Stoppeleare House - REVISITED.
Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2018 6:16 pm
in my early years on the W.B. Luxor, I came across many people who were told, and believed that the house at the top of the hill near Sitt Zeban, at the cross roads to the King's Valley was Carter House. Unfortunately, I am guilty of never telling any one the truth, except for one person, being that throughout these early years the true Cater House was hidden by trees and another building, now gone that was used by th Japanese mission who worked in the Western Valley. The one person I did correct was a young chap visiting Luxor, who told me that if that was Carter House, how come he never saw the thieves that stole everything from the tomb of Amenhotep 1, at the top of the hill that is part of Dra Abu el Naga, which of course is directly across from Stoppeleare House.
I have heard many different stories about the history of Stoppeleare House, so I will put a few things right. Alexander Stoppeleare was from Belgium, during the late 1940's he was a sort of chief inspector of antiquities and employed directly by the Egyptian Government. The house was finally built and completed under the direction of Hassan Fathy, but unfortunately never used because of the Egyption Revolution in 1952, when Stoppeleare and all other foreigners left the country.
The house from that period until almost quite recently has been left to rot. I was in there about 20 years ago, there were huge cracks throughout the whole mud brick building, it was very dark, with a strange whistling sound from the wind coming through the shutters from the West. It had an enclosed garden quadrangle within the building, where I noticed a rather large tree, which was totally out of place. Of all the things I remember about the place, the strangest was the door bell, as you approached the house, it was certainly European and totally out of place, though I am sure it would have put a smile on Hassan Fathy's face at the time. Anyone approaching the house, either walking or motorised vehicle, would have been heard long before the bell had been wrung.
During the John Romer days, he ignored the place, simply because, I suspect, it was rather a stupid place to perch a house. Any one who lives on the WB, away from a village knows only too well, the very cold night West winds in Winter, and the very hot East winds in Summer. Romer and his team carefully restored Davis House, which I think he believed most future tourist would read a book on the main subject, and realise that dig house was far more historically important than Carter House, or any other for that matter.
Twenty years later in the year 2000 Kent Weeks took a keen interest in restoring the Stoppeleare House, perhaps because Prince Charles had specially requested to visit the house on a trip to Egypt, a few years earlier. I do know that the Egyptian Government of the day offered no money towards restoration plans, so nothing happened.
Moving on now to almost another twenty years, enter stage left, a so called 'not for profit company' called Factum Foundation of Spain, the company that specialises in 'digital mediation in contemporary art, and the production of facsimiles', along with a team called The Thebian Necropolis Preservation Initiative, and a couple of other institutes with equally long names, plus UNESCO, have piled in a small fortune to restore Stoppeleare House, unfortunately the Egyptian Government could help financially in any way possible. Earlier this year at the official opening of the new 3D Scanning, Archiving and Training Centre, now based at the newly restored Stoppeleare House, among the guest was the Egyptian Minister for Antiquities,.................I wonder if he had reminded the others that Stoppeleare House was theirs for 10 years only, after that it return to the ownership of the Egyptian Government.
I have heard many different stories about the history of Stoppeleare House, so I will put a few things right. Alexander Stoppeleare was from Belgium, during the late 1940's he was a sort of chief inspector of antiquities and employed directly by the Egyptian Government. The house was finally built and completed under the direction of Hassan Fathy, but unfortunately never used because of the Egyption Revolution in 1952, when Stoppeleare and all other foreigners left the country.
The house from that period until almost quite recently has been left to rot. I was in there about 20 years ago, there were huge cracks throughout the whole mud brick building, it was very dark, with a strange whistling sound from the wind coming through the shutters from the West. It had an enclosed garden quadrangle within the building, where I noticed a rather large tree, which was totally out of place. Of all the things I remember about the place, the strangest was the door bell, as you approached the house, it was certainly European and totally out of place, though I am sure it would have put a smile on Hassan Fathy's face at the time. Anyone approaching the house, either walking or motorised vehicle, would have been heard long before the bell had been wrung.
During the John Romer days, he ignored the place, simply because, I suspect, it was rather a stupid place to perch a house. Any one who lives on the WB, away from a village knows only too well, the very cold night West winds in Winter, and the very hot East winds in Summer. Romer and his team carefully restored Davis House, which I think he believed most future tourist would read a book on the main subject, and realise that dig house was far more historically important than Carter House, or any other for that matter.
Twenty years later in the year 2000 Kent Weeks took a keen interest in restoring the Stoppeleare House, perhaps because Prince Charles had specially requested to visit the house on a trip to Egypt, a few years earlier. I do know that the Egyptian Government of the day offered no money towards restoration plans, so nothing happened.
Moving on now to almost another twenty years, enter stage left, a so called 'not for profit company' called Factum Foundation of Spain, the company that specialises in 'digital mediation in contemporary art, and the production of facsimiles', along with a team called The Thebian Necropolis Preservation Initiative, and a couple of other institutes with equally long names, plus UNESCO, have piled in a small fortune to restore Stoppeleare House, unfortunately the Egyptian Government could help financially in any way possible. Earlier this year at the official opening of the new 3D Scanning, Archiving and Training Centre, now based at the newly restored Stoppeleare House, among the guest was the Egyptian Minister for Antiquities,.................I wonder if he had reminded the others that Stoppeleare House was theirs for 10 years only, after that it return to the ownership of the Egyptian Government.
