How Many Miles to Babylon? uses the writing of European travellers to Egypt between c. 1300 and c. 1600 to give a picture of the country in the late medieval and early Renaissance periods, drawing on sources that have hitherto been inaccessible to English-speaking audiences. These accounts portray an Egypt ruled by the despotic Mamluk sultans and the early Ottoman governors, a society at once cruel and sophisticated, dangerous and alluring. The Europeans' wonderment at the exotic flora and fauna, the ancient ruins of temples and pyramids, and the astonishing summer rise of the Nile to irrigate the crops and replenish the lakes and waterways of Cairo is well conveyed by these travellers' tales. How Many Miles to Babylon? is a fascinating picture of the people, customs and culture of Egypt from the fourteenth century to the beginning of the seventeenth.
Sprache
Verlagsort
Maße
Höhe: 234 mm
Breite: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-85323-668-9 (9780853236689)
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Schweitzer Klassifikation
ANNE WOLFF was born in Cairo and has had a long-standing interest in the history, politics and culture of the Middle-East and Eurasia. She is an experienced and respected egyptologist who has developed close working relationships with staff in SACOS in the universities of Liverpool, Durham and Cambridge. She has presented a number of papers at the annual ASTENE conference (Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Neat East) and at other conferences, and she has published papers in the ASTENE Bulletin.
Preface
Permissions
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Glossary
Introduction
1 The Mamluk Rulers of Egypt
2 Egypt Imagined and the Realities of the Voyage
3 The Maritime Port of Alexandria
4 Sailing Upstream to Cairo
5 Cairo: 'Meeting Place of Comer and Goer'
6 Venetian Diplomacy and the Arrival of the Ottomans
7 Exploring the Pyramids and Mummy Fields
8 Pilgrims to the Monastery of St Catherine
9 Adventures with the Mecca Caravan
10 To the South
Appendices
Bibliography
Index
