We don't have that many cities from ancient Egypt
most of them have been buried under modern big cities
and this is actually one of the few places in Egypt
where we can still access these ancient layers.
There is continuous habitation, so the layers actually just naturally go into present day
and the community is the last layer of that history.
Shutb is an outstanding example of vernacular architecture
and we try to kind of enhance an understanding of that value as well
This is really also part of heritage and it is not only about ancient things.
We feel that these houses are valuable but we are currently conducting surveys to understand
how people feel about these houses and that may be very different from what we think
One of the reasons we are doing these surveys is to actually find very specific links to the ancient past.
So we are looking at ways people do things today in their daily life and see if we can
make a connection to the ancient way of living.
Admittedly its a bit of a challenge to make a leap from the current situation
to 2000 BC so what we try to do with this project is to create a model
to enhance appreciation of the modern heritage
of the old buildings that are still preserved in this village
and from there work back to enhance understanding of the past.
Ideally, it would be very nice if we could convince people about the importance of Shutb
and to make them understand that they have something really really special.