The City of the Dead

                 The name itself is fascinating.            

   
                        The City of the Dead

                        The Cairo Necropolis          

                                  El Qarafa.

Today, a city-within-a-city of Cairo, the City of the Dead is inhabited by a remarkable mixture of those wishing to live near and venerate ancestors, refugees from the earthquake 1992, those forced out of their homes by urban renewal, and of course, the poorest-of-the-poor.

The astonishing city began as an elite family’s living compound and burial ground built by an invading Arab commander in about 642 AD. As still can be seen today, the streets were wide, gated mausoleums elaborately constructed, and as always, sacred places of worship were plentiful. 

Other migrating tribes eventually began to bury their own dead within the beautiful and highly regarded area. The first actual inhabitants were the custodians and mystics who venerated and cared for the wealthy noble dead and family mausoleums.

Those who  could not afford stately mausoleums constructed crypts marked by cairns of stone or brick just below the ground's surface so  generations of entire families could be interred together. 

Interestingly, it was not the custom for husbands and wives to be buried together, but women were placed in one area, and men in another of the crypt.

As centuries passed and Cairo became more urbanized, those who chose to live among their ancestors, peasants and farmers fleeing the ravages of nature, and the desperate with no other options, became permanent citizens of the area as it exists today: The City of the Dead.

As I walked the streets with the Egyptian driver hired to guide me (safely) through, I was struck by the enormity of the area as well as the practicality of living where there are no taxes, rent, or mortgage payments.

Automobiles, motor scooters, a smattering of shops, and clothing worn, were evidence that there are citizens of this city who do not appear as desperately poor as I had imagined. Of course, I was not in the vicinity of “Garbage City,” the poorest quarter of the City of the Dead.

Clothes hanging to dry next to departed’s marker, children playing their unique games, dogs scavenging in the littered streets, and the merchant doing business out of his corner vegetable stand, generated one of my more absorbing encounters while in Cairo.

                                          All living with the spirits of ancestors.