Egypt's most beautiful mud and salt fortress comes to life a hundred years later

• CARLES GREU SIVERA (EFE)

  Egypt

Saturday, 7 November 2020 - 02:28

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In a remote place in

just 50 kilometers from the border with Libya, the Shali fortress was built about a thousand years ago using a mixture of salt and mud called

, a material used by locals to Insulate your homes from extreme desert temperatures.

However, the material could not withstand the

that in 1926 washed away the fortification in the same way that a wave engulfs a sand castle, leaving it in ruins and condemning the icon of

to oblivion

Built on a hill around 1,200 AD by

the Shali fortress had already been progressively abandoned in the 19th century when the Egyptian state took control of the area and integrated it into the Arab country.

The modernization brought about by the conquest encouraged the few hundred Berber families to build their new homes

, but reusing the materials of ancient Shali, severely weakening the fortification.

"The biggest challenge we faced was to get the

of the city, but we found

from a century ago that show what the streets of the fortress were like," says Ramy Ezmy, the architect responsible for the restoration, who has led two years of work.

Detail of the walls, reconstructed with mud, salt, palm and olive leaves.

For its

, the ancestral

technique has been used

, but modified with an addition

so that the walls are waterproof and thus avoid the disaster of a hundred years ago.

Ezmy assures that it was difficult to master the

to preserve the essence of the place, but the restorers had the help of Am Hamza, the only Berber who knew

original construction

.

A MUD HIVE

Now, Shali has reverted to its

shape

with narrow passageways and 10-square-foot

squares for tribal gatherings and even a deep well that connects to one of the many aquifers that irrigate the oasis. .

In the past, the walls were raised about 35 meters to prevent attacks by invading tribes, the city had narrow streets less than a meter wide, and the houses rose vertically like

At first Shali only had one access door, but with the passage of time and the growth of its population, two other entrances were opened, one of them dedicated

due to the conservative Berber culture.

More than a century later, for the locals the reconstruction project brings not only the fortress but

back to life

RESCUE LOCAL HISTORY AND COMMUNITY

"It is a dream for us to discover the

I remember hearing from my grandparents how life was there and now we can live it," says the head of the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities and Tourism in Siwa, Khaled Addoul.

One of its

has

also been restored

, a

has been set up

for local artisans and a

has even been created

to offer a better service to women in this enclave, which is a five-hour drive from the nearest urban center. .

Egyptians walking through one of the streets of Shali.

The project, which began in 2018, is part of an initiative of the Environmental Quality International Group company and has been funded by the

with more than half a million euros.

The objective is to maintain the Berber heritage in Siwa, the only place in all of Egypt where this

can be found

addition to promoting one of the most important engines for the local economy and for the survival of the inhabitants:

"The work that has been done in Shali is excellent, because we already considered that the fortress was extinct," says excited Fathy Eleua, the leader of the Guasis Berber tribe, one of the eleven clans that make up the population of Siwa, which is estimated which is about 25,000 inhabitants.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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