Nevine El-Aref reports on how a long-running conflict between the Ministry of State for Antiquities and the Ministry of Endowments has led to the devastation of a part of Egypt's heritage In the area of the Souq Al-Khamis (Thursday Market) in the district of Matariya, an area that was once the capital city of Upper Egypt and remained a major religious centre throughout the history of ancient Egypt, a large bulldozer is ploughing up the surface and throwing aside some archaeological elements that have lain for thousands of years in the sand. The bulldozer, as Mahmoud Afifi, head of the Central Administration for Cairo and Giza Antiquities, told Al-Ahram Weekly, was preparing the ground in compliance with an order from the Ministry of Endowments (ME) for the foundations of a large wall to surround the Souq Al-Khamis, despite the fact that such disturbance of the ground is in total opposition to the antiquities law. Afifi went on to explain that although the area is on property owned by the ME, it falls under the supervision of the Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA) since it borders the neighbouring Matariya archaeological site where the granite obelisk of the Middle Kingdom King Senusert I is situated, along with a number of ancient Egyptian tombs and statues. When the Ain Shams inspectorate learnt about the incident, Afifi said, it made a complaint to the area police station to halt the destruction that was being perpetrated. At that point all work stopped, but unfortunately the bulldozer damaged a large number of artefacts, among which was part of a New Kingdom stela showing a list of offerings offered by the ancient Egyptians in their religious rituals. MSA Minister Mohamed Ibrahim described the newly discovered stela as extremely important since it could reveal more of the secrets of this mysterious site, which was used over a long time of the ancient Egyptian and Coptic eras. He said that the part of the stele that had been rescued was the right side, and depicting a complete illustrated list of many of the offerings presented to the deities, namely geese, vegetables, fruit, bread and cattle. Lotus flowers are also depicted, as well as a hieroglyphic text with a poem of worship for the deities. An immediate rescue operation was launched to save the objects in the pit that had been dug and transfer them to the storage facility for restoration and research. Afifi insisted that the ME has broken the law because it should not have attempted any construction work on the property without the approval of the MSA and under its supervision. Second, he continued, any digging to lay foundations had to be carried out manually and not with a bulldozer. All work has now stopped until an investigation is completed. "What happened is really a great loss of Egypt's ancient heritage," Tareq Tawfiq, a lecturer at the Faculty of Archaeology at Cairo University, told the Weekly. He said the Matariya site contained under the sand many secrets from the Middle Kingdom, a very important era of ancient Egyptian history about which we know relatively little. "I am really disappointed because the area is a bit neglected and it deserves more care," Tawfiq said. He pointed out that Matariya was the site of ancient Heliopolis, which was the capital city of the 13th Nome of Upper Egypt and one of the main religious centres for the worship of the sun god Re throughout the span of the ancient Egyptian civilisation. The ancient city expanded over a vast area that included the whole of modern Matariya; Athar Al-Nabi, south of Old Cairo; and Gabal Al-Ahmar, a quarry for dark red quartzite, a type of stone associated with the sun god. "The exact boundaries of the city in the various historical periods are not yet clear and still require a lot of excavation," Tawfiq said. The importance of the city as a religious centre starts as early as the Old Kingdom, and remains have been discovered of a shrine dating from the reign of Third-Dynasty King Djoser as well as a part of an obelisk from the time of King Teti of the Fifth Dynasty. During the Middle Kingdom the sun temples of the city saw much building activity and were embellished with huge granite statues, some of which have appeared in recent excavations at the area of the Souq Al-Khamis. One of the landmarks of Matariya is the obelisk of the Twelfth-Dynasty king Senusert I, which means that the area could still provide valuable information about the Middle Kingdom, a rich era of ancient Egyptian history, which still needs much research. So far, comparatively few monuments from this period have been excavated. Tawfiq claims that obelisks that were transported to Italy in Roman times and now stand in famous squares in Rome probably came from the sun temples of Matariya. The well-preserved temples of Karnak in Luxor in the south of Egypt were called the "southern Heliopolis", which hints to the fact that the temples of Heliopolis must have once surpassed the temples of Karnak in size and splendour. From the New Kingdom there were several remains in Matariya, Tawfiq continued. Recently discovered was a column of the 19th-Dynasty Pharaoh Merenptah, which has been transported to the store rooms at the Ministry of Antiquities. Sadly the base of the column inscribed with the name of the king was covered up by a newly-built house. Several architectural elements from temples, parts of statues and whole tombs have been excavated dating from the Late Period. Many of the statues were transported from Heliopolis to Alexandria in the Ptolemaic era. They were re-erected there, while the slow decay of ancient Heliopolis began to end nearly 3,000 years of glory.
