Tura (Egypt)
Coordinates: 29 ° 56 ′ 21.4 ″ N , 31 ° 17 ′ 24 ″ E
Tura ( Arabic طرة, DMG Ṭura , ancient Egyptian An ) is a place in Egypt on the east bank of the Nile between the southern outskirts of Cairo and Helwan . Today's Tura belongs to the al-Qahira governorate .
Quarries
This place is known for the quarries in the Mokattam hills , which in ancient Egypt, especially in the old and middle kingdoms, provided a particularly high-quality and fine limestone , which was used in particular to clad the pyramids and temples and to line mastabas . The use of Tura limestone has been proven - albeit to a reduced extent - up to the Greco-Roman period .
The Tura limestone was not only mined in open-cast mining , but also underground, in contrast to most other limestone quarries of the time. The workers carved out deep pits and tunnels in the rock, with limestone columns left to support them.
The Tura tunnels were measured in 1941, during which workers found parts of books by the early Christian church fathers Origen and Didymus the Blind , but these were stolen and partially reappeared via the black market.
The quarries of Tura ( Karl Richard Lepsius , Denkmæeler from Egypt and Ethiopia , 1842)
The bent pyramid with large areas of still preserved cladding made of Tura limestone
Cladding stones made from Tura limestone
jail
The place gained further fame through the Tura prison , built in 1908 , in which personalities such as the prominent Muslim brother Sayyid Qutb and the former president Hosni Mubarak were held. The Egyptian photographer and film director Shady Habash died there in May 2020 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Nicolas-Christophe Grimal : A History of Ancient Egypt. Librairie Arthéme Fayard, Paris 1988, p. 111.
- ^ Richard J. Talbert: Barrington Atlas of the Greek and Roman World . Princeton University Press, Princeton 2000, ISBN 0-691-03169-X , p. 74.
- ^ Nicolas-Christophe Grimal: A History of Ancient Egypt. Paris 1988, p. 27.
- ↑ a b Helwan Tourist Attractions: Quarries of Masara and Tura ( Memento of September 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). In: planetware.com .
- ^ The Tura / Toura Discovery of Manuscripts (1941) . On tertullian.org ; last accessed on June 18, 2014.