A bible of unity

Nader Habib visits a divine exhibition
Every year on the first day of June Egypt celebrates the journey the Holy Family made to our country. According to Coptic tradition, this was the day on which the Holy Family arrived in Tel Al-Basta, in what is now the governorate of Sharqiya, having travelled along the Mediterranean in northern Sinai.

Biblical texts describe their flight from the oppression of King Herod:
"When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: 'Out of Egypt I called my son'." Matthew (2:13-15)

From Bible to art, this famous story is now the focus of an art exhibition in Zamalek. The exhibition is organised by Ibrahim Picasso, owner of the Picasso Art Gallery, and involves the work of 25 artists, Christians as well as Muslims.
The exhibition has a political side, says Picasso. "For a long time I have taken my 'Egyptianness' for granted. I didn't think that the day would come when Egyptians started to think of themselves as either Muslims or Christians."

Picasso has made a similar point before. In 1998 he organised a show called "Coptic Scenes" in which nearly 40 artists took part. He is, therefore, accustomed to displaying spirituality through the eyes of the leading artists in this country.
The artist Gamil Shafik says that Egyptian artists, regardless of their religion, are attuned to the country's diverse religious legacy. "For a long time, this country has been multi-sectarian," he says. "As a nation we are at ease with mosques just as we are with churches. Those who admire the Mosque of Sultan Hassan are often just as thrilled by the sight of the Hanging Church. Both are part of this multilayered legacy our forefathers handed down to us."

Shafik is aware that other biblical figures feature prominently in Egypt's history. Joseph was brought to Egypt by slave traders, and Moses was raised by a ruling family. In modern times, intellectuals and politicians escaping persecution in their countries have found home and support in this country.

"Now the Egyptians are polarised. People are starting to think of themselves either as Salafis, Muslim Brotherhood members or liberals. But I want us to become just Egyptians," Shafiq said.

It used to be that Egyptians would gather around radio sets on the first Thursday of every month to listen to Umm Kalthoum. As Shafik says, this is the kind of art that unifies, that makes us all feel we belong.
In his painting, Shafik uses pieces of wood that have drifted to the shore. These fragments look ancient; they catch his eye and inspire him to shape them into art.
"I collect driftwood, because it comes from boats that sank perhaps hundreds of years ago. I use bits of this wood in my work," he explains.
For this exhibition Shafik has depicted the ancient god Horus with the Virgin Mary, an image that blends Christian and pre-Christian traditions.Wagdy Habashy's portrayal is of Joseph leading the donkey on which the Virgin Mary is travelling, the baby Jesus in her arms. Also in his painting is Salome, a young woman believed to be a blood relative of the Holy Family, who is tagging along behind.
Habashy notes that the portrayal of the Holy Family against a familiar Egyptian background, such as images of the Nile, the Pyramids, and the countryside, is common in this exhibition. The artists, whether taking a surrealistic, folkloric, or romantic approach, take nature to a rarefied, spiritual level.Hani Hanna, whose sermons in support of the revolution brought him widespread recognition among the younger generation, says that Egypt has always offered sanctuary to people escaping injustice.
"Abraham escaped to Egypt, just as many others did before and since. Egypt has for centuries offered home to people fleeing oppression," Hanna said.

He sees the exhibition as a call for peace and multiculturalism. "The visit is symbolic, because it shows that Egyptian civilisation is all embracing. There is a tradition of multiculturalism in Egyptian society, a tradition that has shaped the psyche of this country."

Artist Gamal Lam'i says that we need to start thinking of the country's future.

"The future of Egypt is not in the hand of the Muslim Brotherhood, nor is it subject to the whim of a repressive authority. We want a democratic leadership that can lead us forward. This country belongs to everyone, not to the MB alone," Lam'i says.According to Lam'i, Egypt needs to assert its tradition of tolerance and diversity. "How can we import ideas from places such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia to a place such as Egypt, which had been around for 7,000 years? If the MB takes over, the Copts will have no place in Egypt. Egyptians will have no place in Egypt. The MB embraces a revival project that is extremist and Salafist at heart. They want to revive the caliphate," Lam'i adds.
Lam'i, who believes that art must inspire people, not just entertain them, has depicted Mary seated under a date palm. His piece, he tells me, symbolises the Qur'anic verse in which the Virgin is told to shake the tree so that the dates may fall down for her to eat. Using an ancient Roman technique, Lam'i paints with oxides and beeswax.

Another artist, Adel Nassif, uses egg tempera, a technique also attributed to the icon painters of antiquity.

"I have been involved in Coptic art for a long time and have some experience of icon painting," he says. "The paintings I have produced for the exhibition involve the use of egg yolk and natural oxides, just as the ancient icon painters did," Nasif says.
In his piece, Nassif depicts a pharaonic girl welcoming the Holy Family, with birds flying overhead and fish visible in the river.
"The visit of the Holy Family to Egypt is an occasion for blessing, which is why we see birds in the sky, fish in the river, and shade beneath the date palms," Nasif remarks.
Archbishop Martyrios, speaking on the opening night, said that the diversity of themes reflected the diversity of Egypt. Art was a language that spoke to all of us, he added.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2012/1103/entertain.htm

EXCLUSIVE HOLIDAYS? DIVE IN CAVE

You get tired of rest in a five-star hotel?Take a tour of the longest caves in the world. Diver Chris Starnawski does professionally.
Guided underwater cave is an extraordinary experience. If you're tired of the pyramids and want something new, you can follow in the footsteps Starnawskiego and try to explore the cave complex Dahab Egypt coasts at a depth of 222 meters. exploration of this complex Pole took over 8 hours - reports MenStream.pl.
However Starnawski professional. Inexperienced płetwonurkom glide is not recommended for longer than an hour. On his trip Starnawski chooses caves przepłynięte not yet by anyone. Currently trying to cave Czech zeksplorować Hranická Propast that sailed so far to a depth of 181 meters. But novice divers to glide is not recommended to the caves niezeksplorowanych.
The challenge for the Polish team are also Mexican complexes. Polak hopes that during one trip will examine two deep cave systems, Sac Actun and Dos Ojos, which can be connected to one corridor. The discovery of this corridor would be a great achievement not only for the Starnawskiego, but also for the history of speleology.Expeditions into the depths is an elite tourism, but are becoming increasingly popular.Formed a travel agency that specialize in sending adventurers in the most inaccessible places of the earth. You can also always have to organize such an exclusive trip to hisconciergeowi .

http://platine.pl/ekskluzywne-wakacje-nurkuj-w-jaskini-0-883063.html 

Travel: Egypt

http://www.scotsman.com/scotland-on-sunday/scotland/travel-egypt-1-2360429
Published on Sunday 17 June 2012 20:12
EGYPT doesn’t disappoint with its stunning architecture, history and sights – and that’s before the heatstroke and delirium kick in
The tour guide has slumped to a resting stop in the shade, reclining in a street café somewhere up ahead, gathering himself and trying to find the inch of seat that isn't to his backside what hot sand is to the soles of a lizard. I'm not surprised. It's 8pm and we've been walking all day in 42-degree heat. We're goosed.

The greatest female pharaoh of them all, Queen Hatshepsut (1458 BC) had to have her shade on a vast scale, be it a chapel or temple amid the hundreds of awesome buildings still standing from her reign. Those kings down Luxor way knew a good few months digging into the hillside could do wonders for your air conditioning if you persevered too. But I and 20 or so other tourists are peching our way round a nine-day Egyptian tour crammed tighter than Tutankhamun's tomb with sights, so a chance to stop off in the shade and sip a little hibiscus tea as the locals gather at Khan El Khalili market mosque for the fourth salah (prayer) of the day is most welcome.

Tahrir Square

For Egypt is epic. Don't let anyone who has “grabbed a last-minute cheapie to Sharm El Sheikh, never left the sun lounger" tell you otherwise. It is epic in its geology, its history and, for a westerner, certainly, its assault on the senses, from the swirl of Cairo's Tahrir Square to desolate stretches of land as the Nile takes you south to the Valley of the Kings.

We land in Cairo late at night, so awaken to the sounds and speeds of the city. The felucca boats are out on a Nile so thick with grime they're steering through caramel. We're headed for the now famous Tahrir Square, a city centre construction with squares off squares and roundabouts off roundabouts and all the horn-tooting and pedestrian confusion that goes with a city of 16m people and counting. All roads, however, lead the eye to Cairo's crowning glory, the Egyptian Museum, the museum of antiquities – notoriously looted during the Arab Spring of 2011. And who could not be thrilled at the Indiana Jones adventure made true as you stare Tutankhamun's death mask in the face or wander round the mummified pharaohs, just some of the restored museum’s treasures? It's the stuff of childhood dreams.Truth be told, however, I am relieved to get away from the dirt and darting eyes of the city and break out into the country on an overnight train to Aswan. It is more Darjeeling Limited than Orient Express, but adds to the adventure of seeing the vast desert of Egypt via its lush spine, the Nile. The rickety train's journey in and out of country stations gives a view of Egyptians in their domesticity and, had it not been clear from Cairo's suburbs, it certainly is here, that striking poverty runs to the core of Egypt's troubles as deeply as the river itself.

Aswan is a desert city, but its monumental High Dam (think opening scene of GoldenEye) backs up the Nile to form the world's largest reservoir, the 500km-long Lake Nasser. In temperatures too hot even for louping lizards, the sight of a vast water supply brings on hallucinatory glee as we stroll along it in full knowledge that aquatic surroundings can not be far.
Our guide, however, teases us with a trip to Aswan's Temple of Philae, dedicated to the goddess Isis. Some of the fascinating carvings in the interior of the temple still retain their rich colours, such was the sophistication of the early Egyptians’ craft for visual storytelling and the dry climate's wondrous preservation. Isis is depicted as the ideal mother symbol, not least when she is presented as the mother of Horus, god of war, and one of the most celebrated gods of Egyptian history. Not a bad lad to have brought into the world.

With that sail around Egyptian mythology and family values, we are escorted on to our boat for the ultimate in Egyptian sightseeing, a three-night cruise up the Nile to the spectacular Valley of the Kings in Luxor. It is here that the temptation to start aligning your fellow tripsters with Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile characters proves too much. Among the youngest in the party, we have great fun imagining the lives, loves and misdemeanours of everyone as they parade round the boat-top pool by day and the buffet table by night.


The aforementioned Valley of the Kings and the Temple of the Queen Hatshepsut are our destination. The Valley sits across the Nile from Luxor (formerly Thebes) and was the burial ground of Egypt's nobles for over 500 years. With little visible from the road other than magnificent limestone mountains, on closer inspection the Valley is an utterly discombobulating experience. Carved into the mountains are over 60 tombs, most of which have numerous chambers.
It was here that Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered, and around these hills are the chambers of generations of Rameses. Hatshepsut is here too, resting from her celebrated and peaceful reign. Descending the minute steps into these tombs can be perilous, but the pay-off is an insight into the carvings and scripts worshipped as narratives of faith and decorative enablers into an afterlife by the pharaohs. In the cool, low light the air is still and sacred. Exiting is as dazzling an experience, as the searing sun and lack of any modern reference for miles disorientates you in the living history of this place.

Venturing back to Cairo via the Red Sea Riviera resort of the Hilton Hurghada, it's clear the unchanged nature of Egypt's great architecture and landscape is exactly what makes exploring it such a mindblowing experience. Not just to stand beside, but to touch the only remaining Ancient Wonder of the World, the Great Pyramid of Giza, completed in 2560BC, is to shake your certainties of time, history, faith and civilisation to their core. We've established that 42 degrees with no shade delirium may have kicked in a while back, but these experiences cannot be underestimated.

The pyramids are fascinating in their juxtaposition against the city of Cairo, with its ongoing surge for revolution fuelled by entrenched disparities between classes and the sexes. My impression is that a woman in Cairo is made aware of her minority and rarely in the most subtle of manners by the packs of men passing hours in the streets, with barely a female Egyptian visible in public life. Dynasties have passed since Queen Hatshepsut's awe-inspiring reign, but so much of Egypt remains still in her wake.
The Travel Department (0131-516 3885, www.thetraveldepartment.co.uk) runs escorted holidays to Egypt from Edinburgh and Glasgow to Cairo with British Airways (via London Heathrow) from £1,099 return for nine nights. Bookings are now being taken for trips starting on 26 September. Included in the deal is luxury coach transfers, excursions, meals, three nights’ accommodation in four-star hotels the Shepheard and the Oasis, Cairo, two nights at the Hilton Hurghada Resort, as well as a three-night, five-star Nile cruise.