'Qurna in the sky'

Qurna, as it was

This is wonderful, 'Qurna in the sky' a great new website of photos, map, and descriptions of the now-vanished Qurnawi houses on the Theban west bank. Very evocative for those of us who lived there.

Qurna is the name of an area on the west bank at Luxor, Egypt, in the world cultural heritage site of the Theban Necropolis. Along a stretch of hillside running about 3 kilometres from south to north there was a collection of hamlets mainly arranged in family groups. The houses were built along the lower slopes of the Theban hills, where there are tombs of many periods. The authorities saw the residents and their houses as a danger to the tombs and monuments, and for decades there were plans to relocate the people. From 2006 to 2009 nearly all the houses on the hillside were demolished – even though some of them were over 100 years old and thus covered by laws to preserve them. No programme of recording was done before the bulldozers moved in. The built heritage of the Qurnawi meant nothing to the authorities.

I really must go back...