Tours of Medieval Egyptian Houses in Cairo

So, Cairo has always been a crowded city, the geography being a main factor. One 14th century historian said - with no exaggeration - that if he was tired of walking, all he had to do was stand still with his arms at his sides, and the crowds of people in the streets of Cairo would just push him along to his destination. Well, the same is true for Cairo today as well.

Back then, and until the end of the 19th century, the majority of people lived in a crush of hovels built one atop another, with rickety stairs and open windows. The affluent, however, need not suffer so. In Cairo, the Ministry of Culture and Heritage have preserved a number of the houses of well-to-do people who have fallen upon hard times. I visited one such house, and for a nominal fee of LE10 (about $2) I toured this wonderful oasis of calm and tranquility. This particular house was originally built by a wealthy merchant in the 15th century to house generations of his family. The massive wooden doors (an extravagance mirrored throughout the entire "house") open onto a small ante-chamber and then into a massive garden, with trees, grass and fountain. As the door closed, you could not hear a sound from the street.

The courtyard has a place where musicians could play, an alcove as large as two bedrooms, complete with couches, chairs and a screen through which the servants would pass cold cistern water or food. From the courtyard, one gazed upon the Masribahs (I don't know the spelling of these, so it's phonetic) which are wooden screens made to let air in and keep light out. Their name is loosely translated as "the hanging" because, at night, one would hang rough-fired clay pots full of water by strings or chains from those windows to let the night air chill the water. Into the first floor, one would escort the guests into a room that had 15th century air-conditioning; a well-spring fountain in the center of the room, directly under a slanted wooden ceiling - a "Wind Catcher" that would turn the mostly-northerly breezes down onto the fountain, where the wind would be cooled by the water, generating breezes.

The stairs leading to the second floor were the women's reception area - no men ever entered these spacious, marble-tiled rooms. It has a separate bathroom, shower, massage table, and sauna (the people then were very, very tiny, I think because I brained myself on the stone doorways entering these rooms). Women would entertain and be entertained in these blue-tiled rooms, decorated with fine, Chinese porcelain and serving tea or coffee in copper service settings so large that the family must have had armies of friends, guessing by the women.

The top floor was the family's apartments; each room had its own bathroom and shower. Yes, I do keep saying "Shower" on purpose. At first I thought these features were some kind of built-in closet. Opening a door on the left, one finds the toilet (basically a hole in the marble floor with a chute down into the darkness, as well as a pitcher of water and other necessities. The door on the right, when opened, revealed a marble closet with a brass showerhead in the ceiling and two chains; hot and cold water.

Hot water was drawn from a black, metal cistern on the roof and the cold from a shaded (or covered) cistern on the roof as well, allowing gravity to feed them and servants to fill them. The steps up to these apartments taxed even MY long legs, so I think maybe once the elderly were safely ensconced upstairs; they may very well have remained up there. The two floors are dotted by covered rooms open to the courtyard. In fact, ALL windows opened to the courtyard in this miniature palace - no need for noise, smell, and prying eyes from the street! All in all, the entire complex was just wonderfully posh, with ingenious additions to make the 15th century - hell, the 21st century - as comfortable as humanly possible.