Nostoi

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NOSTOI è un’associazione culturale che ha lo scopo di promuovere lo studio e la ricerca sul Mediterraneo e l'Oriente | NOSTOI is a cultural association aiming at promoting the study and the research on the Mediterranean and the East

22/03/2026

Auguste Mariette (born Feb. 11, 1821, Boulogne, Fr.—died Jan. 19, 1881, Cairo) was a French archaeologist who conducted major excavations throughout Egypt, revealing much about the earlier periods of Egyptian history.
Mariette joined the Egyptian department of the Louvre in 1849 and in the following year traveled to Egypt to obtain ancient manuscripts. Instead, he began excavating at Ṣaqqārah, an area that included part of the burial grounds of ancient Memphis.
He remained in Egypt four years, continuing excavations and dispatching most of what he found to the Louvre, where he became curator upon his return to France.

Accepting the position of conservator of monuments from the Egyptian government, Mariette in 1858 settled in Egypt, where he remained for the rest of his life. He eliminated unauthorized excavation, thereby securing a virtual monopoly on archaeological investigation, and he restricted the sale and export of antiquities in order to preserve new discoveries for the Egyptian nation. In 1859 Mariette succeeded in persuading the Ottoman viceroy of Egypt to establish a museum at Būlāq, near Cairo, to house what became the world’s foremost repository of Egyptian antiquities, the Egyptian Museum.
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18/03/2026

«[…] Al-Azhar, un luogo venerabile dell’Islam, sa cui sono uscite, in quasi mille anni, le generazioni dei preti e dei dottori incaricati di diffondere la parola del Profeta fra i popoli, dal Maghreb sino al mare d’Arabia attraverso i grandi deserti. Verso la fine del nostro X secolo, i gloriosi califfi Fatimidi edificarono questa immensa accolta di archi e di colonne, che divenne la sede dell’università musulmana più rinomata del mondo e che, da allora, tutti i sovrani d’Egitto non hanno mai cessato di ampliare, aggiungendovi nuove sale, nuove gallerie, nuovi minareti, sino a fare di Al-Azhar quasi una città nella città.»
Pierre Loti, Il Nilo e la sfinge

07/03/2026

« En plein jour, rien de banal comme ce Musée des Antiquités égyptiennes, composé pourtant de souvenirs sans prix. C’est la plus pompeuse et la plus outrageante de ces bâtisses dépourvue de style dont s’enrichit chaque année le Caire nouveau »
This is how, in 1909, Pierre Loti described the Egyptian Museum that was built in Tahrir square.
We can use the same words (if not worse) to describe the New Egyptian Museum.
Photos are taken from an article by Mohamed Elshahed () on The Architect’s Newspaperp