The painting in the Theban Valley of the Nobles, on the south wall of the tomb of Ramose, a governor of Thebes and vizier during the reigns of Amenophis III and Amenophis IV in the 18th Dynasty, shows a group of female mourners wailing in (...)
I was about to tuck into a tuna salad at a Prêt À Manger in London last week when I chanced to read the message printed on the paper serviette: “This napkin is 100 per cent recyclable (Prêt's sustainability department is militant, we're making (...)
Several years ago a young mother in a village near Luxor presented me with one of her most precious possessions. It was a tiny bag sewn off in cotton, smelling of dried herbs and containing a coin, some grains of grass, wheat and herbs — and the (...)
On a bright, spring day about 30 years ago, in a village 20km north of the Valley of the Kings, I was sipping sweet, hot tea in the home of my friend Sheikh Abdallah. The house was at the end of a straw-strewn cul-de-sac, with the rooms opening (...)
The Egypt of the 21st century is thoroughly modern and, as befits a major birthplace of science and medicine, Egyptians are among not only some of the most technologically astute but also some of the best surgeons and physicians in the world. (...)
Soon after I came to live in Egypt in the mid-1970s, I was asked by Reader's Digest to write an article on modern Egyptian folk magic, if it existed. It wasn't an easy assignment, but by the time I had researched and written the article I was hooked (...)
The Egyptians believed that the various ramifications of the sun god — Horus, the rising sun; Ra and Ra-Harakhte, the full sun; and Osiris, the setting sun — governed their lives and the lives of all living animals and plants. But how did they (...)
In the northern hemisphere, the Sun reaches the lowest point of its power in its annual cycle at the end of December. The Winter Solstice, the shortest day, falls on 21 or 22 December, and a few days later the days visibly begin to lengthen. To the (...)
The late Christopher Hitchens is often quoted as saying: “Owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realise that, if (...)
Perhaps we pray to be delivered from evil: that is religion. We cross our fingers that we don't catch flu: that is superstition. Or we might place a few items with a written charm in a drawstring pouch and wear during a full moon: that is magic. All (...)
An engineering firm that has carried out repairs to the White House and Windsor Castle is to help rectify earthquake damage to the . Jenny Jobbins reports from Wales
A specialised team of Welsh engineers is preparing to travel to Cairo to help make (...)
Jenny Jobbins takes a new look at some old tales, and ponders on the unchanging face of literature and the human experience
It has recently been making something of a comeback, but generally speaking the performance art of storytelling has been on a (...)
Egypt is not the only nation whose heritage is under threat, as Jenny Jobbins discovers
Britain's Ministry of Heritage has announced a stringent new policy regarding intellectual property rights and the protection of its famous national (...)
When an incumbent British consul-general helped himself to a vital piece of ancient Egyptian art, few could have guessed it would take almost 200 years for its worth to be fully appreciated. Jenny Jobbins visits the recreated tomb of (...)
A chance trick of the light has provided proof that the town of Al-Qasr in the Dakhla Oasis was once a Roman fortress. Jenny Jobbins witnessed the evidence
A chance trick of the light has provided proof that the town of Al-Qasr in the Dakhla Oasis (...)
In ancient times Lake Mareotis was a pleasure resort and watering spot surrounded by market gardens. Jenny Jobbins considers the fertile past of an area that is now desert
When the Greek colonisers and Roman cohorts -- and, later, the Persians and (...)
It is now eight years since an innovative programme was set up in Sinai to preserve and nurture the heritage of a local community. Jenny Jobbins reports on the St Catherine's Bedouin project
Egypt's national parks were set up primarily to protect (...)
Next March, breeders and horse lovers all over the world will congregate in Cairo to celebrate the purebred Egyptian Arabian horse. Jenny Jobbins reports on a breed blessed by fate
The Egyptian National Championships, sponsored by the European (...)
Britons have been glued to their TV screens to watch an innovative series which has helped fuel the ongoing fixation on Ancient Egypt. Jenny Jobbins tunes in
Ever since the King Tut exhibition began its foreign tours in the 1970s, Europeans have (...)
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 (...)
Siwa Oasis once drew the famous, the deeply religious and the merely curious. In the first of a two-part look at the oasis, Jenny Jobbins traces its early days and the rise and fall of the cult of the oracle
Siwa Oasis lies on the edge of the Great (...)
One of the most appealing aspects of Cairo is that a large part of it is a living museum. Jenny Jobbins visits a small corner where it has been "business as usual" for 900 years
Cairo's medieval core is not a reproduction of a museum staffed by (...)
It spelled lucrative trade for some and despair for others. Jenny Jobbins traces the steps of those who trod the Darb Al-Arba'in
Mention of the Darb Al-Arba'in conjures visions of vast camel caravans, sometimes stretching for miles -- of chained and (...)
Babylon, an early historical settlement in what is now Egypt's capital, is the heart of Old Cairo. Jenny Jobbins takes a walk round
As I got off the metro at Mar Girgis station I couldn't help thinking of the 1960s song about the train running (...)
Mood Swings
Toilet training
By Jenny Jobbins
Last year was International Eco-Tourism Year, an event which, like so many other ideas which sprout in the UN, was widely ignored. I suspect this was because tourism to governments and Big Business means (...)