3-070-622 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Crisis in Egypt: Tombs of the Caliphs, Cairo, 1881. 'Among the stately architectural monuments of ancient Mussulman grandeur in the capital of Egypt, where a recent political crisis has attracted general notice, the Mosques standing near together, in the main street of the city, command the visitor's attention...There are many beautiful edifices, designed as private mosques or shrines of Moslem saints, in the cemetery to the east of Cairo. The most remarkable, for the grace of their architectural form and the richness of their sculptured decoration, are those commonly called, by Europeans, the "tombs of the Caliphs," but which are really, like the mosques of which we have spoken, the sepulchres of Mameluke rulers of Egypt. They were erected to contain the mortal remains of Kait Bey and Sultan Barkuk, two of the Circassian Mamelukes, who flourished from 1382 to 1517. The history of Mohammedan rule in the Nile country is one of many political vicissitudes, and there is much likelihood of another speedy change in these times'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.