User:Niyaz C/Kurna

New Qurna (or New Gourna)
New Qurna was built between 1946 and 1952 by Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy midway between the Colossi of Memnon and el-Gezira on the Nile on the main road to the Theban Necropolis to house the residents of the Qurna. '''New Qurna served to relocate the villagers, but it also served to be an experiment. The goal was to make the low cost buildings, as well as environment friendly structures.  With Old Qurna, there was not many vegetation due to the difficulties in accessing water. New Qurna was designed to improve on Old Qurna and solved problems such as difficulties in accessing water. New Qurna was built near the Nile River resulting more in the use of vegetation. Due to the village not having any electricity, cooling and heating techniques were implemented within New Qurna. With the weather being warm, it would still feel cool within the houses. When the weather would be cool, the homes would stay warm.''' The design, which combined traditional materials and techniques with modern principles was never completed and much of the fabric of the village has since been lost; all what remains today of the original New Qurna is the mosque, market and a few houses. UNESCO World Heritage conservation wishes to safeguard this important architectural site. The World Monuments Fund included New Qurna in the 2010 World Monuments Watch List of Most Endangered Sites.

New Qurna downside
'''Many of the buildings that were built had foundations of salt stones. Due to the high humidity, the salt stones would dissolve, causing the structure of the houses to fail. Villagers would need to adjust and fix their homes every few months in order for the house to remain intact.'''

Qurna (or Old Gourna)
Qurna is an abandoned village about 100m to the east of the Temple of Seti I. Until the early 19th century the community included at least parts of the Temple of Seti I. Several travellers, including Richard Pococke or Sonnini de Manoncourt even name a Sheikh of Qurna. Edward William Lane relates in 1825 that the village was abandoned and not a single inhabitant lived there. Comments by Isabella Frances Romer suggests that the resettling started in the late 1840s. Hassan Fathy alleges that the inhabitants of Qurna lived in poverty and thus were robbing ancient tombs as means of subsistence. '''Families of the villagers settled down on top of the selected tombs where they would build their houses. Villagers built alongside the tombs, as the tombs became apart of the house. Looted items would either be sold, or kept around the homes of the villagers. ( https://daneshyari.com/article/preview/1107646.pdf cite this )'''In order to stop the looting the Department of Antiquities expropriated the land on which the Qurnis lived and decided to move them to a new settlement, to be designed and built by Hassan Fathy himself. '''No two houses in the village are the same. Kurnis built and shaped the houses and all of the furniture within; including any kind of chairs, tables, beds. ( )'''New Qurna was built in the 1940s and early 1950 to house the then residents who strongly resisted the move.