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HANDS ON Traditional Crafts at The City of the Dead in Cairo
Hawd and Tomb of Qadi Muhammad Mawahib (No.456), A.D. 1685 / 1097 A.H.

The main structure, now barely visible behind later additions, is an open canopy with a pyramidal roof built of stone. Only a handful of similar structures now survive in the cemetery. In late Ottoman times, they were apparently the most popular form for tombs. The Description de l’Egypte, which shows the cemeteries as they looked around the year 1800, includes plates that show exclusively numerous such canopies.

 

The wide niche visible from the street in the stone wall of the enclosure was a hawd: a drinking-trough that offered water for animals as charity. It is a much less ornate structure than that of Sultan Qaitbey further north, but nonetheless an equally useful one.

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