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Residents near the antiquities have to move |
After decades of trying, Egypt says residents who live above ancient Luxor tombs will move
LUXOR, Egypt: The Egyptian government has been trying since World War II to move the people who live in the hills above Luxor's West Bank to give tourists and archaeologists access to the nearly 1,000 Pharaonic tombs that lie beneath their homes.
After decades of failed negotiations, officials said on Saturday that most of 3,200 families that own the brightly painted, mud-brick homes over the tombs have agreed to pack up and move to a newly constructed US$32 million (€24.16 million) complex located less than 5 kilometers (3 miles) away from the hillside.
"Most of them want to leave and they demand to leave," said Rania Yusuf, a spokeswoman for Egypt's Supreme Council for Antiquities in Luxor.
Only a few families continue to resist the move, "and they will leave, believe me," she said
Negotiations between the government and the residents have repeatedly faltered over the last 60 years even as the government tried to entice them to leave with promises of new homes elsewhere.
But the bulk of the residents, many of whom depend on Luxor's thriving tourist industry to earn a living, continued to resist, saying the new homes being offered were too small and didn't come with new jobs.
Over time though, many have grown tired of the struggles of living on top of ancient tombs. In an effort to preserve the antiquities, authorities prohibit the residents from building and restoring their homes and installing modern plumbing, forcing the residents to bring water up the hillside using donkeys.
Many also say they are happy with the deal the government is currently offering them, which includes giving residents either new homes or plots of land in the complex that will include a market, police station, cultural center and schools. The government wants all the residents to move, it plans to preserve a few of houses, some which are more than 200 years old.
"We are happy, but at the same time we are not happy, because we leave the best place here," said resident Nadia Mohammad Qassem, who is still unsure of when she and her family will move. The Egyptian government has not set a deadline for when the residents must leave or for when the complex would be completed.
The arrival of European antiquity hunters in the late 18th and early 19th centuries originally pushed Egyptians to move into the Theban hills, where they were enlisted to help excavate — and loot — artifacts. The residents' homes are located near the Valley of the Kings and its famous collection of well-preserved tombs that draw thousands of tourists daily to Luxor.
Elina Paulin-Grothe, an archaeologist involved tombs' excavation, said the best way to preserve the artifacts below is to move the resident, though she praised government efforts to safe a few of the mud-brick homes.
"This cannot continue and the population is growing too fast. For the young people this is the advantage to move," she said.
Advocates for the residents say many have resisted moving over the decades not because they didn't want to live in more modern homes but because they wanted to move on their own terms — not the government's.
"I mean, nobody wants to live in those conditions when they know that most of Egypt doesn't live like that and the world has moved on," said Caroline Simpson, a former archaeologist who coordinates a small cultural exhibition on the hillside.
Other residents say even though their living conditions are poor, the hillside is their home and a part of who they are.
"For me, I don't want to even imagine what it would look like. Without houses, it's a dead place," said resident Abdo Osman Daramali.
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