Kurna (also Gourna, Gurna, Qurna, Qurnah or Qurneh; ar, القرنة) are various spelling for a group of three closely related villages (New Qurna, Qurna and
Sheikh ‘Adb el-Qurna) located on the West Bank of the River
Nile
The Nile, , Bohairic , lg, Kiira , Nobiin language, Nobiin: Áman Dawū is a major north-flowing river in northeastern Africa. It flows into the Mediterranean Sea. The Nile is the longest river in Africa and has historically been considered ...
opposite the modern city of
Luxor
Luxor ( ar, الأقصر, al-ʾuqṣur, lit=the palaces) is a modern city in Upper (southern) Egypt which includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of ''Thebes''.
Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-a ...
in
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
near the Theban Hills.
New Qurna was designed and built in the late 1940s and early 1950s by Egyptian architect
Hassan Fathy
Hassan Fathy ( arz, حسن فتحي; March 23, 1900 – November 30, 1989) was a noted Egyptian architect who pioneered appropriate technology for building in Egypt, especially by working to reestablish the use of adobe and traditional mud cons ...
to house people living in Qurna which is now uninhabited. New Qurna was added to the
2010 World Monuments Watch List of Most Endangered Sites to bring attention to the site's importance to modern
town planning
Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...
and
vernacular architecture
Vernacular architecture is building done outside any academic tradition, and without professional guidance. This category encompasses a wide range and variety of building types, with differing methods of construction, from around the world, bo ...
due to the loss of much of the original form of the village since it was built.
Historical use of the name Qurna
The name Kurna signifies "a promontory" or "a point of a mountain".
Émile Amélineau
Émile Amélineau (1850 – 12 January 1915 at Châteaudun) was a French Coptologist, archaeologist and Egyptologist. His scholarly reputation was established as an editor of previously unpublished Coptic texts. But his reputation was dest ...
identifies it with ancient Pekolol (). The name Gourna is first mentioned by Protais and Charles François d'Orléans, two
Capuchin missionary brothers travelling in
Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt ( ar, صعيد مصر ', shortened to , , locally: ; ) is the southern portion of Egypt and is composed of the lands on both sides of the Nile that extend upriver from Lower Egypt in the north to Nubia in the south.
In ancient ...
in 1668. Protais’ writing about their travel was published by
Melchisédech Thévenot Melchisédech (or Melchisédec) Thévenot (c. 1620 – 29 October 1692) was a French author, scientist, traveler, cartographer, orientalist, inventor, and diplomat. He was the inventor of the spirit level and is also famous for his popular posthumo ...
(''Relations de divers voyages curieux,'' 1670s-1696 editions) and
Johann Michael Vansleb
Johann Michael Vansleb (1 November 1635 – 1679) was a German theologian, linguist and Egypt traveller. He converted to Catholicism and was a member of the Dominican Order from 1666.
''(Depending on the language of publication, his name is sp ...
(''The Present State of Egypt,'' 1678).
References to Qurna, Gurna, Kournou, Gourna, El-Ckoor’neh, Gourne, el Abouab, El-Goor’neh or many other variants in pre-1940s literature refers to a spread out urban sprawl of housings stretching from approximately the
Ramesseum
The Ramesseum is the memorial temple (or mortuary temple) of Pharaoh Ramesses II ("Ramesses the Great", also spelled "Ramses" and "Rameses"). It is located in the Theban Necropolis in Upper Egypt, on the west of the River Nile, across from the m ...
(Mortuary Temple of Ramesses II) to the
Mortuary Temple of Seti I
The Mortuary Temple of Seti I is the memorial temple (or mortuary temple) of the New Kingdom Pharaoh Seti I. It is located in the Theban Necropolis in Upper Egypt, across the River Nile from the modern city of Luxor ( Thebes). The edifice is situa ...
on the east side of the Theban Hills, including the current place names of ''Sheikh ‘Adb el-Qurna'', ''
el-Assasif'', ''
el-Khokha
The necropolis of El-Khokha ( ar, الخوخه) is located on the west bank of the river Nile at Thebes, Egypt. The necropolis is surrounds a hill and has five Old Kingdom tombs and over 50 tombs from the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties as well as ...
'', ''
Dra ’Abu el-Nage
The necropolis of Draʻ Abu el-Naga' ( ar, دراع ابو النجا) is located on the West Bank of the Nile at Thebes, Egypt, just by the entrance of the dry bay that leads up to Deir el-Bahari and north of the necropolis of el-Assasif. The nec ...
’'' and ''Qurna''.
During the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, visitors and travelers to the area are rarely consistent in their use of the name and anything between
Medinet Habu and the tombs of
el-Tarif
El-Tarif ( ''aṭ-Ṭārif'') is a necropolis on the West Bank of the Nile, at the site of ancient Thebes (Luxor), Egypt. It is located in the northwestern outskirts of Luxor and southeast of the Valley of the Kings, opposite Karnak, just to the s ...
can at times be found referred to as part of a Qurna community.
A reference to the "''Temple of Gourna''" or similar, is in most cases a reference to the Ramesseum, to a lesser degree the Temple of Seti I and rarely it is a reference to the all but destroyed Mortuary temples of Ramesses IV, Thutmose III or Thutmose IV.
The villages
New Qurna (or New Gourna)
![New Gourna](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/New_Gourna.jpg)
New Qurna was built between 1946 and 1952 by Egyptian architect
Hassan Fathy
Hassan Fathy ( arz, حسن فتحي; March 23, 1900 – November 30, 1989) was a noted Egyptian architect who pioneered appropriate technology for building in Egypt, especially by working to reestablish the use of adobe and traditional mud cons ...
midway between the
Colossi of Memnon
The Colossi of Memnon ( ar, el-Colossat, script=Latn, italic=yes or ''es-Salamat'') are two massive stone statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, which stand at the front of the ruined Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III, the largest temple in the Th ...
and el-Gezira on the Nile on the main road to the
Theban Necropolis
The Theban Necropolis is a necropolis on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Thebes (Luxor) in Upper Egypt. It was used for ritual burials for much of the Pharaonic period, especially during the New Kingdom.
Mortuary temples
* Deir el-Bahri ...
to house the residents of the Qurna. New Qurna served to relocate the villagers, but it also served to be an experiment. The goal was to make the low cost buildings, as well as environment friendly structures. With Old Qurna, there was not many vegetation due to the difficulties in accessing water. New Qurna was designed to improve on Old Qurna and solved problems such as difficulties in accessing water. New Qurna was built near the Nile River resulting more in the use of vegetation.
Due to the village not having any electricity, cooling and heating techniques were implemented within New Qurna. With the weather being warm, it would still feel cool within the houses. When the weather would be cool, the homes would stay warm.
The design, which combined traditional materials and techniques with modern principles was never completed and much of the fabric of the village has since been lost; all what remains today of the original New Qurna is the mosque, market and a few houses.
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
World Heritage conservation wishes to safeguard this important architectural site. The
World Monuments Fund
World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and trainin ...
included New Qurna in the
2010 World Monuments Watch List of Most Endangered Sites.
New Qurna downside
Many of the buildings that were built had foundations of salt stones. Due to the high humidity, the salt stones would dissolve, causing the structure of the houses to fail. Villagers would need to adjust and fix their homes every few months in order for the house to remain intact.
Qurna (or Old Gourna)
Qurna is an abandoned village about 100m to the east of the Temple of Seti I. Until the early 19th century the community included at least parts of the Temple of Seti I. Several travellers, including
Richard Pococke
Richard Pococke (19 November 1704 – 25 September 1765)''Notes and Queries'', p. 129. was an English-born churchman, inveterate traveller and travel writer. He was the Bishop of Ossory (1756–65) and Meath (1765), both dioceses of the Church ...
or
Sonnini de Manoncourt
Charles-Nicolas-Sigisbert Sonnini de Manoncourt (1 February 1751 – 9 May 1812) was a French naturalist.
Career
Between 1799 and 1808, Sonnini de Manoncourt wrote 127 volumes of the ''Histoire naturelle''. Noteworthy among these, especiall ...
even name a
Sheikh
Sheikh (pronounced or ; ar, شيخ ' , mostly pronounced , plural ' )—also transliterated sheekh, sheyikh, shaykh, shayk, shekh, shaik and Shaikh, shak—is an honorific title in the Arabic language. It commonly designates a chief of a ...
of Qurna.
Edward William Lane
Edward William Lane (17 September 1801 – 10 August 1876) was a British orientalist, translator and lexicographer. He is known for his ''Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians'' and the '' Arabic-English Lexicon,'' as well as his translati ...
relates in 1825 that the village was abandoned and not a single inhabitant lived there. Comments by
Isabella Frances Romer
Isabella Frances Romer (1798–1852) was an English novelist, travel writer and biographer from London.
Life
The daughter of an army officer, Major-General John William Augustus Romer, and his wife Marianne, née Cuthbert, she was baptised at Mar ...
suggests that the resettling started in the late 1840s.
Hassan Fathy
Hassan Fathy ( arz, حسن فتحي; March 23, 1900 – November 30, 1989) was a noted Egyptian architect who pioneered appropriate technology for building in Egypt, especially by working to reestablish the use of adobe and traditional mud cons ...
alleges that the inhabitants of Qurna lived in poverty and thus were robbing ancient tombs as means of subsistence. Families of the villagers settled down on top of the selected tombs where they would build their houses. Villagers built alongside the tombs, as the tombs became apart of the house. Looted items would either be sold, or kept around the homes of the villagers. In order to stop the looting the
Department of Antiquities expropriated the land on which the Qurnis lived and decided to move them to a new settlement, to be designed and built by Hassan Fathy himself.
[Hassan Fathy, ''Architecture for the Poor'', The University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London 1973, p.14ff] No two houses in the village are the same. Kurnis built and shaped the houses and all of the furniture within; including any kind of chairs, tables, beds.
New Qurna was built in the 1940s and early 1950 to house the then residents who strongly resisted the move.
Sheikh ‘Adb el-Qurna
A series of housing built in and around the mountain grottoes located about 200m north of the Ramesseum at
Sheikh ‘Adb el-Qurna. The stretch of land has been the bitter battlefield between the original owners and the Egyptian government for the last 60 years, because it lay on top of an archeological area, part of the
Tombs of the Nobles.
Edward William Lane relates that the residents moved into these grottoes from the village of Qurna, which they abandoned, when the
Mamluk
Mamluk ( ar, مملوك, mamlūk (singular), , ''mamālīk'' (plural), translated as "one who is owned", meaning " slave", also transliterated as ''Mameluke'', ''mamluq'', ''mamluke'', ''mameluk'', ''mameluke'', ''mamaluke'', or ''marmeluke'') ...
s retreated thought the area, following their defeat by
Muhammad 'Alī's forces in the early 19th century.
Restoration at New Gourna
See also
*
List of ancient Egyptian sites
This is a list of ancient Egyptian sites, throughout all of Egypt and Nubia. Sites are listed by their classical name whenever possible, if not by their modern name, and lastly with their ancient name if no other is available.
Nomes
A nome ...
, including sites of temples
References
External links
Online collection of Hassan Fathy's architectural drawings of New Gourna
{{Authority control
Theban Necropolis
Populated places in Aswan Governorate
Articles containing video clips