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Egypt’s ancient pyramids at Giza to get a makeover

CAIRO: The monuments are glorious, but visiting Egypt’s Giza Pyramids has long been a nightmare, with hawkers peddling camel rides and pharaonic trinkets hustling tourists at every turn.

But now the hustlers are gone, as Egypt unveiled on Monday the first stage of an elaborate project to modernise the site and make it more tourist-friendly, while also putting in improved security — including a 12-mile chain-link fence with cameras, alarms and motion detectors surrounding the site.

“It was a zoo,” Zahi Hawass, Egypt’s chief archaeologist, said of the usual free-for-all at the pyramids. “Now we are protecting both tourists and... monuments.”

The three Giza Pyramids have long been unusually open for a 5,000-year-old Wonder of the World, especially compared to other world-renowned sites like Greece’s Acropolis, Jerusalem’s Western Wall or Rome’s Colosseum, where security is tight and the movement of visitors is controlled.

The pyramids stand on a desert plateau that was once isolated, but in the capital’s expansion in past decades slums have been built right to its edge, separated only by a low stone wall in parts. The rest of the area was wide open to the desert.

Hawkers — many from the nearby impoverished neighbourhoods looking to benefit from the tourist dollar — have had free rein, and have become notorious. Tourists undergo a constant barrage from peddlers selling mock-ups of pharaonic statues and scarabs, T-shirts and other trinkets, or are followed by men on camels selling rides or photos — and rarely taking no for an answer. Young men even try to force their way into taxi cabs carrying foreigners toward the pyramids, looking to steer them to nearby horse stables for a ride.

But tourists have taken their own liberties as well. Since the 19th century, climbing the Pyramid of Khufu, the biggest of the three, was a favourite past-time for visitors, continuing into the 1970s — with the occasional fatal fall of an inebriated tourist.

Since then, authorities have cracked down on climbing the giant 2.5-tonne blocks, though visitors can still freely ramble around the pyramid grounds, where many tombs and other archaeological sites remain only partially excavated and vulnerable to damage.

The new technology will do away with shenanigans by both sides. Kamal Wahid, the site’s general director, said the system would ensure vendors and tourists “be good,” and, more important, improve security. — AP

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