PRESERVING CULTURAL HERITAGE IN MINYA, EGYPT

Abstract

Desecration of cultural heritage is one of the major problems that the world faces today. In Middle Eastern countries such as Syria, Iraq, and Egypt, many heritage sites have been destroyed or heavily looted. Egypt has experienced this problem since ancient times, but after the 2011 revolution, the situation got worse when Egypt became unstable and unsecure after the Arab Spring. Many heritage sites have been destroyed in cities in Egypt such Luxor, Dahshur, and Tanis. Minya, Egypt experienced many of these cases since the Arab Spring with the worst example taking place at the Mallawi Museum in 2013 when people broke into the museum to damage and steel its artifacts. Therefore, I conducted this dissertation project in Minya to find a solution for this problem. This work consisted of two community engagement projects, one at Minya University and the other one in the Mallawi Museum. For this project, I used different methods of interpretation such as storytelling, living history, craft-making workshops, and archeological demonstrations. The results of these two projects show that the use of community engagement links people with their heritage for better preservation in Egypt.