TALKINGabout the heritage of maps might not be familiar to most of us. But in fact, old and historic maps have a certain charm; not only do they illustrate the formation of a country, region and continent – especially before modern forms of surveying, but they also reflect the vision of people. These old maps were generally decorated with pleasant figures whilst the titles and information were put in nice cartouches. Egypt has two important collections of maps. The first is owned by Egypt, The National Library of Egypt ‘Dar el-Kotob' and the second is found in the Egyptian Geographic Society. This week we are talking about the collection of ‘Dar el-Kotob'. This collection contains about ten thousand maps, which have different scales. But 300 maps of this collection have a particularly special value. Fifty of these unique maps are directly related to Egypt and within these, four groups can be identified. The first, numbering 28, focuses on Egypt. Six maps in the second group show Egypt in a larger geographical context alongside Nubia and Abbyssinia, whilst the eight maps in the third group show North Africa and the entire African Continent. The final group contains eight maps that illustrate the Ancient Egyptian empires. If we take a closer look at these maps – which date back to the year 1595, one will discover strange features. The most important of these is the form of the Nile Delta. Today, the Nile has two branches, namely the Rosetta and Damietta. But the older maps show that there were as many as seven branches for the Nile at one time. They included the Pelusium branch reaching as far as Farama or Perusium in the middle of the north coast of Sinai, and the Canapic Branch to the west, which reaches close to the city of Alexandria. In addition to the historical value of these maps, it is such a delight to be able to look at these pieces of history, with their colourful pleasant makeup. When the CULTNAT documented them, we were amazed by the outcome of the publication we put together. It is such a beautiful collection that appear in an Egyptian book. [email protected] Saleh is the Director of the Centre for Documentation of Culture and Natural Heritage.
