That little bit of Egypt in Sunderland …… Imperial stories ….. and personal memories

It’s odd how a name and a memory from over half a century ago sometimes pop back and remind me of a time long ago.

Tel-El-Kebir Road, 2022

The memory is of Tel- El-Kebir Road in Sunderland which I came across in the early 70s.

I was living just south of Sunderland in Seaham Harbour and for reasons now long lost we would regularly pass the road which resonated with me.  

I will have checked out the name as the site of a battle in 1882 in which a Franco British force defeated elements of the Egyptian army, and surmised the road was in honour of the victory.

At the time I took it no further, and today sitting in Manchester I don’t have access to the sort of detail which would offer up when the road was cut who decided on the name and what the residents thought at the time.

There are only 4 places named after the battle.  Two are here in the UK and two in Australia.  The Australian connection makes sense given that during the Great War Australian soldiers were based at a camp located at Tel- El-Kebir.

Of the British sites one is Hendon in Sunderland and the other is Pontypridd in Wales. 

Detail from the Storming of Tel-El-Kebir, 1883

The obvious explanation for the commemoration of the battle is a connection with those who fought at Tel-El-Kebir.  Now I know the names of some of the regiments which were there including the Black Watch, Gordon Highlanders and The Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of the Highland Brigade, along with the Guards the 19th Hussars and units of Indian Army.

The Storming of Tel-El-Kebir, 1883

But as yet despite trawling the papers of the time I can’t find a “line of battle”, and so our road may just have got its name from an excess of Imperial enthusiasm.

The answer may lie in a local newspaper, or someone might come forward with the answer.

And given the times Tel- El-Kebir Road could just undergo a name change.

It is perhaps time for such a change and I doubt it will alter my memories. 

Location; Hendon, Sunderland

Picture; The Storming of Tel-El-Kebir, 1883, Alphonse-Marie-Adolphe de Neuville, National Museums Scotland, Accession number, M.1952.50 and Tel-El-Kebir Road, Hendon, Sunderland, 2022, courtesy of Google Maps & Google Earth

The Egyptian story ........Nefertiti .... one to listen to

Today I shall be listening to a discussion on Nefertiti and that image of this Egyptian  woman.

Nefertiti

It is on the In Our Time series on BBC Radio 4 today and there after by following the link.

"Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the woman who inspired one of the best known artefacts from ancient Egypt. 

The Bust of Nefertiti is multicoloured and symmetrical, about 49cm/18" high and, despite the missing left eye, still holds the gaze of onlookers below its tall, blue, flat topped headdress. 

Its discovery in 1912 in Amarna was kept quiet at first but its display in Berlin in the 1920s caused a sensation, with replicas sent out across the world. Ever since, as with Tutankhamun perhaps, the concrete facts about Nefertiti herself have barely kept up with the theories, the legends and the speculation, reinvigorated with each new discovery.

With, Aidan Dodson, Honorary Professor of Egyptology at the University of Bristol, Joyce Tyldesley, Professor of Egyptology at the University of Manchester and Kate Spence, Senior Lecturer in Egyptian Archaeology at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Emmanuel College

Producer: Simon Tillotson"*

Picture; Picture of the Nefertiti bust in Neues Museum, Berlin,Philip Pikart,2009, I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby publish it under the following licenses: GNU head Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License.

*Nefertiti, In Our Time, BBC Radio 4, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001vbnb