Time travel

An exhibit and a journey: Rania Khallaf draws out an artist with a tale

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MEROE: clockwise from top: the remains of the Sudanese pyramids; the shrine of a holy man; a face from the city; El-Khamissi and Targe photos: Khaled El -Khamissi

To reach the ancient city of Meroe, Egyptian photographer Khaled El-Khamissi, who went along with French filmmaker André Targe, made a long and arduous journey. But he came back with a truly remarkable exhibition with which to launch the activities of Emerald, a new Cairo-based publishing and art house -- "Road to Meroe".

In reality, as El-Khamissi reveals, the exhibition is but a step on the way to a documentary on the life and work of Frédéric Cailliaud, mid-19th century painter and architect, explorer, Egyptologist and author of the first modern monograph on the city; it is scheduled for release in 2007. In the film Targe wants to retrace Cailliaud's journey from Siwa to Meroe, shooting in imitation of the paintings, and recount three stages of the history of Meroe, starting with BC 200, covering Cailliaud's journey of 1843 and ending with the present. El-Khamissi has been involved in the intensive study of Meroe's history for two years now. But it was the journey that moved him deeply, something his rich, emotionally-charged work reflects. "On the road to Bahariya proper, the first stop on our journey from Cairo, once we got back from Siwa," El-Khamissi recounts, "we passed the oasis of Al-Agouz, the only place for entertainment in the area, then we pressed on to Farafra, then Dakhla, where we visited the amazing Ayyubid city, mud house maze and all, and onto Aswan where we got on a plane to Khartoum. On arriving in Khartoum, it was as if I had not left Egypt -- the atmosphere, the views, the faces were all incredibly familiar. And Sudanese Arabic did not sound so different from that spoken in Aswan..." It was on asking for photo permits to film in Meroe that it became apparent how unknown the city was among the Sudanese themselves, with officials speaking of another town named after it, located at the Dam area, 150 km north of Meroe.

Finally arriving at Shendi, 50 kms to the south of their target, the two artists encountered a pleasant surprise: "The minute we entered the motel, we heard a heavenly voice -- astonishing. We followed that voice, coming upon a musical troupe of four girls and a boy training for a competition in Khartoum, with no musical instruments to accompany them, only clapping and drumming on wood." The place was extremely poor, and petrol cost triple its price in Egypt; they had to pack food along with their clothes in Khartoum, because they were told there would be no provisions in Meroe, and spent some time terrified of malaria. "We had taken the vaccination," El-Khamissi laughs, "but we just kept stocking up on insecticides -- enough to catch cancer instead." Standing before the ancient city's pyramids, however, El-Khamissi felt he had "caught H G Wells' time machine, a feeling I had never experienced before". Remarkable words, coming from an Egyptian, who has spent his life close to the Giza Pyramids: "Could it be the overabundance of tourists, the terrible familiarity, that blocks out that feeling?" There is also the peculiar mysticism of Meroe, that enchanting atmosphere that saturates the air with history. "Return of the Pharaohs," El-Khamissi thought as he saw a group of herdsmen in beautiful hand-woven robes. Even in winter the weather was hot. More significantly, life followed an ancient -- some would say "primitive" -- rhythm, with no modern amenities to speak of, no radio or television. "In a tribal community like this, people are completely cut off from the outside world. Knowing that there are over 100 local languages in Sudan, we felt lucky to be able to communicate with the people we met there at all."

El-Khamissi made much of the Ancient Egyptian connection. Commerce had enabled Meroe to prosper, developing into a largely self-sufficient community producing leather and metal as well as food, he explained. During his trip he inspected the public execution square, where the enormous circular stone used for beheading still stands. He also saw many pyramids, different from their Egyptian counterparts, though archaeological evidence suggests that gods like Isis and Osiris were worshipped in this Kushite capital, founded by kings who had moved south into the Sudanese savannah. "It's surprising to realise that what unites the numerous tribes of Sudan is neither politics nor identity, but a spiritual culture of Sufism. People from different tribes could be members of the same Sufi school, which limited the scope of conflict at many points in history." El-Khamissi was so moved by Sudan that, after Targe left for Paris, he proceeded on his own south of Khartoum to Sennar, overlooking the Blue Nile: "I attended some moulid (saint anniversary) celebrations there where men wore the trademark white galabeyas while women dressed colourfully." This was, to him, "the heart of Africa", but in at least one village he saw mud houses just like those of the Delta fellahin, back in Egypt, whose inhabitants, strangely enough, turned out to be Nigerian, not Sudanese, who emigrated to join the independence struggle after their leader dreamt of the Mahdi in 1850. "The Sudanese are very kind, so much so Sudan feels like a virgin country in which alienation is impossible." Exhilarated as he was, El-Khamissi was nonetheless saddened by lack of Egyptian interest in Sudan and the realisation that there is far more trade with Asia, through the Emirates and Saudi Arabia, than with Egypt. "The irony is that many Sudanese find security in the neighbourhood of Egypt. One 90-year-old man told me, 'I feel very secure for myself and my grandchildren because I know that Egypt is there to stand by us if anything should go wrong.' The situation would be different if the two countries were trade partners, but there isn't even a railway connecting them, and a plane ticket to Khartoum is more expensive than one to Paris."