Egypt to dig up pharaonic tombs

BBC News ^ | Saturday, 2 December 2006 | Heba Saleh

[SunkenCiv]

Bulldozers have moved in to demolish houses in the Egyptian village of Qurna which sits on top of dozens of pharaonic tombs in Luxor. The Egyptian government is determined to move the 3,200 families of the village to an alternative settlement it has built a few kilometres away. Officials say emptying out the village will enable them to explore the tombs and to protect them from water damage. An official ceremony was held and the bulldozers moved in. They demolished four uninhabited mud brick houses in the village of Qurna, very near the Valley of the Kings in Luxor. Many villagers have already left to the new settlement of Taref built by the Egyptian government at a cost of $31m (£15.6m)... Over the years, the villagers are believed to have dug many of the tombs under their houses and to have sold much of what was in them... The government has wanted to move the Qurnawis for 60 years but it is only now that it has completed an alternative village for them.

[SunkenCiv]

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Villagers have vowed not to move

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[SunkenCiv]

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[Fred Nerks]

James Bruce made it to the Valley of the Kings in 1769, just in time to witness the governor of Girga, Osman Bey, attempt to rid the area of the Qurnawis living in the tombs. The bey sent troops to remove the people forcibly, then set fire to the tombs. This happened during the days when the residents had not yet acquired the talent of endearing themselves to foreign visitors; would-be explorers and self-appointed archaeologists rejoiced at the government initiative. "Following no trade, having no taste for agriculture, and like the savage animals of the barren mountains near which they live, appearing to employ themselves solely in rapine, their aspect was not a little terrific," is how they were described by C S Sonnini, a French naturalist who came to Qurna around 1776.
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/530/special.htm

[SunkenCiv]

Sounds like the whole place has been looted by these Qurna folks and their ancestors. The action taken this year (sez it took 40 years? to build the replacement village?!?) is an example of the proverb, closing the gate after the horse is gone.