I love looking for unique things

One of my rewards for living far from family is poking around in dusty old shops and crazy places like the grand bazaar called the Khan el-Khalili. This famous and enormous "souk" was built in the 1500s although buildings in the area date back to 970 AD. The Khan is filled with hundreds of merchants selling everything: spices, gold jewelry, silver jewelry, beads, rugs, glass ornaments, galabayas and t-shirts, lamps, souvenirs, antique shops, metal workers, clothes, junk shops, fabric, shoes, etc. After four years of visiting the Khan I've found my favorite shopkeepers and usually make a quick visit to see if they have anything new. I bought all kinds of stuff when I first arrived because it was different and interesting. But now it takes something really special to make me part with my money. And boy do I hate negotiating with the shopkeepers. Hate it so much. I'm terrible at it and either pay too much or just get mad and walk away. Here are some of my special finds.

Hands down this is the one of the most unique things in Egypt. I have a friend who is begging to buy it from me. It all started in a little antique shop in Maadi. I looked at it for a year but it was expensive so I kept saying no. I took a friend with me who loves old things and showed it to her. We both were convinced that it was pharonic because the wood is very old.  Owning pharonic things, however, is against the law. The shopkeeper kept insisting that it wasn't pharonic and that if it were he could sell it for a million pounds. When the Egyptian pound devaluated about a year ago the price dropped by half. That's when I bought it, before he raised his price. 

This sarcophagus is made of two sides with a seam. Its  heavy and when you shake it you can hear something rattling around. I think it's bits of plaster but I swear others think its bones. I am not going to open it because I could never get it back together properly and who knows, there might be bones which would be too freaky. I'm better off not knowing!

This is really old wood. I know that from spending many hours inside the Egyptian museum and visiting museums around Europe that have Egyptian collections. It's wood and plaster. I need to study the hieroglyphics on it and see if I can make any sense of it. I was nervous about having this--and not sure about taking it out of the country when I leave--until I found the piece below. 

I got this from one of my favorite shopkeepers in the Khan. He has the oldest stuff and os the one who solved the puzzle for me. My sarcophagus and boat are 200-year old (or so) souvenirs made for tourists in the 1800s and 1900s. And the reason they look so old is because they are made of broken bits of wood leftover in tombs after being raided. It makes me crazy that I have these pieces!! 

These are my opium smokers that were used in opium dens in the late 1800s. There were opium dens in China, Southeast Asia, North America, and France. My friend Maria as a huge collection of these in different shapes and sizes. They used to be easier to find here in Cairo but alas, like a lot of antiques, they are harder to find. I actually bought the beautiful red and yellow one in a lamp store on Memorial Drive in Houston! It didn't have the metal pipe and I didn't know what it was but loved the ceramic. 

These are my beautiful beautiful handmade glass birds and fish from an artist shop that is now closed. Only a few things are made there now. I am crazy for birds and fish and I love this color. It's a reproduction of the beautiful green pharonic glass that you see in museums. The painted glass lamps on the right are mosque lamps. In the old days they hung all around a mosque with candles or oil for illumination. Now they use lightbulbs. 

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   I love love my glass pieces. 

Babies and baby parties in Egypt

Egypt has an estimated population of 98 million people (United Nations) and grows by a million every six months. When I google Egypt population I see estimates of 9-16 million people living in Cairo with an estimate of 19,000 people per square kilometer. It's a busy and crowded place and in the midst of all of this are women having babies. 

Such a little thing!! Can't wait to be a grandma!!

Being pregnant
After your wedding you are expected to GET PREGNANT. That is your job! And have a boy first!! And the mothers and mothers-in-law will ask you constantly how you are feeling and if you need to go to the doctor! They are not shy about that!  When you get pregnant you pay a lump sum for care by a doctor and go regularly for ultrasounds and checkups. I think delivery is extra. And everyone has c-sections. A normal delivery is not an option. I've been told it's because the doctors are too impatient and make more money doing c-sections. Honestly. Most women go home the next day. When a woman is one month from delivery she moves back to her parent's home to rest and be taken care of by her mother and aunts. She then spends another month or more at her parents home after the baby is born to recover. 

The baby party
The Sebou’ (literally the seventh day in Arabic) and is a celebration held exactly seven days after the birth of a child. This is a very important celebration and has existed since the time of the pharaohs. It's a regional custom and is celebrated by both Muslims and Christians. I've been lucky enough to attend a Sebou' and it was such crazy fun. When Egyptians get together for ANY type of celebration it always involves loud shabbi music, dancing, and, to really express their strong emotion, ululating--a long, wavering, high-pitched vocal sound resembling a howl with a trilling quality (wikipedia). They howl and move their tongue back and forth, usually with their hand covering their mouth. It's a crazy sound especially when done in unison. Because the women and men are usually separated I get to be in the fun room with the ladies dancing and laughing and ululating; Dave gets to sit in another room with the men sitting around smoking. 

Here are some photos I got off the internet. They are exactly like the events I've attended.

The babies are always on a little round pillow which is part of an old custom. Here is what they did with the pillow and the baby at the party I was invited to: they held the pillow with the baby held snug in the middle then dropped the pillow maybe 6-8 inches so that the baby would fall down into the pillow. I couldn't believe it. They did this several times. The baby was sound asleep although his little body shook every time he hit the pillow. The pillow in this photo is much thinner than the one for the baby party I attended so maybe they didn't drop the baby. 

Do you see the hands holding a pestle and mortar? It's most likely the grandmother or another elderly relative of the baby who is banging the pestle and mortar and, quite loudly, and telling the baby, also quite loudly, to be obedient to its parents. Sometimes they say funny things like "listen to your mother but not your father." They bang the daylights out of the pestle!! I couldn't believe it. I thought it was going to be a soft "tink tink" It was like the clanging of a church bell!!

Dancing and having fun! Normal Egyptian homes are small with small rooms. Everyone crowds in and even stand on couches and chairs. No one cares! 

Weddings and engagement parties look like this also. 

My little collection of post-party gifts. I love them!!

My collection of mortars and pestles. In the old days women received these as wedding presents for cooking. These are made of brass and are very heavy. Some are made of aluminum. This is not a present for a modern bride!

Having fun with bedouin jewelry!

It's funny how some things catch your attention after years of passing them by while out and about. That's just one of my specialities here in Egypt--being out and about and poking around and looking for interesting things.

Egypt is so old! Most people think of Egypt as the land of the pharaohs but it's so much more than that, including the Greeks, Romans, Turkish Ottomans, Mamluks from eastern Europe, nomadic bedouin tribes from all over northern Egypt, Coptic Christians, and Europeans, all of whom have left their mark on the culture of modern Egypt. And for me the fun part of all that is finding old and new interesting things.

My hugely adventurous friend Penni actually planted the seeds in my bedouin interest with this book she gave me a year ago about Siwa (bottom right). After I bought my first piece of jewelry about two months ago I was happy to find these books specifically about bedouin jewelry. The open book at the top describes jewelry from Yemen. These fascinating books are my references and are filled with great photographs, as you can see. 

Old bedouin jewelry is both similar and distinctive. Made from silver, they incorporate a variety of symbols to protect against the "evil eye." "Silver is associated with goodness, and is prized for its healing properties and as a defense against evil. It's highly reflective surface will surely deflect the first glance of the evil eye." (Siwa, Jewelry, Costume, and Life in an Egyptian Oasis). The evil eye is a fascinating and common belief in this part of the world.


For generations jewelry has been a bedouin woman's most prized possession. When a bedouin couple become engaged part of the contract is how much jewelry the groom will give to the bride. The jewelry belongs only to her. It's her savings account, her retirement, her safety nest in times of need. Even in modern Egypt a bride gets a certain amount of gold from the groom. The marriage contract states the gold content and how many grams are to be given. The jewelry is then displayed at the engagement party that is almost as large as the wedding.

Bahariya

Silver was traditionally the prized metal for jewelry although now bedouin women want gold because it is more fashionable. The silver content in old bedouin jewelry ranges from .600, .800, and .900 silver. The poorest families could only afford "white metal" or "low silver" jewelry that was made of nickel and brass. When we are poking around we always look for the tiny hallmark stamps and get really excited when the artist has stamped his name or icon. One of the most famous artist was a jewelry maker named Gab Gab who made Siwan jewelry. It would be a miracle to find something with his signature.

This bracelet (left) is from Bahariya oasis and the big flowery stamps indicates the name of the artist (though I've forgotten his name). The three tiny stamps tell me that its .800 silver , made in 1943, and silver because of the lotus icon. Before 1940 the silver icon was a cat. I have a few pieces with the cat stamp.

This matching set (shown front and back) was the first pieces of bedouin jewelry to catch my eye. I think it was the sharp pin--what on earth is that for? Earrings?? The man in the shop thought it was for nipples! It was my driver who showed me how they are pinned into clothes and I've demonstrated it here. They are pinned on a dress or on a headband which then hang almost like earrings. They are "Berber"which generally denotes bedouin cultures from Morocco and that area west of Egypt. They are made of white metal with no stamps. Bedouin jewelry is full of symbolism; the red coral beads here are for fertility, fake coins at the bottom for wealth. I paid $65 for these and saw the same set on eBay listed for $450.00.  I was lucky to find these pieces because they are not common in the shops we go to in the Khan and elsewhere.

Okay here are my favorite pieces of bedouin jewelry!! These pieces are known as zar. "Zar is a healing ritual complex practiced in societies around the Red Sea and the Arabian Gulf. The word zar also refers to any number of djinn spirits who possess humans and afflict them with troubles and ailments." (Zar, Spirit Possession, Music, and Healing Rituals in Egypt). Zar jewelry is worn during zar ceremonies in which the healer tries to rid the person of the bad spirits. They always have bells and noise makers attached to them to drive the spirits away. They also have verses from the Quaran inscribed on them. See the big round disc I am holding? Its very similar to the necklace on the cover page of the book titled The Traditional Jewelry of Egypt.

My favorite Khan shopkeeper has promised to text me when he has new zar pieces. 😊😂

These bracelets are from Nubia, which used to exist between central Sudan and southern Egypt. The stamps on the single bracelet include a cat stamp and tell me that its .800 silver and made in 1937-1938.

The three-piece bracelet is interesting because its made of single bracelets soldered together, each with their own set of stamps. The more you could afford the more bracelets you could have. This bracelet has the the lotus stamp, is .600 silver, and was made in 1944-1945.

Here are brass earrings and a white metal amulet from Yemen. The shape of the amulet was designed to hold verses from the Quaran or pieces of paper with magic symbols. This is just a bit of a large necklace. Bedouin necklaces can be quite large and heavy because they also used beads made of glass, amber, and coral.












These white metal necklaces are from Siwa. The rectangular ring is .800 silver and handmade. The other ring, I learned, is also .800 silver but machine made. The large pendant in the center is called an adrim and is worn by all unmarried girls. This adrim is kind of on the dull side. I've got my eyes out for one that is more representative of the style.



It's so much fun looking for bedouin jewelry. There is a range of shopkeepers who are honest and not-so-honest. Our first question is always "where is this from?. So far we've seen jewelry from Siwa, Sinai, Nubia, Yemen, and Afghanistan. But even within Yemen, Egypt, and elsewhere the jewelry changes from region to region. I am building my collection with jewelry from as many regions/tribes as I can find. Though not a big fan of jewelry from Afghanistan. Too big and clunky. My goal is to have a box full of fun and interesting things to try on, handle, and learn about.