chapter 2 Expanding Trades in Late Ottoman Cairo and Damascus The rising appeal of Islamic collectibles in Europe findings brought up by digs; Islamic artworks rep- and America set a pattern among those who vis- resented a marginal trade in comparison. Stock ited, or sojourned in, the Middle East: that of pro- of objects from the Islamic period seems indeed curing antiques locally and transporting them more limited in Cairo than in Damascus. As a back home. The sought-after artefacts were mostly matter of fact, established dealers specialising secured through formal trade. From the mid- in Islamic artworks emerged at a later stage in nineteenth century onwards, all indicators are that the Egyptian city. In contrast, the Syrian capital Cairo and Damascus became active market-places housed traders in Islamic curios since at least the for Islamic artworks, although the information is 1850s, and it remained for many decades the most fragmentary and unevenly distributed. Evidence renowned place for the abundance and quality of on antique dealing does exist for fin-de-siècle available antiques, whether arms, ceramics, metal- Egypt, but it mostly covers “Egyptian” objects, by work, or indeed architectural salvage. Most Syrian which are meant the Ancient pieces obtained pri- travelogues include a chapter on the riches of the marily at excavations, but also at the villages clos- bazaars, the lavish objects on display, and the opu- est to the ruins.1 No comparable documentation lence of Damascene merchants.2 Products, old and is available for Islamic artefacts produced under new, ranged from locally-made “silks, and embroi- Fatimid, Ayyubid, Mamluk, or Ottoman rule. Yet, dered scarfs,” to “carpets and curiously inlaid orna- some evidence for Cairo, as well as for Damascus, ments and caskets from Persia; shawls from Hind can be retrieved from a heterogeneous array of and Cashmere; weapons of every form and char- sources: Western travelogues, Arabic encyclopae- acter, richly ornamented with gold and gems.”3 dias, scholars’ papers, museum archives, private The distinction between authentic antiques and correspondence, and photography. The follow- Revival items appears rarely in the sources; both ing is an attempt to piece together this scattered seem to have catered to the same clientele. information. At the very least, the material allows A segment of the commodities came through for the outlining of significant timelines, primary the pilgrimage caravans from Baghdad and fur- locales, typical providers and characteristic objects; ther East; annually these conveyed thousands of it also offers some leads on the provenance of people to Damascus, who were eager to join the the objects. official convoy placed under the protection of the Ottoman sultan. They brought with them posses- sions to trade en route to, or back from, Mecca. 1 Distinctive Profiles and Iconic Artefacts Eastern goods of myriad provenances circulated As far as can be established, the development of a trade in historic goods followed quite distinct 2 For an example of the narrative, Jean-Jacques Bourassé, routes in Cairo and in Damascus. In Egypt, the La Terre-Sainte, voyage dans l’Arabie Pétrée, la Judée, la market was mainly geared towards archaeological Samarie, la Galilée et la Syrie (Tours: A. Mame et fils, 1860), 427. 3 Josias Leslie Porter, Five Years in Damascus: Including an 1 Frederik Hagen and Kim Ryholt, The Antiquities Trade Account of the History, Topography, and Antiquities of that in Egypt 1880–1930, The H.O. Lange Papers (Copenhagen: City; with Travels and Researches in Palmyra, Lebanon, and Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters, 2016). the Hauran (London: J. Murray, 1855), I: 31. © Mercedes Volait, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004449886_004 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Mercedes Volait - 9789004449886 Downloaded from Brill.com10/10/2021 10:22:26PM via free access Expanding Trades in Late Ottoman Cairo and Damascus 55 on the routes to the Holy City.4 The advent of In many of the sooks (bazaars) in Cairo auc- steamship meant that after the 1840s there was tions are held on stated days, once or twice a reduced number of caravans, but transit trade a week. They are conducted by “dellâls,” (or continued to be important to Damascus’ econ- brokers), hired either by private persons who omy, even after imported European goods domi- have anything that they wish to sell in this nated the commercial flows.5 The city remained a manner, or by shopkeepers; and the purchas- hub for exchanging used objects. In the hierarchy ers are of both these classes. The “dellâls” of Middle Eastern bazaars proposed by a tourist carry the goods up and down, announcing guide in 1907, Damascus still undoubtedly came the sums bidden with cries of “Harag” or first, while the Cairene souks were considered “haraj” etc. “inferior even to those of Constantinople.”6 The word dallāl comes from the Arabic verb Dalla, 1.1 Antique Dealing and Dealers in Cairo meaning “to show.” According to the Lanes, the An early mention of the trade in second-hand dallāl (pl. dallālīn) was a crier who loudly adver- commodities in late Ottoman Cairo appears in the tised second-hand goods for sale in Cairo streets, fifth edition of the classic Account of the Manners an equivalent to the practice of vendre à l’encan and Customs of the Modern Egyptians,7 written in in France. Until the 1800s, the dallālīn were 1833–35 by Edward William Lane after an extended exclusively Turkish; the function was opened to stay in the city. The text was expanded widely in Egyptians only after Mehmed Ali Pasha seized 1860 by his nephew Edward Stanley Poole based power in 1804.8 on the author’s original notes. Among the addi- John Frederick Lewis, the British artist who lived tions, one note brings to light the practice of auc- in Cairo from 1841 to 1851, composed a colourful tioning second-hand wares or fabric in the streets depiction of a scene that perfectly matches Lane’s of Cairo: written description.9 (Fig. 35) According to the architectural setting of the watercolour, the action takes place in the vicinity of the Khan al-Khalili, a large caravanserai that gave its name to the cen- 4 John Wilson, The Lands of the Bible, Visited and Described tral commercial area of historic Cairo. The Dutch in an Extensive Journey Undertaken with Special Reference artist Willem de Famars Testas (1834–96), who to the Promotion of Biblical Research and the Advancement of the Cause of Philanthropy (Edinburgh: William Whyte sojourned in Egypt in 1858–60, and visited again in & Co, 1847), I: 147–48; Marcus Milwright,“Trade and the 1868, also remarked on the presence of Cairene cri- Syrian Hajj between the 12th and the early 20th centuries”, ers (“crieurs publics”), populating the passageways in The Hajj: Collected Essays, eds. Venetia Porter and Liana of the Khan al-Khalili every Monday and Thursday. Saif (London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 2013), 28–35. This is how one could secure “interesting objects or 5 James Reilly, “Damascus Merchants and Trade in the curiosities,” according to Émile Prisse d’Avennes.10 Transition to Capitalism,” Canadian Journal of history XXVII (April 1992): 1–27. 6 Eustace Alfred Reynolds-Ball, Cairo of To-day: a Practical 8 André Raymond, Artisans et commerçants au Caire Guide to Cairo and the Nile (London: Adam and Charles au XVIIIe siècle (Damas: Presses de l’Ifpo, 1973) II: Black, 1907), 71. chapter XI [https://books.openedition.org/ifpo/4610], 7 Edward William Lane, Account of the Manners and accessed 13 March 2021. Customs of the Modern Egyptians Written in Egypt during 9 James Parry, Orientalist Lives, Western Artists in the the Years 1833–5, partly from notes made during a former Middle East, 1830–1920 (Cairo: AUC Press, 2018), 151. visit to that country in the years 1825, -26, -27 and -28, edited 10 “Le journal de voyage de Willem Famars de Testas, by his nephew, Edward Stanley Poole (London: J. Murray, 1868,” Maarten J. Raven, trans., in Album de voyage au 1860), 317. The observation does not appear in previous pays du Levant, exhibition catalogue (Paris: RMN, 1993), editions. 100–01. Mercedes Volait - 9789004449886 Downloaded from Brill.com10/10/2021 10:22:26PM via free access 56 chapter 2 figure 35 John Frederick Lewis, A Cairo Bazaar; The Dellál, 1875. Watercolour. 67.5 × 51 cm Cairo, The Shafik Gabr Collection The addition of the paragraph on the dallālīn in nineteenth century of a particular way of trading the 1860 edition of Lane’s Manners and customs second-hand commodities. may well correspond to the rising Western interest Listings of professional and commercial in acquiring “Oriental curiosities,” as they came to addresses in Cairo do not register any names be known in the literature and sources. It also tes- and locations of traders in antiques before 1890, tifies to the permanence of Ottoman practices in whether one searches under antiquaires (antique Khedivial Egypt, and the continuity well into the dealers) or négociants de curiosités (dealers in Mercedes Volait - 9789004449886 Downloaded from Brill.com10/10/2021 10:22:26PM via free access Expanding Trades in Late Ottoman Cairo and Damascus 57 curiosities).11 Early guides released in 1868 record Panayotis Kyticas (?–1924), is recorded as active merchants operating as importers or exporters of from 1879 (according to his letter-head) or 1890 all types of goods, the only specified trade being, elsewhere.16 Discrepancies in the sources may significantly, that of nouveautés (the latest fash- be due to the fact that some business took place ion), from Paris and London.12 Antiques were still in the privacy of homes rather than in the open- not common currency, nor of particular interest ness of the bazaar.