The library’s entrance with the security booth to the left. Photo Credit: Yasemin Akçagüner.
Off the beaten track of researchers and scholars of the Ottoman Empire, Tire Necip Paşa Library is an endowment (Tr. vakıf, Ar. waqf) library dating back to the early-nineteenth century located in the Turkish town of Tire in Izmir province. Sometimes spelled Necippaşa or Necib Paşa, this library is more accurately described as a manuscript museum and conservation site. Established in 1827-28 by the Ottoman statesman Mehmed Necib Paşa, the library boasts 5156 titles that include 1754 manuscripts and 3402 print books in modern Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, Arabic, and Persian. The library continues to serve researchers through digitization services and limited capacity in-person viewings in its original location today.
Content Warning: The following archive review includes discussion of missionary activity and of colonialism.
Presbyterian Historical Society (Photo credit: Presbyterian Historical Society)
The Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia (PHS) has substantial holdings of missionary records in the Middle East which will reward exploration by scholars interested in the region. Because the PHS holds on-site archival records of Presbyterian missionary institutions and some American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) materials, their collections have the potential to cast new light on missionary activities and interactions with Middle Eastern populations.
By Natalya Stanke, Tessa Litecky, and Elisabeth Koch
Hazine recognizes that most archives and libraries are closed right now and emphasize prioritizing during these times the health and safety of all those who work at archives and libraries as well as the health and safety of those who use archives and libraries. We are publishing archive reviews in the hopes that eventually these repositories will be accessible again.
The ARCE Grand Salon, Photo Credit: ARCE 3D Model
Just a block south of Tahrir Square in the heart of Cairo lies the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE). Since 1948, ARCE has served as a powerful force for conservation, education, and historical research within Egypt. The archive and library collections cover 7,000 years of Egyptian history, including prehistoric Pharaonic, Coptic, Islamic, and more contemporary materials. ARCE’s conservation efforts are housed within the ARCE Conservation Archive, which serves as a resource for researchers interested in the dynamics of preserving Egyptian cultural heritage.
The lobby of the American Research Center in Egypt (photo credit: N.A. Mansour)
At MESA 2019, Djodi Deutsch, Academic Programs Manager for the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), participated in a discussion on doing research in Egypt today; she based this on years of working with ARCE fellows conducting dissertation research and other projects. She kindly shared this list of research sites in Egypt with us (and on social media!) to share with you. Note these are not archive reviews –we’ve hyperlinked the research sites that we do have reviews for– but we are working on bringing you Egypt-specific archive reviews, along with other content. Feel free to drop us a line at hazineblog@gmail.com if you want to write us a piece! For now, this guide should help you get a general sense of what is out there.
Statue of a Peasant Woman in the Agricultural Museum Gardens (photo credit: Taylor Moore)
Obviously Dar al-Wathaiq (the National Archives) and Dar al-Kutub are still accessible. Dar al-Wathaiq requires a lengthy application process you can begin by visiting the location on the Corniche. Dar al-Kutub, both at the Corniche and Bab al-Khalq are running as usual: these repositories are good for rare books, manuscripts, and periodicals.
Dar al-Kutub (Corniche Location) is on the right side of the image. The left side of the image is Zamalek, where the Majma al-Lugha al-‘Arabi can be found (photo credit: N.A. Mansour)
Here is the list itself, compiled by Djodi Deutsch
The Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes (the Diplomatic Archives Center in Nantes or CADN) houses extensive collections of French diplomatic files from the 18th-20th centuries. Among scholars of the Modern Middle East, Nantes is most famous for its collections of documents produced by the French mandate in Syria and Lebanon, as well as the French Protectorates in Tunisia and Morocco. However, Nantes also contains thousands of boxes of French consular files from cities around the world. Additionally, the archive has files from several international organizations that France was involved in. Taken together, the CADN is an indispensable stop for anyone working on the Middle East or North Africa in the 19th or 20th centuries.
Image of handwritten signatures on a petition from CADN (photo credit: Joshua Donovan)
Statue of a Peasant Woman in the Museum Gardens (photo credit: Taylor Moore)
The Cairo Agricultural Museum complex, located right off of Salah Salem street in the neighborhood of Dokki, is a gem of object collections and archival holdings hidden in plain sight. Its under-utilized collections will be of interest to historians and social scientists working on agriculture, food, natural history, political economy, rural Egyptian history, and public works from the Pharaonic period until present day. The museum is also a rare find for scholars interested in material culture and museum studies in modern Egypt. Its exhibits stand as an archive in and of themselves. They provide material testament to developments in the natural sciences, anthropology, food science, visual culture, and curatorial practices as many of the collections and dioramas remain untouched since the first half of the twentieth century.
History
In 1930, King Fouad of Egypt established the Agricultural Museum in the Cairo suburb of Dokki in the palace of Princess Fatima, the daughter of the great Khedive Ismail. It is one of the first agricultural museums in the world—second only to the Royal Agricultural Museum in Budapest. The museum was officially inaugurated by King Farouk in 1938 when he selected the venue to host 18th International Cotton Congress. The Agriculture Museum was preceded by an array of agricultural expositions organized by the Khedival Agricultural Society (later Royal Agricultural Society), an organization determined to improve agricultural methods in Egypt, and “the lot of the fellah.” The society created a small agricultural museum in 1920. This initial collection was ultimately modified into a cotton museum, which later became a part of the “Fouad I Agricultural Museum” when it opened to the public (el Shakry, 2007).
The Museum’s initial collections consisted of an array of objects donated from scientific institutions throughout Egypt, including the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Agricultural Society, and the Egyptian Department of Antiquities. Hungarian artists oversaw the creation and curation of the museum’s first displays (Davies 2014). With its holdings “lying halfway between a museum of natural history and a purely agricultural museum,” the Egyptian government mobilized the museum as cultural and educational space for the public until the 1960s (Ghawas, 1972). For the next thirty odd years, the museum was essentially left for dead. Most of its artifacts and object collections were relocated to storage, and the exhibition halls were transformed into makeshift government offices, presumably for Ministry of Agriculture staff. In the 1990s, restoration projects began in earnest. As they were completed, sections of the museum were slowly reopened to the public beginning with the Hall of Ancient Egyptian Agriculture and the Cotton Museum in 1996. Currently, the museum complex is composed of seven exhibition halls (the museum pamphlet refers to these entities as small museums, or mutahif), a library, research laboratories, greenhouses, and a cinema. The grounds surrounding the museum have been maintained as a beautiful garden space, with two Pharaonic-style gardens located near the entrance to the Hall of Ancient Egyptian Agriculture.
Collections
As mentioned above the Cairo Agricultural Museum boasts seven exhibition halls which depict varying topics in natural history and agricultural science. The majority of the museum’s labels are in Arabic, however some exhibits provide English translations.
1. Scientific Collections
Whale Skeleton in the Scientific Collections Hall (photo credit: Taylor Moore)
The Scientific Collections Hall is the oldest in the museum. The first floor is dedicated to ethnographic materials that depict the social and economic lives of the Egyptian fellahin. The most stunning exhibits of this building are the large, life-size dioramas of a rural wedding procession, and a village souk complete with a community forn, a café with galabiyya-wearing men laughing while smoking shisha, and even a female fortune teller reading shells. There are also rooms specializing in rural handicrafts, “habits and customs,” and the High Dam. The second floor houses a large natural history collection of taxidermy animals native to Egypt and Sudan, with rooms specializing in the life-cycles of domestic farm animals, insects and crop pests, as well as a room of popular Egyptian products and manufactured food goods from the 1940s and 1950s.
Diorama of an Upper Egyptian Village Market in the Scientific Collections Hall (photo credit: Taylor Moore)
2. Botanical Revolution Hall
This hall, also referred to as the “Plant Kingdom Museum,” was established in 1935. Its
exhibits depict Egypt’s field crops, horticultural and garden plants, and popular agricultural machinery. The first floor specializes in grain crops such as wheat, barley, corn, and rice, and also has a room on onions and garlic. The second floor specializes in fiber crops, and rooms on fruits, vegetables, legumes, and more.
3. The Cotton Museum
In many aspects the original collection of the Agricultural Museum, the Royal Agricultural Society organized the Cotton Museum in 1920, and opened it to the public in 1926. The collections in their most recent state were inaugurated in the Cairo Agricultural Museum in 1996 on Eid el Fellah (a feast day commemorating the victories of the peasantry and the implementation of Nasserist agricultural reforms after the 1952 revolution). The collections explore the importance of the cotton crop over the long duree of Egyptian history in its many forms from field to finished product, and include rare cotton the seeds and fibers from varying species of cotton crop grown around the world.
4. Ancient Egyptian Agriculture
This collection highlights role of the Nile River and the importance of agriculture in the economic, social, and spiritual realms of Pharaonic civilization. Many of these collections were acquired between 1932 and 1938 as donations from the Egyptian Museum and the Egyptian Department of Antiquities. Cappers and Hamdy (20007) provide original catalogue entries for specimen in this collection as well as some in the “Greek, Coptic, and Islamic” collections below.
5. Agriculture in Greek, Roman, Coptic, and Islamic Periods
These collections represent the second stage of development in early Egyptian agriculture
from 332 BC, when Alexander the Great conquered Egypt, until the rule of Mohammed
(Mehmet) Ali Pasha in 1805. However, the majority of materials are concentrated in the Greek and Roman periods. They highlight the role of plants in society (from popular field crops to medicine), the raising of livestock, and the social lives of the peasant classes at in these periods.
A Poster Advising Consumers to Boil Milk to Prevent the Spread of Disease (photo credit: Taylor Moore)
6. The Syrian Hall
This exhibit, inaugurated on July 31, 1961 commemorates Egypt and Syria’s short-lived union in the form of the United Arab Republic from 1958 to 1961. Its contents include information on trade between the two countries, and provide a collection of Syrian handicrafts, produce, and rural life.
7. The Egypt-China Friendship Exhibition
Opened in 2013, this exhibit is composed mostly of art and ceramics donated from China
to illustrate the thriving political relationship between Egypt and China.
8. Library
The museum’s library is a quaint two-floor building with an array of books, periodicals, and maps ranging from the mid-nineteenth century until the early 2000s. The subjects of the collection focus on a variety of agriculture and “agriculture-adjacent” materials such as botany, horticulture, public works, livestock, geography, and the social and economic aspects of rural life. Some examples of publications held in the library include volumes of Mémoires Présentés à l’Institut d’Egypte from the 1880s until the 1930s, yearly reports from the Department of Public Works from the 1880s onwards, and a Ministry of Agriculture periodical entitled Zamīl al-Fallāḥ published in the 1930s. Certain publications of the Ministry of Agriculture can also be found here, however most of those materials are held in the library of the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Agricultural Library (both located down the street from the Agricultural Museum.) As far as I know, this collection has not been catalogued and I was only able to conduct a cursory survey of the holdings during my research there. Future researchers may find more than detailed in this review.
Research Experience
The Agricultural Museum and Library is easily accessible to researchers. Those that speak Arabic will have an easier time of things, although many of the museum and library staff know some level of English. As of 2016, the entry fee to the main collection halls, library, and gardens was 5 LE, with an extra fee to enter the Hall of Ancient Egyptian Agriculture. However, researchers must note that depending on the day, and maybe even the hour, particular halls or exhibitions may be locked and/or closed to visitors. Generally, the main exhibits in the natural history, or scientific collections, and the library are always open to the public.
The library, located near the research laboratories a ways off from the main buildings, is a charming and pleasant workspace. More often than not, researchers will have the reading room to themselves, sharing the space with only a handful of library staff. Madame Azza is the main librarian. After signing your name in a logbook, Madame Azza will ask you what kinds of materials you are interested in. You can give her specific texts or vague subject and she will bring the exact text, or texts that might interest you out to the reading room for you. If you are lucky, she may allow you to wonder through the upstairs stacks yourself. This is the area where most of the old periodicals, governmental reports, and “rare books” from 1880 until 1950 are housed.
Model of Honeycombs in a Beehive (photo credit: Taylor Moore)
Currently, there is neither known catalogue for the ethnographic and natural history collections, nor the holdings in the library. I was also not able to find information on the provenance of the museum’s collections. However, as of June 25 2017 the Egyptian Central Department of Archaeological Acquisitions examined and registered over 1,000 of the Agricultural museum’s ancient animal and geological artifacts. There may be a way to access the catalogue or reports from this investigation. Those wishing to work with certain objects or collections should get in touch with the museum staff directly. Although the museum’s pamphlet provides a phone number and an email address for researchers to direct their inquiries, it is recommended that scholars make requests in person to the museum staff who may put you in touch with the museum director. It is advised that researchers provide a statement in Arabic addressing their academic affiliation, research interests, and the collections they are interested in working with.
Unlike other archives in Egypt, such as Dar al-Watha’iq al-Qawmiyya (The Egyptian National Archives) and Dar al-Kutub (The Egyptian National Library) where photographs of materials are forbidden, or in the Egyptian Geographical Society’s Ethnographic Museum where photographs of the exhibits can be taken for a fee, the Cairo Museum of Agriculture allows researchers to take pictures of materials in both the library and the museum for free.
Transportation
The Cairo Agricultural Museum is located in the neighborhood of Dokki. The museum is an easy 25 minute walk from the Behouth (Dokki) or the Opera (Zamalek) metro stations. Given the museum’s location right off of Salah Salem, it is easily accessible via taxi, Uber, or Kareem as well. Researchers can simply direct them to “al-mathaf al-zara’i” or “wizarat al-zira’a.” There are a handful of restaurants, cafes, and kushks located near the museum, particularly in the directions of the Dokki Shooting Club (Nadi Es-Sid) and Mohandessin.
Contact Information (according to museum pamphlet):
Telephone: +2(02)33372933 and +2(02)37616874
Website: www.agrimuseum.gov.eg
Email: agri.museum@yahoo.com
Hours: Sunday through Friday 9AM-2PM; The museum is occasionally closed for maintenance and hours are liable to change.
The most in-depth descriptions of the museum, its history, and its exhibitions can be found in
Al-Mathaf Al-Zira’i Kama ’Arfithu (elKhattab, 2003), located in the museum’s library collection, Guide du Musée Agricole Fouad I , and the Bulletin of the Royal Agricultural Society.
Additionally, some of the most useful sources that cover the history of the museum, as well as its current state and collections are below. (I have also included limited secondary literature regarding the general history of agriculture in twentieth century Egypt as it pertains to the history of organizations such as the Ministry of Agriculture, the Fellah Department in the Ministry of Social Affairs, and the Royal Agricultural Society):
Davies, Claire. “The Anatomy of Melancholy: Cairo’s Lost Agriculture Museum.” Bidoun, no. 14 Objects: A Treasury of Bidounish Wonders (Spring/Summer 2008). https://bidoun.org/articles/the-anatomy-of-melancholy.
El Shakry, Omnia S. The Great Social Laboratory: Subjects of Knowledge in Colonial and Postcolonial Egypt. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007, pp 125-126.
Ghawas, M. H. El. “The Agricultural Museum, Dokki.” Museum International 24, no. 3 (January 12, 1972): 174–76.
Hassan, Fayza. “The Forgotten Museums of Egypt.” Museum International 57, no. 1/2 (May 2005): 42-48.
Johnson, Amy J. Reconstructing Rural Egypt: Ahmed Hussein and the History of Egyptian Development. Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2004.
Meyer, Sara-Duana. “The Dimly Lit Marvels of Cairo’s Agricultural Museum.” Mada Masr (blog).. https://www.madamasr.com/en/2015/05/14/feature/culture/the-dimly-lit-marvels-of-cairos-agricultural-museum/.
Rivlin, Helen Anne B. The Agricultural Policy of Muhammad ’Ali in Egypt. Y First edition edition. Harvard University Press, 1961.
The most information regarding the museums collections focuses mainly on the Ancient Egypt collections. The texts below produce in depth information about their research experience at the museum, detailed information about the objects examined, and attempt to catalogue them and/or cite a catalogue given to them during their research:
Bober, Phyllis Pray. Art, Culture, and Cuisine: Ancient and Medieval Gastronomy. University of Chicago Press, 2001.
Cappers, R.T.J, and R. Hamdy. “Ancient Egyptian Plant Remains in the Agricultural Museum (Dokki, Cairo).” In Fields of Change Progress in African Archaeobotany, 165–214. Groningen Archaeological Studies 5. Barkhuis, 2007.
Crane, Eva. The World History of Beekeeping and Honey Hunting. Taylor & Francis, 1999.
Darby, William Jefferson, Paul Ghalioungui, and Louis Grivetti. Food: The Gift of Osiris. Academic Press, 1977.Ikram, Salima. Choice Cuts: Meat Production in Ancient Egypt. Peeters Publishers, 1995.
Taylor M. Moore is a PhD Candidate in Modern Middle Eastern History at Rutgers University. Her dissertation explores the entangled histories of magic, medicine, and museums in early twentieth century Egypt.
Tucked between the Faculté des Lettres and the annex of the Bibliothèque Nationale just outside the Bab Rouah gate in Rabat, the Archives du Maroc is Morocco’s newest public archive and, as such, offers scholars the opportunity to delve into previously overlooked material. The Archives hold those records of the French Protectorate (1912-1956) that remained in Morocco (or those that were not transferred to France) following independence, as well as a smattering of holdings from the pre- and post-Protectorate periods.
History
The establishment of the Archives du Maroc stems from the findings of the Equity and Reconciliation Committee in 2007 that recommended a national repository of information in order to increase government transparency and support research on twentieth-century Morocco. Dr. Jamaa Baida was appointed director in 2011 and has since assembled an impressive array of sources, with the eventual goal the creation of a true national archive that possesses historical records from all state agencies and ministries.
The entrance of the archive…
This, of course, has proved a difficult task. The Archives join a complicated and not always user-friendly archival scene in Rabat. The Bibliothèque Nationale du Royaume du Maroc is a research library with a large collection of manuscripts and historical periodicals; the Hassaniyah library located inside the palace contains the records of the ʿAlawite dynasty, including correspondence between the sultan and his various governors; the Direction des Archives Royales contain another portion of official makhzen (the Moroccan state structures under the Sultan) correspondence with some specific interest in Moroccan international relations in the pre-colonial period.
At the moment, the Archives du Maroc is primarily useful for historians studying the French Protectorate. Although much of the Protectorate archives were repatriated to France following Moroccan independence in 1956, approximately 40% stayed behind. These form the “Fonds Protectorat” of the Archives du Maroc and contain primarily the “gestion,” or management, files rather than the policy or military documents, are now based at the Centre des Archives Diplomatiques in Nantes. Nonetheless, there are exceptions to this rule, and many of the Direction des Affaires Indigènes files remain in Morocco.
The Research Experience
Much of the Fonds Protectorat material deals with the colonial economy, public works, and administrative or legislative matters. All files are originals and, as of yet, nothing has been digitized. The bulk of Affaires Indigènes files and most documents labeled “confidential” returned to France and are housed in the Centre des Archives Diplomatiques-Nantes. Consequently, what stayed in Rabat—the correspondence of technical bureaucrats and administrators—can make for dry reading. Duplicates and blank pages make many boxes appear much larger than they really are.
Unlike the Bibliothèque Nationale or the Saudi Library in Casablanca, there is no online catalog, but three computers on site have searchable catalogs. Cartons are organized by the particular Protectorate offices (Direction des Affaires Indigènes, Direction de l’Agriculture, Commerce et Colonisation, etc.), although descriptions of each box vary in detail. Carton headings usually list time periods, but there is no standard periodization, and boxes will often list a date range but primarily include materials from only a narrow portion of the range. There are also printed catalogs that researchers can browse and use in the event that the servers are down. The most efficient search method is the online catalog. Researchers are likely to find some success with keyword searches but will probably want to follow these up by exploring neighboring boxes and consulting with archivists. The Protectorate files have been fully cataloged; new arrivals (from other government agencies after independence) are cataloged as they come in.
Cartons are requested on small slips of paper in French or Arabic, handed to the assistant in the front of the room. Because Moroccan scholars have yet to fully embrace and explore the Archives, the reading room is usually quiet and requests are filled immediately, with no set “pull times.” The vast majority of the Archives staff are either trained historians or preservationists. They know the collections well and can help researchers navigate through the system. The staff all speak French and Arabic, and a few staff members speak English. The goal from the beginning has been the creation of a transparent state archive, and the staff is committed to the task.
The reading room is a comfortable workspace. It is bright with plenty of windows and thirty-two reader desks that all have outlets and lamps. Although heated, it tends to be quite cold in winter. Laptops are welcome (unlike at the Direction des Archives Royales), but there is no wireless internet access.
Access
Conservation and cataloging in progress…
The Archives du Maroc are open continuously Monday through Friday from 9:00 to 16:00. It is closed on government holidays and during the entire month of August. Researchers can view the collection for three days with a temporary permit, but longer periods of research require a reader card. These cards can be obtained quickly after submission of two small photos (passport-size, although they can be on regular paper), a letter of attestation, and a passport or carte d’identité. Note that the reader card process is changing as the Archives have recently acquired digital card printers. Doctoral students must pay a 100 dirham registration fee in cash, approximately 10 USD. The archive is not wheelchair accessible.
Reproductions
Photography of all collections is permitted free of charge—something rare in Moroccan archives and libraries. Researchers simply need to fill out an authorization slip (fiche d’autorisation) and have it signed by the reading room director. Most archival documents are in decent shape, the room is well-lit, and photography is easy. The published works on the shelves can be photographed without authorization. Staff will also photocopy documents for 0.5 dirham per page. A request must be filled out, and a photocopy voucher purchased from the registration desk by the entrance. Copies are usually made immediately and ready within an hour or two. Note that documents cannot be reproduced for publication without special permission. There are forms for this available in the reading room.
Transportation and Food
The archive is located on Avenue Ibn Battouta, flanked on one side by the Faculté des Lettres of Mohammed V University and on the other by the annex of the Bibliothèque Nationale. It is a fifteen-minute walk from Rabat Ville train station, just up the hill from Bab Rouah. It can be reached easily by tramway, just a five-minute walk from the Bab Rouah stop. Taxis are easy to pick up on the street outside. There is parking available in front of the Archives and adjacent; pay the guardian a few dirhams when you leave. Those up for the walk can make it on foot from Agdal (30 minutes), Orangers (10 minutes), Centre Ville (20 minutes), Hassan (30 minutes), and even L’Ocean (40 minutes).
While transportation options are plentiful, food options are limited. Small snack vendors operate outside the Faculté building next door, and inside the Faculté and the Bibliothèque Annexe there are coffee machines (3 dirhams). The best dining option is the Café Carrion, a Tetouani café chain, inside the Bibliothèque Nationale, a ten-minute walk. They serve sandwiches, brochettes, omelettes, and the usual atay, espresso, and juices, starting around 25 dirhams. A good alternative is the popular eateries along the tram route, just inside the city walls towards the train station. Here you’ll find four or five eateries serving simple and cheap meals like lentils and loubia, roasted chicken, and Moroccan griddlebreads like harsha and ghrif.
Contact information
The Archives du Maroc are located at Avenue Ibn Batouta, Rabat 10080. The Phone number is 05 37 77 66 85. The Director is Dr. Jamaa Baida. A new website recently launched. At the time of publication, it has little information, but updates are expected soon. Inquiries can be sent through the website.
Resources and Links
Daniel Rivet’s article provides some guidance as to what sorts of Protectorate records remain in Morocco and which are housed in French archives. See Daniel Rivet, “Archives coloniales et écriture de l’histoire du Protectorat,” Recherches sur l’histoire du Maroc: esquisse de bilan (1989): 25-33. Interviews with the Director of the Archives shed some light on the collections and their history; they can be found here and here.
Graham H. Cornwell is a PhD candidate in History at Georgetown University, working on the history of tea and sugar in modern Morocco. He is the co-editor of tajine, a podcast and blog about North Africa.
Cite this: Graham H. Cornell, “Archive du Maroc,” HAZINE, 8 July 2015, https://hazine.info/archives-du-maroc/
