Of Bounds and Coffers

Ziada, Hazem ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1848-1290 (2017) Of Bounds and Coffers. Jadaliyya.

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Abstract

This article deconstructs the 1946 Bounds Map of Cairo (Egypt), produced by the British Ministry of Defense over a 1943 base-map by the Survey of Egypt. Overlaid in pink hue, the (de)classified map depicts areas considered “Out of Bounds” for British occupation troops and personnel, and for remnants of WWII allied troops under Great Britain’s unified command for the Middle East headquartered in Egypt. The boundary frames an area of safe movement within modern Cairo for those two armies, some 140,000 strong throughout Egypt during the war. The pink overlay simultaneously suppresses and reveals more layers of reading. This article attempts only a pointed exposé. With the aid of other historical maps besides socio-economic studies on the periods from the late-nineteenth century through post-WWII, the article pares three primary layers of this palimpsest. This archaeology of maps defamiliarizes a city romanticized in Egyptian and Arab memory through interwar black and white film. The article reveals peculiar urban formations nestled in Cairo’s fabric, evolving over time but consolidating particularly after WWI. Such formations allowed downtown Cairo to play crucial socio-economic and military roles during that period, and whose impacts on the fabric pronounce significant discontinuities from surrounding areas. Exposing the map’s implicit layers and buried traces, the article sheds new light on Cairo’s socio-spatial history, and establishes grounds for future research on their deeper causes.