Bayt al-Kritliyya — the house of the Cretan woman

OVERVIEW

The Gayer-Anderson Museum, beside the Mosque of Ahmad ibn Tulun in Sayyida Zeinab, is one of the few examples of 17th-century domestic architecture left in Cairo. The larger house was built in 1632 by Hajj Mohammad ibn al-Hajj Salem ibn Galman al-Gazzar and later belonged to a wealthy Muslim woman from Crete, hence Bayt al-Kritliyya, 'house of the Cretan woman'.

HISTORY

When the government cleared houses from the mosque walls in 1928, the Committee for the Conservation of Arab Monuments saved this one. From 1935 Major Robert Gayer-Anderson Pasha, a retired army officer and collector, lived there and filled it with his collection; in 1942 he left Egypt in ill health and gave the contents to the state. Part of The Spy Who Loved Me was filmed there.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

Gayer-Anderson collected the legends of the house and published them as Legends of the House of the Cretan Woman: that it stands on the remains of Gebel Yashkur, the 'Hill of Thanksgiving', where Noah's Ark came to rest and the last of the Flood drained through the courtyard well; that God spoke to Moses on this spot; that the house is protected by a shaykh, Haroun al-Husseini, buried under one corner, who blinded three men who tried to rob it so that they stumbled about the house for three days and nights until caught; and that a lover gazing into the well sees the face of the beloved instead of their own. Recorded as the house's legends.

VISITING

Open as a museum off Abd al-Magid al-Labban Street, Sayyida Zeinab; about 1 km from Sayyida Zeinab metro station. Entrance and camera tickets apply.