Recreating Cairo 3,000 Years Ago

CAIRO has a vibrant, modern present. Its minarets number in the thousands.
Its Oriental bazaars are picturesque. The hotels and apartment blocks along the Nile are plush.
But it is also a rare blend of a long past. Right in the heart of the city, there is a place where visitors take a step back in time. About 3,000 years back, to be exact.
Dr Hassan Ragab's Pharaonic Village depicts life in ancient Egypt during the rule of the Pharaohs. Not only is the village educational and entertaining, it also serves as a source of information of the ancient world.
Ragab actually got the idea to create the Pharaonic Village after visiting Disney's futuristic Epcot Centre in Orlando, Florida. His idea, however, was to go back in time to depict a historical village.
In 1974 when he started working to create the village at Jacob Island, he planted 5,000 trees to block the view of modern Cairo that surrounded the site.
The first trees planted were the weeping willows, sycamores and date palms. These trees are easily identified in the tomb paintings as a part of ancient Egyptian life. The papyrus tree is also a common sight. There are exact reproductions of buildings, clothing, and lifestyles at the Pharaonic Village. A nobleman's house and garden, a market, a field for planting and harvesting, a shipyard, roads, farms. The centrepiece is a gigantic temple of white stone that has become the symbol for the Pharaonic Village.
Ten years of work and over US$6 million (US$1 = RM3.78) went into the building of the village. In 1984, Ragab's Pharaonic Village opened its doors to the public.
At the Pharaonic Village, visitors sail on comfortable motorised barges down a network of canals where they can view for themselves the recreation of ancient Egyptian life.
Over 100 actors re-enact the daily activities of the ancient Egyptians, from pharaohs to fishermen, from potters to priests. The activities include agriculture, pottery, sculpture and weaving. One segment showed how Moses was discovered at the bank of the Nile River. There is also a life-size replica of Tutankhamen's tomb, just as it appeared in 1922 when Howard Carter opened it.