2012

El Gazayerli Encyclopedia for Alexandria’s Street Names

Alex Med published the El-Gazayerli Encyclopedia for Street Names of Alexandria, compiled over a period of 30 years and completed in 1967, the Encyclopedia comprises information about the names of Alexandria’s streets, linking the city’s past history with its present.

2011

Sacred Places & Popular Places in the Mediterranean

Cultural Routes: Sacred Places and Popular Practice in the Mediterranean is a research project funded by Ramses2. The project’s findings, which are included in this book, fill a gap in the knowledge of sacred sites of different faiths, as well as highlighting the role of interconfessional dialogue and exchange. The book begins with a journey in the past and present to six major sanctuaries of antiquity that have become places of worship of Christian martyrs and saints in Greece. It then travels to Alexandria to deal with three cults related to the city during the Greco-roman period, and it presents the Coptic faith, Greek Orthodoxy in Egypt and Jewish pilgrimage sites deeply connected to Alexandria and its environs. It also deals with moulids in the city. Finally, the journey takes the readers to eastern side of the Iberian Peninsula to discover the holy caves of the middle and modern ages.

2010

Seven Days at the Cecil

About the Book :

“Alexandria… How can one recover the city of his childhood? What nostalgic pull wills him back to the traces of his past? A wish, perhaps, to find in secret corners the Alexandrian child that once was? With the writing of a guidebook to Alexandria – a pretext, of sorts – the different descent into the abyss of memory is attempted, deep in the myth and the history of a universal city. When the clepsydra is reserved, seven days need suffice for this esoteric pursuit of a place both celestial and earthly. The material holds the immaterial, waiting through the centuries for each soul who longs to return. Landmarks of the past are still there: the Cecil Hotel, the Corniche, Ramleh, Gomrok el Adim, Sidi Bishr, the Rue Fouad, Chatby, Qait Bey… But where will your steps lead you now that no familiar faces remain to warm your sight, now that beloved voices have fallen silent?”



About the Author:

Harry Tzalas was born in Alexandria in 1936 and educated at the French schools. His parents, too, were both Alexandrian-born, his grandparents having settled there at the end of the 19th century.
In 1956, when the exodus of the European communities from Egypt was at its peak, in 1959 he left for Greece, settled in Athens as a marine consultant, he has been actively involved in marine archaeology and the topography of ancient and mediaeval Alexandria.
He established the Hellenic Institute for Ancient and mediaeval Alexandrian Studies in 1997, and since then, has been leading periodic underwater archaeological surveys off the Alexandrian coast.
Seven Days at the Cecil is his second book of short stories translated into English; the first is Farewell to Alexandria.

2009

A Taste of Alexandria

Editors: Mohamed Awad and Sahar Hamouda

This book will take you on a journey through the existing as well as lost eaters of Alexandria, all the way from Agami in the west to Abu Kir in the east. On the way, take your pick of the goodies offered by street vendors and learn about the eating habits of the different communities - it’s all a taste of Alexandria. Try recipes from around the Mediterranean and sample dishes served during occasions and festivities. Your journey in space and time will help you savor the flavor of gastronomy in cosmopolitan Alexandria !

2008

Cocktails and Camels

Author: Jacqueline Carol

Cocktails and Camels is a lively and humorous portrait of a family of Lebanese origins living in the heyday of cosmopolitan Alexandria during the 1930s and 1940s. The reader discovers the heroine’s extensive family of cousins, aunts and uncles, and sees a vivid picture of a Mediterranean lifestyle typical of interwar Alexandria. The author wittily evokes the diversity of cultures in a thousand small details that make this book a delightful read from beginning to end.

2007

The Birth of the Seventh Art in Alexandria
Catalogue

Editors: Mohamed Awad and Sahar Hamouda

This catalogue celebrates the centennial of the birth of the seventh art in Egypt. It boasts an impressive list of firsts in Egypt which all took place in Alexandria: the first screening of a Lumière brothers’ film in the Toussoun Bourse in 1896, the inauguration of the first cinema hall in 1897, the shooting of the first French film Alexandria’s Place des Consuls in 1897, the first film studio in Egypt established by Aziz and Dorés in 1907, and the first Egyptian short documentary filmed by photographers Aziz and Dorés in 1907, to name but a few. This publication was part of the AlexCinema project funded by the European Union.

2006

Voices from Cosmopolitan Alexandria

Editors: Mohamed Awad and Sahar Hamouda

Voices from Cosmopolitan Alexandria is an oral narrative of Alexandrians representing the communities and creeds that for decades made this city their home. Together, the voices tell the tale of the rich diversity, tolerance and cultural interaction that had created the cosmopolitan city par excellence: Alexandria. This book was part of the Mediterranean Voices: Oral History and Cultural Practices project funded by the European Union and coordinated by London Metropolitan University.

2006

The Hammams of Alexandria in the 19th and 20th Centuries
حمامات الإسكندرية في القرنين التاسع عشر والعشرين

During the period between March 2006 and October 2007, Alex Med undertook a survey of the bathhouses, or hammams, of Alexandria as part of its overall mission to study, document and preserve the city’s architectural and urban heritage. Use was made of multiple documents from the archives of the Alexandria law courts and municipality, which are kept in Dar el Watha’ak el Qaumayya (the National Archives), as well as other sources. During the course of this survey, an unknown hammam called the Hassan Abdallah Hammam, was discovered. In addition, reconstructions of the design of three hammams no longer in existence, were made according to detailed descriptions discovered in old documents. Finally, the geographic location of ancient and no longer existing hammams was ascertained using old maps.

The major findings of this survey were published in a book entitled Hammamat el Eskandarieh fe el Qarnien el Tas’a ‘ashar wal ‘ashreen in November 2007 to coincide with the fifth anniversary celebrations of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina.