“King Farouk is buried near my house,” boasted Abdul Aziz Sahel in an interview with National Geographic. “I’ve lived here for eighty years.” Sahel and his family inhabit one of Cairo’s unhidden morbidities – the City of the Dead. This vast necropolis dates back to the seventh century, today home to more than just the buried. To locals, it is known as Al-Qarafa, its horizon dotted with chipped Arabesque domes and sand lifted from nearby gravesites. Behind it sits the Citadel of Cairo, a large, looming structure which is both foreboding and ironic given its bloody history. The area was first marked as a burial ground for Arab conquests nearly 700 years ago, used by the Fatimids, Mamluks, and as recently as the Ottomans, explains cultural researcher Anna Di Marco (in: Anthropology of the Middle East, 2011). There’s a distinct liveliness there however – one otherwise uncharacteristic of five colossal graveyards. Over the years, the City of the Dead has developed from a silent, solemn expanse, into one of Cairo’s largest, most rundown slums (per Di Marco). Between catacombs and mausoleums, beds and ovens have been pushed up against marble,…
