When, late at night, on the drive from Alexandria to Cairo, the majestic silhouettes of the pyramids suddenly appear on the dusk-covered horizon, one wonders about the mystery of transient life, without ever finding a satisfactory answer to the question of who governs the history of the world and how. Wandering through the land of Egypt, one feels as if moving through a never-ending graveyard, while all around, “eternal” life bubbles with screaming colours, shrill shouts, the sound of the oud, nightly prayers, the fragrance of incense, the cooing of doves, and ghostly figures glimmering in the darkness of the streets. The City of the Dead, adjacent to Cairo’s Old City, with its dervish-like paupers living among the tombs of saints and the mausoleums of princesses, appears as a stepmotherly continuation of the necropolises of pharaonic Egypt. Over the centuries, systems, religions, and theologies have changed, but archetypal attitudes remain the same. The concern with the afterlife persists, though it is rendered differently in the imagination of each epoch, while preserving a typological continuity.
- Algis Uždavinys. 🇱🇹
Travels in Cairo, (2003)
