CEMETERY OF ASTROLOGER MAHMOUD FALAKI PASHA
Mahmud Ahmad Hamidi, later known as Mahmud Pasha al-Falaki, was born in a small village in the town of Gharbiyya. Recognizing his precocious intellect, vice-regent Abbas Pasha sent him on an educational mission to France in 1853. Upon his return, he would create the first complete topographical map of Egypt and become president of the Khedivial Geographic society. An astronomer and a geographer among other things, Falaki was the first to theorize that the pyramids were built for astronomical purposes. He was buried in 1885 in a mosque built to perpetuate his memory under a deep blue dome--an appropriate choice for Egypt's first modern astronomer.
photos by Anna Della Subin