holy Family traveled as far as Assiut (“Deir el Muharraq”) and on their way back home spent some weeks in Old Cairo.

Abu Sarga is dedicated to the two Saints Sergius and Bacchus who served as soldiers in the Roman Army. They were faithful followers of the Lord Jesus and refused to worship the Roman gods. For their Christian belief, Sergius and Bacchus eventually suffered martyrdom in Syria in 296 during the reign of the Roman Emperor Maximinus. Their relics are partly kept in Abu Sarga and others are buried in Syria.

From the 9th to the 12th century, significant patriarchs were elected and several bishops consecrated in Abu Sarga until the 11th century. Although the church was restored several times (11th and 17th century, the last restoration was undertaken in 2000), it still preserves its Medieval charm.

Abu Sarga is based on a basilican structure with a nave and two side aisles. The west end of the church is occupied by a return aisle. Twelve columns are set between the nave and the aisles, eleven of which are made of white marble and only one is of red granite. Some of the marble columns show clear traces of figures most likely representing saints. Corinthian capitals originating from older buildings are placed between the column shafts and the wooden architraves. On the east side of the church, a tripartite sanctuary is separated from the congregation hall by an impressive wooden screen which is beautifully decorated with ebony and ivory and whose oldest part dates back to the 13th century. Exceptional icons with various scenes from the life of Christ, Virgin Mary and diverse saints embellish the walls of Abu Sarga. Inside its main sancturary a wooden canopy supported by four pillars is placed above the altar and painted with biblical scenes, among them are Jesus Pantocrator and Archangel Gabriel appearing to Virgin Mary. The apse behind the altar is richly decorated with strips of marble and mosaics. A clerical seat is incorporated into the apse and can be reached by seven steps.

Abu Sarga once kept Egypt’s oldest altar which was transferred to the Coptic Museum. The roof is one of the most interesting features of the church and said to have been constructed in the shape of Noah’s ark. On the northwest side of the church is a baptistry. The marble ambon is a modern copy of the one in the neighbouring church of St. Barbara. Parts of the original wooden pulpit were brought to the Coptic Museum, and also to the British Museum in London. Above the side and return aisles is a gallery with two chapels (one dedicated to Sergius and Bacchus, the other to Ibraham, Isaac and Jacob) that are used for private service and during the fasting of Easter. The main attraction is the crypt below the church, where it is believed the Holy Family lived for a while during their time in exile.  This sub-structure is the oldest part of the church and has elements dating back to early Christian times.

Ben Ezra Synagogue in Coptic Cairo

The capital city of Egypt, Cairo became the center of Jewish life in Egypt following the Crusades of 1168. Cairo's Jewish community lived primarily in the new city, in the Ḥārat al-Yahūd (Jewish quarter). Throughout the medieval period, Jews maintained their cultural traditions and relative political autonomy, and ultimately advanced economically into positions as craftsmen, traders, moneychangers, and physicians. However, the Mamaluk era from 1250 to 1517 marked a shift towards increasingly discriminatory and harsh laws against Jews and other religious minorities. This anti-Jewish discrimination continued through the Ottoman era and into the late eighteenth century, with life in the Jewish community becoming increasingly regulated. In the nineteenth century, Muḥammad ʿAlī and a series of other leaders governed Cairo as viceroys for the Ottoman sultan, improving security and economic development in Cairo. Despite a number of antisemitic publications and accusations published between 1844 and 1901, the Jewish community felt safer under the rule of Muḥammad ʿAlī than during other periods of history. Additionally, Cairo's Jewish population began to boom from about 3,000 in the early 1800s to over 29,000 in 1917. Following Egypt's independence from Britain in 1922, the Jewish population in Cairo continued to boom, reaching 41,860 in 1947. However, antisemitism became increasingly common through the 1930s and 1940s as Nazi propaganda spread, the Young Egypt and Muslim Brotherhood movements gained membership, and the newly established State of Israel defeated the Egyptian army. As such, Jews were often physically harmed or had their homes or businesses attacked, and by 1951 a large percentage of Cairo's Jewish population had left Egypt. Following the Sinai War of 1956 and the 1967 war, the majority of Cairo's remaining Jewish community had fled the country, often for Israel, France, or Italy. Today, only a few dozen, primarily elderly, Jews remain in Cairo Numerous restorations and renovations were made over the centuries, and the present building dates from 1892. It is a faithful reconstruction of the original, which had collapsed. During the reconstruction, a medieval Geniza (a hiding place for sacred books and worn-out Torah scrolls) was discovered, revealing thousands of original documents from the Middle Ages.

The Ben Ezra Synagogue is situated in the Coptic section of Old Cairo. According to local tradition, there are two possible reasons for locating the building on this particular site. Either this was where the baby Moses was found in the bull rushes, hidden from danger, or this was where the adult Moses prayed to God that the Jews might be taken out of slavery in Egypt. The other legend says that it was here that the prophet Jeremiah regrouped the Jewish people after they were expelled from Jerusalem. In 1896,


The Supreme Council of Egypt Antiquities has indicated that the building holds a special spiritual value to Copts since at one time it had been turned into a Coptic church. Furthermore it is of interest to the Muslims since it was built in Islamic style during the Era of the Caliphs.   Ben Ezra synagogue is under a government preservation order and the government has decided to use its own funds to renovate the building.
The Ben Ezra Synagogue was originally a Christian church, which the Coptic Christians of Cairo had to sell to the Jews in 882 AD in order to pay the annual taxes imposed by the Muslim rulers of the time. The church was purchased by Abraham Ben Ezra, who came from Jerusalem during the reign of Ahmed Ibn Tulun, for 20,000 dinars. Little is known about the original building. In about 1012, Fatimid caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah ordered the destruction of all Jewish and Christian places of worship. The original Ben Ezra Synagogue was torn down, "its bricks and timber sold for scrap The next caliph Ali az-Zahir allowed reconstruction of Christian and Jewish institutions, and the synagogue was rebuilt in the 1025-1040 period. Study of a carved wood Torah ark door reliably attributed to the synagogue sheds light on the history of the synagogue's renovations. The door is jointly owned by the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, and the Yeshiva University Museum in New York. Radiocarbon dating verifies that the wood goes back to the 11th century C.E
The synagogue was a place of pilgrimage for North African Jews and the site of major festival celebrations. The famous medieval rabbi Moses Maimonides worshipped at Ben Ezra synagogue when he lived in Cairo.
 Numerous restorations and renovations were made over the centuries, and the present building dates from 1892. It is a faithful reconstruction of the original, which had collapsed. During the reconstruction, a medieval Geniza (a hiding place for sacred books and worn-out Torah scrolls) was discovered, revealing thousands of original documents from the Middle Ages

The Synagogue of Ben Ezra has a basilica-style plan and two floors, the lower one for men and the upper one for women.
The main floor is divided into three parts by steel bars, and in the center is an octagonal marble bima (platform for Torah reading). The synagogue is decorated with geometric and floral patterns in the Turkish style.
Today Ben Ezra Synagogue is a historical monument and the most-visited Jewish site in Cairo. Be prepared to pass through security in order to enter the synagogue.

the City of the Dead in cairo

There are five major cemeteries in this city there, the Northern Cemetery, Bab el Nasr Cemetery, the Southern Cemetery, the Cemetery of the Great, and Bab el Wazir Cemetery

  Cairo rulers chose the area for their tombs outside the crowded city in a deserted location. This area was used as a burial ground for the Arab conquests, Fatimids, Abbasids, Ayyubids, Mamlukes, Ottomans, and many more
The historic belief in Egypt is that the cemeteries are an active part of the community and not exclusively for the dead. Egyptians have not so much thought of cemeteries as a place of the dead, but rather a place where life begins.  In modern times, because of Egypts housing crisis, a lack of satisfactory and affordable housing for a rapidly growing population, many poor Egyptians have made these rooms their permanent homes.

 These invaders have adapted the rooms to meet their needs. They have used the grave markers as desks, and shelves. They have hung strings between gravestones for their laundry to dry out.

 The City of the Dead seems to its inhabitants ideal because it is already built, affordable, and partially equipped. However there are many disadvantages of living there. They are joined by even a greater number of cockroaches, mosquitoes, flies, and vermin of all sorts"


 The cemeteries built in the City of the Dead are much different than the western idea of cemeteries. This is because traditionally, Egyptians buried their dead in room-like burial sites so they could live in them during the long mourning period of forty days.


Today, the population of the City of the Dead is growing rapidly because of rural migration and its complicated housing crisis that is getting worse.


But the future of the City of the Dead remains uncertain. The residents of the city will not deliberately agree to relocate unless the government provides other housing for them.

if u asked any one from them he  will tell I will not move from this house after all these years to go out in the streets, Of course I want to leave the depressed mood in this place, but that doesnt mean I want to live in the street. We deserve proper houses.

The Cave Church of the Zabbaleen in Cairo Monastery of Saint Simon

Saint Simon the Tanner (St. Sama'an, in Arabic) lived towards the end of the tenth Century when Egypt was ruled by the Fatimid Caliph, Al- Muizz and Anba Abram was the Coptic Pope.
At the time, the Copts (Christians) in Egypt were engaged in handicrafts. St Simon worked in one of the crafts widespread in Babylon (Old Cairo) which was tanning, a craft still known there till this day.
This profession involved also other crafts that depend on the process, from where he carried several titles related to skins; St Simon the Tanner, the Cobber, the Shoemaker.
The Monastery, located on the opposite side of the road leading to the Citadel contains seven Churches and Chapels hidden in a series of caves in the Mokattam (Muqattam) hills.
The Monastery was erected and dedicated to him a thousand years after his miracle and his death. It lies behind "Mansheiyet Nasser", the Zabbalin village (garbage collectors). This village was erratically established in 1969 when the Governor decided to move all the garbage collectors of Cairo to one of the hills of the Mokattam. There, they built themselves primitive houses of tin. The number of trash collectors living in the area reached about 15.000 in 1987. This number has doubled now.
Reaching the monastery is quiet a difficult approach. Amazingly, the people there will point you in the right direction knowing your destination without even been asked. The Monastery is reached through the narrow village streets, trash carts passing you by along with piles of rubbish, plastics and tins on the sides of the alleys with people sorting them out. Even if described in detail, the Zabbalin village is a hard place to picture, far from one's imagination; it can only be grasped on site.
At the far end of the village, awaits you an unexpected, stunning place; a vast open space lying in the bosom of the hills, with dramatic colored carvings all over the mountain. The carvings were done by a Polish Artist who begun working there several years ago. They represent stories from the Bible such as the Holy Family journey and the Nativity scene.
The main Cathedral there is named after the Virgin Mary and St Simon in commemoration of the legend of transferring the Mokattam Mountain in November 979 when Simon the Tanner was chosen to fulfill this miracle
According to Coptic sayings, the Caliph Al Muizz, an enlightened man, was fond of literacy gatherings and inviting different religious leaders to debate in his presence with neither anger nor contention.
In one of those meetings in which Pope Abram and a Jew named Jacob Ibn Killis were present, the Pope got the upper hand in the debate. Plotting to take revenge, Ibn Killis quoted the verse where the Lord Jesus said in Mt 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" and demanded him to prove that his religion is right by means of this.
The Caliph saw in this an opportunity to remove the mountain that was spoiling his view. At the same time, if they proved unable to do so, it would be the proof that the religion of the Christians was wrong and he would be done away with them completely or so goes the Legend.

And so, after 3 days of prayers and fasts by the people throughout the land of Egypt, Simon was chosen to move the Mokattam Mountain. It is said that a great earthquake swept over the mountain. Each time the people stood up to worship, the mountain was thrust up and the sun would be seen from under it. When the people sat down, the mountain thrust down. This was repeated three times.
St Simon was never found afterwards. His skeleton was discovered in 1991 in Babylon in St Mary's church (the Hanging Church).
The Virgin Mary and St Simon Cathedral was constructed on 2 stages. At first, it was only a huge cave of limestone in the bosom of the hill. The audience were seated on straw rugs around the alter which was prepared in 1986. The 2nd stage was in November 1994 which falls on the feast of St Simon. The church was reconstructed and the ground was deepened once more. Fixed seats were constructed around the alter in the form of a quarter-circle auditorium to accommodate up to five thousand people and thus it became the biggest church in the Monastery.

To the right side of the alter, the church keeps the remains of St Simon's body.
In the year 1974, up on the ceiling and to the right side of the alter, an obvious engraved figure of the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus Christ was discovered, not touched by any human hand. It was later revised in the year 1994.
Another amazing Chapel in the Monastery is St Bola's Church, named after St Bola the first Pilgrim for virtues he possessed. He lived in caves and solitude for 70 years during which he never set eyes upon a human face.
The Chapel cave was discovered in 1986 by pure coincidence during construction works when a huge rock fell showing an opening in the ceiling of the cave and thus, the church location was decided
An astonishing story about this church took place in January 1992 when it was endangered by a fire caused by an electric spark. The picture of Jesus Christ hanging in the church and the alter were by no means destroyed even though the whole interior of the cave was damaged.
A third church of the series of churches in the Monastery is St Mark's Church and St Simon the tanner's Hall. This huge cave was discovered in 1979 full of hundreds of tons of rocks at a height of 17 meters from the ground.

After several years of hard work and prayer, they began to find a path in order to start removing the rocks and finally it was prepared to contain 2 levels.
The upper storey is St Simon's Hall which accommodates 2000 people in spiritual meetings. The walls are decorated with many wonderful pictures engraved on the rocks representing scenes from the Bible.
The lower storey is St Mark's Church which is named after St Mark, the first preacher in Egypt.
The church dome at the hall entrance is decorated from the outside with three great artistic pieces made of small mosaic on top of the dome, representing important scenes of the Bible.
This Monastery, a tribute to St Simon, receives large numbers of pilgrims and is mostly visited by the people of the Zabbalin village.
Simon's Monastery also includes an educational Center; a kinder garden, a school for the deaf and dumb and literacy and vocational courses.
The unusual location, the unexpected size of the caves and the beauty of the engravings, all combined together are astonishing.
Even though the work there is relatively recent, it might as well seem that the Monastery has been hiding there since ever so much so that it feels like a part the Mokattam Hills.
By all means, visiting the place is an exceptional experience that's not to be missed.

The Cave Church of the Zabbaleen in Cairo

The Monastery of Saint Simon, also known as the Cave Church, is located in the Mokattam mountain in southeastern Cairo, Egypt, in an area that is known as ‘garbage city’ because of the large population of garbage collectors or Zabbaleen that live there. The Zabbaleen are descendants of farmers who started migrating from Upper Egypt to Cairo in the 1940s. a community of garbage collectors who make their living collecting and recycling 15,000 tons of garbage produced by Cairo's 17.8 million residents.Fleeing poor harvests and poverty they came to the city looking for work and set-up makeshift settlements around the city. Initially, they stuck to their tradition of raising pigs, goats, chickens and other animals, but eventually found collecting and sorting of waste produced by the city residents more profitable. The Zabbaleen would sort through household garbage, salvaging and selling things of value, while the organic waste provided an excellent source of food for their animals. In fact, this arrangement worked so well, that successive waves of migrants came from Upper Egypt to live and work in the newly founded garbage villages of Cairo.

 Seven churches and chapels are hidden within a series of caves inside the Monastery; the Virgin Mary and St. Simon Cathedral is the largest church.

 The Monastery also includes an education center, an area for children, as well as a school for the deaf. Now considered one of the largest Coptic monasteries in Egypt,

For years, the makeshift settlements of the Zabbaleen were moved around the city trying to avoid the municipal authorities. Finally, a large group of Zabbaleen settled under the cliffs of the Mokattam or Moquattam quarries at the eastern edge of the city, which has now grown from a population of 8,000 in the early 1980s, into the largest garbage collector community in Cairo, with approximately 30,000 Zabbaleen inhabitants.
Egypt is a Muslim-majority country, but the Zabbaleen are Coptic Christians, at least, 90 percent of them are. Christian communities are rare to find in Egypt, so the Zabbaleen prefer to stay in Mokattam within their own religious community even though many of them could afford houses elsewhere.
The local Coptic Church in Mokattam Village was established in 1975. After the establishment of the church, the Zabbaleen felt more secure in their location and only then began to use more permanent building materials, such as stone and bricks, for their homes. Given their previous experience of eviction from Giza in 1970, the Zabbaleen had lived in temporary tin huts up till that point. In 1976, a large fire broke out in Manshiyat Nasir, which led to the beginning of the construction of the first church below the Mokattam mountain on a site of 1,000 square meters. Several more churches have been built into the caves found in Mokattam, of which the Monastery of St. Simon the Tanner is the largest with a seating capacity of 20,000. In fact, the Cave Church of St. Simon in Mokattam is the largest church in the Middle East.

The calendar of komombo

This carving is among the most famous carvings that are found at the temple of komombow.
It was made by the ancient Egyptians around 2000 years ago. It represents the annual diary or the agenda for use of priests and priestesses of Komombow, in order to organize the service and the rituals of the local feminine goddesses; the use of it is so limited to this temple.

The carving in komombo temple is divided into three panels ,the first describes the date and the month, the second details the type of service presented, while the third is about the local gods consorts .It is read from the right counts "day w

hich is a sun disc ,23rd ,10 is like an inverted U letter till 28th then 29th is different as 9 is a sun disc with a dash in it's center while 30th day is given a determinative character in the form of an animal tail to the emphasize the end of the month". Then starts over again reporting a new month which the third one of the flood season which is four month in total, reads the 3rd month flood, 1st day then the counting go in a normal order as you can follow it.

The tomb of king Sethi The First KV17

A - entrance steps with passage
B - 1st corridor (scenes from the Litany of Re and the king before Re-Horakhty)
C - steps (scenes from the Amduat and Litany of Re)
D - 2nd corridor (scenes from the Amduat)
E - deep well shaft (scenes of the king before various deities)
F - four-pillared hall (decorated with Osiris shrine and scenes from the Book of Gates)
G - lower passage ('opening of the mouth' ceremony)
H - two-pillared side room (scenes from the Amduat; pillars show the king before various deities)
I - antechamber (scenes of the king before various deities)
J - southern chamber
K - northern chamber
L - 6-pillared burial chamber (Book of Gates, the Amduat and the Book of the Divine Cow; images of the king before various deities)
M - chamber for canopic jars (?)
N - crypt (scenes from the Amduat; astronomical ceiling)
O - north-west side chamber
P - 4-pillars chamber 

 

KV 17, located in the southeast branch of the wadi, is the longest and deepest of all the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. It is the first tomb to be decorated with a complete program of religious texts. It is also the first tomb to have a vaulted burial chamber.

The tomb of Sety I consists of a total of seven corridors and ten chambers, decorated with painted, raised relief (with the exception of Fa). Three sloping corridors (B, C, D), lead to a well chamber (E) and pillared chamber (F) with side chamber (Fa). A side descent and two sloping corridors (G, H) lead to a chamber (I) beyond which lies burial chamber J. This has five side chambers (Ja-Je), and a long passage (K) at the rear.

Noteworthy features: KV 17 is one of the most completely decorated tombs in the Valley of the Kings, with painted raised relief decoration of the highest quality. There is an unusually long descending passage (K) in the floor of the burial chamber J. Recesses were cut in the benches of Jb.