From the last days of the Romans to less than two decades ago Siwa was virtually closed to visitors. In the second of a two-part look at the oasis, Jenny Jobbins finds it is not surprising that in the face of recent development the oasis still retains many of its mysteries Siwa conjours a vision of a remote Shangri-la and the long date caravans which, at harvest time, made their way to Cairo and Alexandria. The Siwans left the trafficking to Bedouins, who brought in their camels and led them away bearing their loads of the prized dates. Until recently it was not possible for other outsiders to visit the oasis, the reason being its proximity to the Libyan border, a distance of only 50kms. Siwa was remote geographically, culturally and politically. It took more than 1,000 years to bring the oasis under the control of the government in Cairo. The Siwans, Egypt's only native Berbers, had retained a fierce independence ever since the decline of their famous Oracle of Amun (Ammon), which was synonymous with their oasis and was famed all over the classical empire. Christianity became the official religion of Egypt in the fourth century, replacing the pagan cults based on the deeply-rooted religion of the Ancient Egyptians. The core of the ancient religion was the worship of the ram-headed sun god Amun, who was venerated not least by the Ammonians, the people who dwelt in Siwa, then known as Ammonia or the Oasis of Amun. Their centre was the fortified hilltop town of Aghurmi built round the XXVIth-Dynasty Temple of the Oracle (known by the Greeks as the Ammoneion), which in the past had been consulted by the great, the good and the ambitious of the classical world. However, most scholars believe that Christianity never took hold in the oasis. The real lords of the Western Desert were the Berber tribesmen of the Libyan Desert, whose allegiance to Amun was at least as solid as it had been among the Egyptians. From about the fourth century, when the Romans began to lose their grip on Egypt -- as on other parts of the empire -- Siwa may even have been a hub of Berber activities. The oasis was certainly able to resist attempts at pacification by the Roman government. In 641, taking advantage of the weakness of the Emperor Heraclius as he contested both debilitating illness and the Persians, the Muslims arrived in Egypt. They swept along the north coast and destroyed whatever lay in their path -- including the Roman garrison stations and the sweet water wells which supported the roads to Cyrenaica and the oases inland. Most of the wells they blocked were never restored, driving yet more people out of a region already depopulated as a result of the collapse of central governance and the ensuing Berber incursions. It was several centuries before the impact of the new religion reached the Oasis of Amun. The residents of the oasis, entrenched at Aghurmi, felt obliged only to the Berber tribes who were their effective rulers. In the mid-19th century the history of the oasis and its families was compiled in a scholarly document called the Siwan Manuscript, which was held by one family and updated until the 1960s. The oasis expert Ahmed Fakhry saw a copy in 1938, but he notes that this and other copies were later borrowed and not returned. Its whereabouts, if a copy still exists in Siwa, are a closely guarded secret. While the Oasis of Amun was sufficiently remote to resist conversion to Islam, it did acquire a new name. The Arabs called it Santariya after the groves of acacia trees (the name Siwa did not come into use until after the 15th century -- the origin is unknown although it may have been taken from a Berber name). The Santariyans fought off all attempts to bring them under central control. When the population converted to Islam is unclear, but most probably it was not before the middle of the 12th century. By then tribal raids and warfare had drastically reduced Siwa's male population. The Siwan Manuscript says only 40 men were left, belonging to seven families. They were living at survival level; at such times, subsistence in Siwa meant a diet of dates and olives, and almost nothing else. In 1203 these families moved out of the ancient town of Aghurmi to a new citadel at Shali, where they began to prosper. The historian Al-Maqrizi (1364-1442) says that in his day there were 600 people in the oasis, which appears to have retained its unofficial status as an independent republic. They spoke their own Berber language -- as they still do -- but they now wrote it down in the Arabic script (it is believed an ancient script, long forgotten, survives in Siwan embroidery stitches). Arab sources spoke of strange creatures -- one describes in detail "savage donkeys" which were unmistakably zebras. Presumably they saw ostrich and other animals which have now disappeared. A story detailed in the Siwan Manuscript and related by residents today was the deadly rivalry between the Easterners and the Westerners, a hostility that, until recently, literally divided the oasis in two. It told of a man who came to live in the oasis not long after its conversion to Islam, and planted an orchard. On a pilgrimage to Mecca, he brought back 30 men of Bedouin and other Arab origin to tend his gardens, establishing them in the western part of Shali. The original residents, who became known as the Easterners, bore a deep, jealous grudge against the newcomers which lasted for centuries and only died out a generation ago. In Siwa: The Oasis of Jupiter Ammon, C Dalrymple Belgrave writes that many of the ensuing troubles, which often had fatal consequences, were recorded in the Siwan Manuscript. Belgrave himself presents a vivid eye-witness account of one of these battles, which took place over a house extension. Hostilities may now be over, but nevertheless Siwans still identify themselves as Easterners, or "true Siwans", or Westerners, the descendants of "The Thirty". Perhaps it was the continual threat of disturbance to their way of life -- with few would-be invaders, or immigrants, actually having much to offer them -- that led the Santariyans to acquire a reputation for xenophobia. Visitors were often treated less than kindly, and this unwillingness to make new friends was extended to the envoys sent by successive rulers, including Mohamed Ali. The insurgency ensuing from the latter attempt was finally put down with great brutality in 1829. The residents were ordered to pay taxes: sometimes they did, but sometimes they didn't and then another punitive force would be sent out. Meanwhile adherents to the budding science of archaeology were showing an interest in the oasis. Visitors may or may not have been welcomed; it seems that what most perturbed the Siwans was foreigners passing themselves off as Muslims, and many such travellers were expelled in perilous circumstances. However, romantics and gold-diggers persisted in coming, and the oasis sites became a free-for-all. Unfortunately these uncontrolled excavations unleashed the tide of casual plundering and tomb robbing which has continued until the present day. Yet even some of these visitors were interested enough in the place and the people to record, draw and map what they encountered, and this information is invaluable now that so much has disappeared. Residents of the oasis were reported to live in very poor conditions. Their houses, as we know from the traditional building methods which still survive today, were of kashif, salt mud brick, with split palm-trunk roofs. Most would have had earth floors. The tightly shuttered windows meant they were relatively free from draughts, and they were heated against the cold winters with free-standing charcoal burners. Each time there was a heavy fall of rain the kashif walls melted, but were soon rebuilt. The lakes were too salty for fish, so mosquito and other larvae had no enemies. Insects did not only plague people but also affected livestock: camels did not thrive, and donkeys -- which also lived on a diet of dates and olives -- were the only means of transport. In dress, the Siwans had no home-grown materials but wool and leather. The men were bare legged: they wore no more than a woollen loin strap over a short tunic of rough calico or canvas, with a woollen cape in cold weather. The women were occasionally seen, draped in the milayah, a dark blue cotton robe with threads of white especially woven for the oasis at Kerdassah, west of Cairo at the end of the caravan trail. Even today one seldom sees a woman in the street, and almost never in town. She drifts past like a phantom in her milayah, or sits with her children on a donkey cart. Women were kept so secluded that in Shali unmarried men were required to sleep outside the walls, and a zaggalah (garden boy) was not permitted to marry before the age of 40. Anthropologists believe the custom of legally-contracted homosexual marriages, which were officially banned by King Fouad in 1928 but continued in secret until about 1950, was accepted as consistent with this enforced protection of women and isolation of youths. Siwa's sensitive position on one side or the other of the informal border between Egypt and Cyrenaica (which in 1899 was fixed as a line running south from Sallum) led to an ambivalent attitude on the part of its residents towards whomever officially ruled over them. For many decades in the early part of the 20th century the Senussis held a firm grip on the western part of the desert. Later, when Mussolini controlled Libya, Italian troops took little time in taking command of Siwa. They used the oasis as a command post to monitor Allied movements in World War II, imprisoning local spies in the former governor's house which the people of Shali say is haunted to this day. Showing their usual independence, the Siwans settled on expediency when making decisions on allegiance. The instability of those early decades of the 20th century may have had further consequences, and some of these are manifested in the structure of family life. Siwan women appear once to have been more empowered than they are today. Indeed, it is only within living memory that they acquired what is now one of their hallmarks: blind obedience to their husbands. Observers suggest this strict morality was a result of the Wahabi fanaticism of the Senussis, and quote that Siwan women customarily used to remove their veils on visits to Marsa Matruh. Now, however, the days of strife and upheaval are over. A building boom has changed the face of the oasis: ugly concrete blocks surround the ruins of the old town, although there is a recent trend to build in the "Siwan" style. Spiritually, too, it is becoming more assimilated to the rest of Egypt. Siwa is now open; it has hotels and lodges to suit all budgets from backpackers to the super rich. It is cashing in on its beautiful traditional products: baskets made of palm fronds and decorated with coloured threads, embroidered fabrics and dresses (the rays embroidered on traditional wedding dresses may be a vestige of the sun-god cult), and the famous and highly prized Siwan silver jewellery, including elaborate necklaces, bracelets and rings, and long, heavy ear pieces decorated with chains and bells -- too heavy to be worn as earrings, they hang on both sides of the head from a leather strip. An interesting display of costumes, jewellery and household items can be seen at Siwa House, Shali's cultural museum. The ancient Spring of the Sun near the Temple of Amun at Umm Ubaydah has been renamed Cleopatra's Bath and is a tourist attraction. Many people decry the changes, but it is unfair to expect Siwa to stay in the Middle Ages when the rest of the world has changed. "You can't pickle the place just because it's pretty," one resident says. Siwa is increasing its exports. As well as dates and the famous olives -- which are now being sent to Europe to supplement the continental olive oil supply -- Siwans bottle their deep-source fossilised mineral water, the purest in Egypt. Water-bottling plants have created job opportunities for a major workforce, the brand names being Siwa, Aqua Siwa, Hayat and Safi. The Safi company, which also produces excellent olive oil, was established by the army to create local jobs. The army has also set up a carpet factory. In short, Siwans are unlikely to face any more periods of destitution like those that plagued them in the past. Meanwhile more and more tourists are visiting Siwa. Eco-tourism is big business, so much so that the grounds of the famous Eco-Lodge, which lures the rich and famous -- many of them flying in by helicopter -- can only be entered with a written permit. But whether this is solely to ensure the privacy of guests paying up to $400 a night for a room, or whether it is a remnant of the famous Siwan xenophobia, only a study of tourism psychology will tell. Those with a smaller budget will find other "eco-lodges", even if the term is not always so thoroughly understood. The citadel, now a bony skeleton of a town, is swathed at night by floodlight, a shining reminder of its past. Modern Shali, which has grown round the stump of the hill, has more of the appearance and feel of a North African than an Egyptian town, and culturally and through kinship Siwa still has more links to North Africa than to the Nile Valley. Abdu's, its favourite tourist restaurant, serves cous cous -- and the best quatro formaggi pizza I have had in years. Further reading: Blottière, Alain, Siwa: the oasis, Harpocrates, Alexandria, 2000. Bayle, St John, Adventures in the Libyan Desert and the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon, London, 1849. Dalrymple Belgrave, C , Siwa: The Oasis of Jupiter Ammon, 1922, re-printed by DARF Publishers, London. Fakhry, Ahmed , The Oases of Egypt, Volume 1: Siwa, AUC Press, Cairo, 1973. Jackson, Robert B, Empire's Edge: Exploring Rome's Egyptian Frontier, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2002. Vivian, Cassandra, The Western Desert of Egypt, AUC Press, Cairo, 2000.
