Egypt’s government wants to erase a historic cemetery
Ancient beauty may give way to ugly modernisation
![A woman living in the City of the Dead stands near the remains of cemeteries that have been demolished.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20230909_MAP005.jpg)
In the City of the Dead the living dwell beside the departed. Cairo’s vast necropolis, which dates back to the seventh century, sprawls over a thousand hectares, its narrow, winding streets lined with the ornate mausoleums of Mamluk sultans and 20th-century revolutionaries. But it houses a breathing community, too: it is home to perhaps as many as half a million Egyptians.
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This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Bulldoze the buried”
Middle East & Africa September 9th 2023
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