Heritage as Concept

The practice of heritage preservation has long been considered one of benevolence, safeguarding vestiges from the past for the benefit of the future. This concept, as understood by historic preservation professionals, derives principally from European architectural and art historians in the 19th century looking on the great ruins of the past with romanticism and developing theories about the sociocultural values of historic structures.^{Footnote 1} Social thinkers and architectural theorists of the time highlighted the significance with which monuments were imbued and argued over their legacy and preservation approaches.^{Footnote 2} From these theoretical writings and efforts to restore examples of the built heritage emerged a focus on preserving not only physical vestiges, but also understanding the technology and values imbued therein. James Marston Fitch notes that the “comprehensive protection of such monuments and artifacts, and the scholarly examination of the theories and techniques that produced them, is of central importance to our cultural future.”^{Footnote 3} Focus, therefore, has typically been placed on the protection and examination of the physical in the first case, with more recent consideration of intangible values to ensure a holistic approach to preservation and interpretation of historic sites.^{Footnote 4}

Efforts to understand intangible values have highlighted the assignation of value as an intrinsic component of the “consumption” of historic sites, including not only use and admiration, but also protection and preservation. The 19th-century art historian Alois Reigl claimed “the term ‘monument’… can only be meant subjectively, not objectively. We modern viewers, rather than the works themselves by virtue of their original purpose, assign meaning and significance to a monument.”^{Footnote 5} Meaning is not intrinsic to a work of art or a monument, but is actively redefined by those who experience it, with each stakeholder group and, arguably, each individual adding a new layer of significance and meaning. Nearly a hundred years after Reigl was writing, David Lowenthal claimed that ongoing assignation of value is inherent to the use and care of things historic. “Heritage is ever revitalized; our legacy is not simply original but includes our forebears’ alterations and additions. We treasure that heritage in our own protective and transformative fashion, handing it down in the faith that our heirs will also become creative as well as retentive stewards.”^{Footnote 6} For Lowenthal, the admiration and protection of heritage are themselves acts of value assignment and, as such, create new associations with a place that are supplemental and cumulatively expand its significance. As the focus of cultural consumption, in one form or other, heritage becomes the object of “commodification” and takes on new meaning with each act of use, repair, study, or reuse.^{Footnote 7} Preservation aims to protect the most significant and documented of these layers of meaning, while respecting all physical and intangible accretions. However, it is a politically charged activity.

The selection of one assignation of meaning as the focus of preservation has political implications with socioeconomic and cultural manifestations. Laurajane Smith refers to this privileged rhetoric as the “authorized heritage discourse,” which she contrasts with the existence of a “range of popular discourses and practices” that may counter the former.^{Footnote 8} Smith further highlights that the authorized heritage discourse is “self-referential,” in that it establishes who has the capacity to inform it and, ultimately, who does not. In this way, a dominant interpretation of a heritage site can simply overwhelm other interpretations and discourses integral to its layered significance but not “authorized” as valid or valuable. The result is a disempowerment and disenfranchisement of the other “subaltern,” to use Smith’s language, viewpoints or associations. Casting aside of these layers of significance can lead to the ultimate loss of socioculturally and historically important information, including physical sites themselves.

It is necessary at this point to discuss the role of place in defining and empowering built heritage as a sociopolitical entity. Unlike an objet d’art that can be moved from locality to locality and is then recontextualized within each new environment, immovable heritage (e.g., constructed buildings, land art, grottoes, and natural sites) is inextricably intertwined with its physical, social, cultural, and economic context. As a backdrop to the creation, use, re-creation, modification, and decay of these sites, place is both witness and participant over time. It is much more than a geographical location pinpointed on a map and serves as the setting that creates, defines, and redefines over time the use and value of a cultural heritage site. The importance of place, as theorized by geographer Carl Sauer, is its identity as the “combination of natural and man-made elements.”^{Footnote 9} This sense of identity is further elaborated by the concept of “place memory,” defined by Dolores Hayden as the embodiment of “the human ability to connect with both the built and natural environments.”^{Footnote 10} Place as a concept integrates both its physical components and the emotional associations with the setting. Arguably, the latter attachment may endure even though the former physical elements have changed or been removed. In other words, place embodies the varied assignments of values over time without temporal distinction and simultaneously recognizes endogenous and exogenous impacts on the creation, modification, and re-creation of these values. The preservation process, in its purest form, aims to identify, document, and safeguard all these superimposed layers of meaning and interpret their spatial associations.

Selecting a Past to Protect

Nonetheless, the act of preservation often, if not always, requires some form of selection and identification of a privileged heritage discourse. Physical manifestations of the approved discourse are protected, while other physical accretions and evidence of later associations may be willfully destroyed. Preservation establishes a sanctioned perspective presented and interpreted for posterity that then serves to exclude and marginalize other layers of meaning. Such exclusion, in turn, can limit access to and use of a place, and disenfranchise entire communities with divergent associations to the heritage place, to the degree of affecting their lifestyle, livelihood, and even identity.

Much of the literature on the politics of preservation has focused on the very tangible processes of archaeology and related cultural tourism. On one hand, scholars identify archaeology as a tool for governments to promote specific agendas and control sociocultural conflict.^{Footnote 11} On the other, archaeologists and other heritage professionals take on the mantle of creating culture and defining heritage, often intricately interwoven with the process of establishing national identity and, more recently, legitimizing and coalescing subgroup identity.^{Footnote 12} Casting the preservation process as an application of moral relativism, whether promoted by government or by scholar, Meskell states in no uncertain terms that the “creation of heritage is a culturally generative act that is intrinsically political. Heritage consultants and archaeologists could be said to invent culture, and, in the process, constitute heritage.”^{Footnote 13} Thus, the act of preservation, including herein the processes of discovery, study, and documentation, serves to establish a sanctioned, or authorized, discourse about a place. Those involved in this act, often an educated and/or governing elite, are then responsible for identifying and privileging one or more selected interpretations and uses of a heritage place.

The tourism industry represents another important stakeholder in the preservation process, itself creating accretions and new layers of meaning while often underscoring the authorized heritage discourse. As a mass act of cultural consumption,^{Footnote 14} tourism has enormous impact on the perceived significance and associations of a place. Hall identifies tourism as an inherently political power struggle that results in the domination of tourists over the indigenous population, and examples abound of the negative impact of tourism on the lives of residents.^{Footnote 15} This domination further accords tourists a simplified or “flattened” history that supersedes all others for the sake of presentation. The interpreted heritage site tends to tell the story of the local elite, often overlooking the underclasses intimately involved in the processes of creation, rediscovery, or present-day activity.^{Footnote 16} McKercher and du Cros note that tourism requires transformation of the cultural resource “to make it appealing and relevant to the tourist” and “simple and singular in its theme.”^{Footnote 17} In this way, tourism often results in a singular interpretation of a site: one story with a simplistic message presented for the sake of outsiders. Tourists appear to occupy a Gramscian cultural hegemony that privileges their simplified understanding of the places they visit and reinforces a singular accepted discourse.^{Footnote 18} Although many cultural site managers strive to highlight multiple layers of historical significance and sociocultural values related to a place, loss of certain discourses through the selection process is inevitable. Nonetheless, heritage professionals should strive to preserve and interpret as many of the discourses as possible.

Gurna: A Village Built on History

The village of Gurna that would become a north–south linear sprawl of sizable mudbrick houses on Luxor’s West Bank was established at least as early as the 18th century on top of a vast field of pharaonic remains from Egypt’s New Kingdom (roughly 1550–1069 bce). Although the Gurnawis—those who live at the foot of the Theban Mount (Al-Gurn)—were themselves associated with the era of discovery and archaeology of the region, they and their communities have been marginalized by a history of contempt and a modern series of relocation efforts. The goal of these efforts, as expressed by the Egyptian authorities, was to remove the community from atop the ancient tombs that first brought it there. Events that began in 2006 resulted ultimately in the wholesale demolition of the community’s historic buildings, forced relocation of residents, and refusal to interpret the community’s historical associations to the World Heritage Site within which it resided.

The region in question, long known as Thebes and highlighted by Herodotus for the wonder of its pharaonic vestiges, regained interest among itinerant Europeans in the 18th century. An early drawing of the West Bank in 1743 (see Figure 1) depicts some of the larger pharaonic remains and two outlying villages within the Nile flood plains and near the edge of the desert, one of which is labeled Gurna.^{Footnote 19} Vivant Denon, a participant in the Napoleonic expeditions of Egypt and first director of the Louvre Museum, made multiple references to Gurna, which he called “Kurnu,” and his interaction with the Gurnawis in his 1802 publication on Egypt.^{Footnote 20} He notes that hamlets of Gurna were already established amid the pharaonic tombs beyond the edge of the Nile flood plain and that some of the residents took shelter in them.^{Footnote 21} Despite the difficult and oft belligerent encounters between the Gurnawis and the French expedition, the former, which Denon interchangeably termed “incorrigible,” “criminals,” and “dogs,” eventually agreed to guide him through some of the larger tombs of the pharaohs.^{Footnote 22} A later panoramic drawing of the Theban hillside by Robert Hay of Linplum^{Footnote 23} in the 1820s depicts the locals living and working amid the tombs (see Figure 2), presumably attracted more and more to the desert from the floodplains by the advent of Europeans involved in archaeological exploration and in need of paid labor.

Figure 1.

Anonymous, A View of Thebes, on the West of the Nile, the village of Gurna is indicated by the letter “A,” plate in Richard Pococke, Description of the East and Some Other Countries, Vol. 1 (1743).

Figure 2.

Robert Hay of Linplum, Detail from Panorama, 1820s (Hay Collection, British Library).

As interest in Egypt grew from the early 19th century and beyond, more Europeans specializing in the discovery of pharaonic remains and eager for a “cultural” vacation came on the scene. Isabella Frances Romer published a work about her explorations of Egypt and Palestine and mentioned the village of Gurna and its people in the 1840s.^{Footnote 24} Alexander Henry Rhind commented on Romer’s fanciful sketches of western Thebes dotted with villas as a potential vacation spot for British subjects.^{Footnote 25} A number of manor-like structures built as residences for Egyptologists and travelers spending time in the area became a part of the Theban landscape. It appears to be around this same period that the Gurnawis constructed similar manor-like homes in the area, presumably following the lead of their European neighbors, though adapting the construction to their own needs and expectations.

Gurnawi Vernacular

The three modern hamlets of Gurna that lay within the historic precinct were composed of multiple large, mudbrick family residences, sometimes of two or more stories, and often brightly colored to contrast with the Theban desert landscape (see Figure 3). Irregular fenestration was common, with most windows on the east side of the structures, facing the flood plains and Nile beyond. Building interiors comprised organically organized spaces with undulating walls and earthen molded furnishings often built into the mudbrick walls or integrated into the clay floors. Of note were the towering pigeon roosts, integrated earthen ovens, and granaries and other storage areas protruding from the walls. As Hassan Fathy, famed architect and researcher of the Gurnawi vernacular, noted in his description of the residences, “the villagers allow themselves to mold the most individual and beautiful plastic forms … the plan of a room or the line of a wall would not be a dull, square, measured thing but a sensitively molded shape, like a pot.”^{Footnote 26} Often, a seamless integration of interior and exterior spaces composed the homes, integrating the unique plastic forms highlighted by Fathy (see Figure 4). The layout and program of these residences are representative of the Gurnawi response to their environment, using the only material readily available to them: mud from the Nile flood plains. Mud plasters usually covered both the interior and exterior of the walls, with shades of yellow, aquamarine, or pink often adorning the exterior. Some of these structures incorporated in their plan an underlying tomb, used as additional living space.

Figure 3.

Sheikh ‘Abd el Gurna hamlet, view from southwest, February 2009 (author’s photo).

Figure 4.

Gurnawi house, Sheikh ‘Abd el Gurna hamlet, view from northeast and above, with built-in earthen oven flue in foreground and mosque visible in distance, February 2009 (author’s photo).

The location of the structures, grouped into three principal settlements that overlay an area dotted with thousands of New Kingdom pharaonic tombs, is testament to the strong physical relationship of Gurna and the Gurnawis to the discovery, reuse, and visitation of the tombs. Historic reference to and ongoing residence within some of the tombs, their documented involvement in the European archaeological endeavor, and Gurnawi interaction with modern tourists highlight the integral role of the pharaonic landscape and its consumption within Gurnawi culture and livelihood. Locals had not only lived with and among these ancient sites for at least two centuries, but they had also come to rely on their discovery, excavation, and visitation for their survival, often dedicating part of their homes to the manufacture and sale of tourist trinkets and, according to some officials, original artifacts.

The scenic architecture and lively participation of the Gurnawis in the life of the extensive archaeological site on the West Bank, which became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1979, has concerned Egyptian authorities since the 1940s and incited them to call for their relocation. The practical challenge proffered by the authorities is the policing of the thousands of tombs in the area that are overlaid and partially inhabited by the Gurnawis. Many Gurnawi houses have incorporated one or more pharaonic tombs as subterranean chambers used for storage, living quarters, barns, and countless other spaces for everyday use. Soon after Egyptian independence from Britain, the antiquities authorities began investigating ways to protect the tombs by relocating the Gurnawis who lived among them. As early as the 1940s, the authorities attempted to create a “New Gurna” far to the east and outside of the historic area, planning to relocate many of the inhabitants from the center of tourist activity, on which they relied for their livelihood. The unfinished village, designed by Hassan Fathy after extensive study of Gurnawi lifestyle and relationship to their built environment, failed as an endeavor, in part because Gurnawis vehemently resisted the move from their ancestral homes to a modern vernacular village dissimilar to their own aesthetic and lifestyle.^{Footnote 27} In the 70 years since, efforts to attract and forcibly relocate the villagers to new, climatically and culturally inappropriate concrete buildings have continued with mixed results. Most recently, the authorities addressed the question by demolishing nearly all the structures of Gurna’s western hamlets and forcibly relocating the inhabitants. Although families resisted bulldozing of their earthen manors by continued occupancy, the majority of vernacular structures were destroyed between 2006 and 2009 (see Figures 5 and 6), affecting some 3500 families through forced relocation and dissolution of a once vibrant agglomeration of hamlets.^{Footnote 28}

Figure 5.

Satellite image of Sheikh ‘Abd el Gurna hamlet, August 2002 (Google Earth).

Figure 6.

Satellite image of Sheikh ‘Abd el Gurna hamlet, October 2009 (Google Earth).

Preserving Them Out of House and Home

The loss of the Gurnawi homes represents the destruction of an historic vernacular architecture in favor of preserving the authorized, more highly valued heritage in the same place. Despite the expressed concern for the impact of the community on the prized subterranean heritage, the authorities simultaneously demolished a unique opportunity to interpret the story of Gurna and its residents: the first and only museum of Gurnawi history and culture housed within two restored historic structures. The Gurna Discovery Center, as it was called, had been established in April 2001 as a free museum of Gurna history and culture open to locals and tourists alike and authorized by the Supreme Council of Antiquities. Included in the exhibitions were copies of Robert Hay’s panoramas, historic photos of Gurnawis and their residences, and reports and images of modern-day events relevant to the area. Although the protection of this center would have preserved some aspects of the Gurnawi story and a physical example of the built heritage, it was destroyed in 2010 during the last wave of demolitions, apparently approved by then-director of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, Zahi Hawass, as part of a plan to protect the nearby tomb of Nakht, an astronomer under the 18th Dynasty Pharaoh Thutmose IV (approximately 14th century bce).^{Footnote 29} The website of the Discovery Center acknowledges its own demise with a banner stating “the information below is now history—yet another part of the vanished history of Gurna.”^{Footnote 30} A sole building was preserved from within the destroyed Gurnawi hamlet of Sheikh ‘Abd el Gurna. Metropolitan House, the 1912 field house built by the Metropolitan Museum of Art currently used by the Polish team working at the temple of Hatshepsut (see Figures 7 and 8), is linked to the elite history of Egyptology and ongoing archaeological discovery. Its continued presence amid the piles of rubble that once represented vibrantly colored, sizable Gurnawi residences underscores the official preference for an archaeological past that is part of the authorized heritage discourse (see Figure 9). While targeting the local vernacular in the area for demolition, this building was protected as part of the site’s archaeological heritage.

Figure 7.

Satellite image of Sheikh ‘Abd el Gurna hamlet, August 2002; arrow indicates Metropolitan House (Google Earth).

Figure 8.

Satellite image of Sheikh ‘Abd el Gurna hamlet, October 2009; arrow indicates Metropolitan House (Google Earth).

Figure 9.

Detail of built-in earthen oven amid the rubble of destroyed residence, February 2009 (author’s photo).

At the end of 2009, in the midst of one of the final campaigns of Gurna demolitions, the Egyptian cultural authorities, announced that Howard Carter’s field house would be turned into a museum.^{Footnote 31} This announcement not only underscored the undeniable significance of the ancient Egyptian heritage, but also formalized protection and interpretation of the history of its modern discovery. Previously, Hawass had often referred to inadvertent discoveries by villagers throughout Egypt as events precipitated by their pack animals or livestock rather than by the villagers themselves, reinforcing a common view that villagers had no active involvement in the archaeological endeavor.^{Footnote 32} Due in part to this official view, the Gurnawi contribution to the discoveries of Luxor’s West Bank remains underrepresented and undervalued, and the relocation and demolition of the community undermine the association of Gurna with the pharaonic remains. The lack of physical vestiges of the Gurnawi community atop the pharaonic tombs removes the need for interpretation and allows for a privileged retelling or “cleansing” of the archaeological history that supports only the authorized discourse of the West Bank as a pharaonic city of the dead, omitting subsequent living communities.

A few scholars have considered the relationship between the politics of heritage and the previous efforts to relocate the Gurnawis. Mitchell highlights factors of identity construction and nation-making in Egypt as integral to the process of defining a pharaonic history that is separate from a more recent Islamic identity.^{Footnote 33} He further notes the changing polemic of the government from a focus on the protection of the pharaonic site in the 1940s to a concern for tourist experience and safety in the 1990s, in both cases denouncing the role of Gurnawis as participants in the archaeological discovery of the sites and in the tourism industry that now overruns them. Meskell in turn considers the relationship between violence and tourism, questioning the motivations behind the 1997 massacre of tourists that took place in the area, though not involving the Gurnawis, who were among the first to come to the aid of victims and overpower the terrorists. “It could be argued that the construct of ‘global world heritage’ is, in part, a remnant of colonialism.”^{Footnote 34} She likens tourism and violence, respectively, to a form of imperialism and a backlash against foreign hegemony. Meskell further represents tourism in Egypt as a force for marginalization of modern local communities in light of the focus on pharaonic identity: tourists are not encouraged to discover the later periods of Egyptian history, and little or none of the revenue reaches the locals, remaining largely in the hands of foreign tourism companies and, once in Egypt, with national entities based in Cairo.^{Footnote 35} The heritage industry that caters largely to foreign tourists makes no effort to introduce a more informed history of the places they visit, causing both tourist and guide to overlook many rich and integral vestiges of local and regional history in favor of the authorized discourse. However, it is important to note that Gurnawis had, prior to the demolitions, integrated themselves somewhat effectively into the heritage industry on the West Bank, serving as unofficial guides, selling trinkets and wares, working with foreign missions, and even showcasing their own community and heritage to interested tourists.

The World Bank and USAID conducted studies in Luxor and throughout Egypt related to the protection of the pharaonic remains that privileged tourism while disenfranchising local communities. They lauded economic development efforts to increase high-end tourism by effectively separating tourists from local communities and preventing their interaction.^{Footnote 36} This reinforced an archaeological perspective on Egypt’s history by extricating subsequent and even contemporary layers of habitation from the interpretation of these places. Quite surprisingly, USAID conducted studies of plans for Gurnawi relocation, including proposed designs of housing and research on their cultural values and lifestyle, all without questioning whether the relocation was indeed necessary or if there were viable options for mitigating concerns about the community’s interaction with the pharaonic Necropolis.^{Footnote 37} The understanding that Gurnawis were “criminals” and “tomb robbers”^{Footnote 38} seems to rest on the judgments of 18th- and 19th-century European explorers without consideration for the modern socioeconomic context. Additionally, the significance of the thousands of adjacent pharaonic tombs, many of which are in deplorable condition and have been thoroughly documented, was never reconsidered in light of the living community sharing the land. Indeed, the value of the pharaonic landscape is uncontested, but authorities have refused to accept the significance of the community as an intrinsic component of this landscape. It is worth noting that many members of the Egyptology community were adamant that the Gurnawis or, at least, the physical evidence of their community should remain and become part of an overarching conservation and interpretation plan for the West Bank.^{Footnote 39} However, the concerns of the largely foreign archaeological community for the preservation of Gurna hamlets were met with simple government reiterations of the need to protect the pharaonic heritage.