At home with the nobles

By Reham El-Adawi
Manager Natasha Baron landed her 'dream job' when she joined the Marsam Hotel. She has revamped the rooms and the restaurant, introducing a blend of the old and the new while retaining a sense of local authenticity in the presentation.
photos: Reham El-Adawi
Qurna, an ancient village perched on the hilltops on the west bank of the Nile at Luxor, straddles the honeycomb of rock-carved, New Kingdom tombs of the nobles. A stay in the village is an experience for any traveller interested in history, fact and folklore.
A noted historian once said that "historical periods" were created by historians; that history itself was a day following another day. In Qurna, one can almost visualise the gauge of continuity. For a time, one can play the part of both actor and audience in a long-standing tradition.
One of the Marsam Hotel's greatest assets is its location. No sooner have you disembarked from the Nile ferry and hired a taxi to take you to the hotel than you pass the Colossi of Memnon, the monolithic twin statues which are almost the sole remnants of the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III. The temple was once one of the largest on the Theban necropolis, but all traces of it have now vanished. Some of the stones were usurped by later Pharaohs, including Ramses II and his son Merenptah, who found it less costly to dismantle the dressed stone from other monuments than quarry the raw material for their own. Whatever stones the later Pharaohs did not use were plundered by local residents over the centuries.
To the west rise the hills of Qurna; north, a short walk from the hotel, lies the Ramasseum. Further north still, hidden by a desert escarpment, is Deir Al-Bahri, the beautifully proportioned mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut. There is no need to haggle a taxi price to visit these sites: you can hire a bicycle or, if you are intrepid enough, a donkey. Or you can walk.
The Marsam's clients are not, for the most part, run-of-the-mill tourists. A guest book would read like a minor who's who of archaeologists, photographers, painters and adventurers, the sort who want no part of organised tours in which the punters find themselves at the mercy of guides who would rather take them to an alabaster factory where "my cousin/brother/son will give you a special price" than to specific tombs which may require a diversion from the easy trail. As tombs and tourists often come hand in hand, many Qurna residents -- as they have for centuries -- sell alabaster and wooden imitation antiquities. But even they have seen it all before. Their ancestors have played the tourist game for three and a half thousand years. They know that if one doesn't buy today, another will come by tomorrow. Perhaps this is why they seem less rapacious than their counterparts at Giza and elsewhere, or perhaps it's the timelessness in the air.
Francesco Tiradritti, head of the archaeological mission of the Milan Museum, was one of the archaeologists I met during my stay at the hotel. Tiradritti has been a guest there for two months while he supervises the ongoing work on the tomb of Harwa.
"A primitive way of life suits the nature of the archaeologist's work and life," Tiradritti told me. "The Marsam is the only place where you can live like this. It's not only close to the site of the excavations, and not only does it suit a limited budget, but it also has a peerless history."
History notwithstanding, one of the most fascinating things about staying in an authentic low-budget hotel, one of several in Qurna, is listening to the tales that abound of robberies, discoveries, vendettas and mummies. These tales are especially ripe in the simply-designed Marsam.
In the 1940s Sheikh Ali Abdel-Rassoul, then the owner of the house, welcomed archaeologists, mainly Italians, as his guests. His grandfather had been involved in one of the greatest -- and shadiest -- discoveries on the Theban necropolis, which until today provides one of its most fascinating tales.
Back in 1874, when Gaston Maspero was head of the then Antiquities Service, valuable antique objects mysteriously began appearing on the market, all bearing royal cartouches of Pharaohs from the 21st dynasty. Maspero sent inspectors to investigate. Finally, in 1881, evidence led to two Abdel-Rassoul brothers of Qurna. They were taken into custody, but released for lack of evidence.
Shortly afterwards, quarrels sprang up between the brothers, and eventually the son and heir of one, smitten by conscience, turned informer. Maspero was led to a cave and shown a large number of elaborate sarcophagi which were being slowly but systematically plundered. What the Abdel-Rassoul family had found was a "cache" of mummies belonging to some of the most important Pharaohs of the Third Intermediate Period dynasty, hidden there by ancient priests who feared their original tombs would be desecrated and robbed. Some of the royal mummies had been placed in plain wooden coffins beside those of commoners. Today they are all in the Cairo Museum.
The residents of Qurna are probably direct descendants of the craftsmen who built the tombs of the kings and nobles. As time went by the villages shifted their occupations, though not the theme: the craftsmen now made talismans for tourists, while the gravediggers became archaeological labourers and tomb guards. Occasional tomb robbery was an illicit but tempting sideline.
The village sprawls over, and sometimes inside, the tombs of the nobles. This proximity, so jealously guarded by the villagers themselves, has been anathema to the authorities. Their waste and water damaged the tombs, they had too-easy access to them, and there were even instances of secret tunnels.
In 1945 a royal decree commanded the removal of all the villagers from Qurna, and the renowned architect Hassan Fathi was assigned to design a pretty new village some kilometres away in the centre of the agricultural belt closer to the Nile. The villagers, not unnaturally, refused to yield. They looked at the model village, complained about this and that, and for the most part stayed but -- only a few families who didn't get on with their in-laws moved in. Today New Qurna houses a theatre, a souq, the mayor's residence and the late Hassan Fathi's own house.
Which brings us back to the Marsam Hotel. The simple building slips easily into its surroundings alongside the waving date palms and fields of sugar cane, while the Theban hills form a backdrop on the west. The accommodation, on two floors and in small villas adjoining the main building, is neat and clean. For an authentic feel, I preferred the rooms with their rough white walls, small square windows and simple furnishings. The open-air restaurant, with rustic benches and tables and a stone floor, evokes rural Egypt, but European touches have been added by the Australian manager, Natasha Baron, who has been running the hotel for six years.
Baron had come to Luxor two years earlier as a tourist, and was so enchanted with the west bank community that she decided to stay. While she was searching for the right thing to do she was lucky enough to be offered her dream job by the hotel's owner.
"I revamped the hotel and tried to improve the kitchen and room performance," she says. She taught Egyptian youths how to run a hotel and deal with clients of different nationalities. "We now have a menu that combines popular Egyptian dishes with European ones. The result is simply wonderful," Baron says. She boasts of the hotel's kitchen, from its steaks to its authentic food customs, which include the serving of "solar" bread with every meal. "It is a kind of bread which is exposed to the sun for about four hours until it ferments before it goes in the oven," she explains.
Baron says most of the hotel's clients, whether tourists, artists or archaeologists, comment on the way it has been modernised without losing "this unique part of Egyptian heritage in Qurna." Guests also appreciate that they can have their own privacy
For many years, the hotel has been known to both Qurna residents and tourists simply as Sheikh Ali's. Its official name, however, is the Marsam, which in Arabic means "a painter's studio" or "atelier." It appears that in 1941, when the painter Mohamed Nagui dreamed up the plan of establishing a Luxor marsam in the residence of Sheikh Ali Abdel-Rassoul, the building was divided into two parts: one for post-graduate students of the Fine Arts Faculty who dwelled there to reflect on the heritage of their ancestors, the other part as a hotel. Luxor's marsam was popular between 1941 and 1970. Among prominent artists who presided over the marsam were Hamid Said, Salah Taher, Abbas Shohdi and, of course, the distinguished architect Hassan Fathi.
"For a long time, the marsam was the Egyptian version of Paris's Montmartre district. Artists of many different nationalities would tour the monuments of the west bank and perpetuate the scenes in works of art," sculptor Hassan Osman recalls. He remembers an era in which there were no busloads of tourists rushing through the tombs of the nobles to keep pace with their busy schedules, and when they had time to ponder on the ancient painted reliefs in the tombs of Nakht, Rehmire, Menna and Ramose.
Staying close to these timeless masterpieces, the tomb paintings which give us a glimpse of what life was like for the ancestors of the Qurna villagers, inspired Baron to establish an art gallery in an adjoining building. "The gallery will rejuvenate the hotel and the surrounding area," she says. "It will bridge the gap between those who want four, or even five-star comfort, and those who want more simple fare near an authentic Theban necropolis." It will also encourage the continuation of an artistic tradition which came to the area almost four thousand years ago.
Practical Information
To reach Qurna from Luxor airport, take a minibus or a private taxi (each LE20) to the ferry, which leaves every few minutes (25 piastres for Egyptians, LE1 for foreigners). On the west bank you can take one of Luxor's famous old Pontiac, Dodge or Ford taxis to Qurna (LE5), or alternatively you can hire bicycles or donkeys to reach the village and tour sites of interest in the necropolis
Marsam Hotel, Luxor.
Half board approximately LE30 per person.
Tel: (095) 372403/311152.
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