Antique items for sale, tales of extinct Egyptian professions

"Mizj Publishing and Distribution" presents "Old Things for Sale: Tales of Vanished Egyptian Professions." Books abound with the histories of princes, presidents, and sultans, biographies of scholars and innovators, and captivating stories of the luminaries of their eras. They also contain accounts of enslavement, occupation, and liberation, as well as narratives from the perspectives of colonizers, orientalists, and Arabists. Yet, rarely does one find anyone writing the history of the street, its ordinary people, and their everyday professions. Therefore, I decided to search for the marginalized sons of our Egyptian street and the practitioners of obscure professions. And the number of professions that have disappeared from our Egyptian street is considerable. Perhaps you will no longer find the water carrier, the calligrapher, the hairdresser, the monkey trainer, or the magician, and perhaps the new generation will know nothing about them, just as I know nothing about many of the vanished professions. This book is an attempt to document the history of some of these professions and an invitation to shed light on those that have disappeared, those that are breathing their last, and those that are struggling to survive. Within this endeavor lies an effort to write a parallel history of the Egyptian street, a history in which the street can speak for itself and tell its "ordinary" stories.