May
03
2010
City of the Dead is not just the name of several horror movies, this place actually exists. It is a four miles long area stretching from northern to southern part of Cairo, Egypt. City of the Dead is a weird hybrid of a gigantic cemetery with funeral monuments, tombs and mausoleums, and a home to people who live and work among their dead ancestors.
City of the Dead has old funeral traditions and in some ways it is a unique place of funeral alternatives as well. This historical necropolis dates back to the 7th century AD. Many famous Arab emirs and Mamluk rulers are buried here. In Middle Ages hundreds of custodians who were looking after noble burial monuments and family mausoleums.
Even after the conquest of Egypt by Ottomans City of the Dead still served as a place where the new governors - pashas chose to make this place their final resting place.
However, as the years rolled by, prestige of City of the Dead declined. Many impoverished Egyptians from overcrowded Cairo, peasants and farmers from nearby villages moved in settled right among the dead.
Aug
25
2008
Mausoleum of Gaius Cestius in Rome
Those who think that mausoleums and tombs built as pyramids are located only in ancient Egypt and Nubia would be pleasantly surprised when they visit Rome. In 1660, quite by accident a mysterious pyramid was discovered there. It turned out to be a private mausoleum constructed as a small pyramid in 12 BC for an influential Roman magistrate Gaius Cestius. This mausoleum price was not cheap. Contemporaries witnessed an interior burial chamber decorated with frescoes. The tomb inside mausoleum was empty missing even human remains, which meant that it was robbed completely somewhere in the antiquity.
Naturally, as the years passed by, these frescoes were gone, and the pyramid survived only because it was built into Rome’s fortifications. This mausoleum is around 6 meters long and 5 meters high. It is one of the best preserved ancient building in Rome as of today. This type of tomb is different from its Egyptian neighbor by having no underground tunnels. It does not have exterior entrance either, so the tourists can not visit the interior of the mausoleum.
At the times when it was built the pyramid of Cestius probably looked very prominent. It stood in the countryside at the fork between two important roads, one of which led to the sea port of Ostia and another to the river of Tiber. The exterior of the tomb was made of bricks mixed with the slabs of white marble.
The city of imperial Rome was expanding so fast that in a couple of centuries the mausoleum was completely surrounded by buildings. The city needed more space, all bronze statues standing next to Cestius’s tomb vanished as well as other statues, monuments, memorials and old neighboring tombs.
We know now that pyramid of Cestius was not the only one in Rome. There was a bigger one close to Vatican which was destroyed in the 16the century. Obviously at the time of its constructions the imitation of Egyptian art, architecture and even rituals were in fashion.
In the 3d century the tomb was built into the city walls in order to save the costs and was used as some sort of triangular bastion. Most achievements of the antiquity and ancient world were forgotten during the Middle Ages. That is why medieval Romans did not know the origin of the mausoleum. When they realized that the bastion was in fact the partially marble mausoleum, they thought that it was the tomb of one of the founders of Rome - Remus.
