APS : Sunday, 30 October 2016
ALGIERS – Minister of Culture Azzedine Mihoubi and his Egyptian Counterpart Helmy al Nemnem have agreed on Sunday in Algiers to “reinforce” the cooperation relations in all the various cultural fields, by launching “projects on the ground” in archaeology, cinema, theatre and publishing.
“Teams of Egyptian and Algerian archaeologists will conduct studies and searches in some Algerian regions, which include graves and ‘pyramids’,” said Mihoubi during a meeting with his Egyptian counterpart.
Egypt is the guest of honor at the 21st International Book Fair of Algiers (SILA).
Those graves require “deep search to be conducted by experts,” the minister said, underlining that the Egyptian experience “is proven in terms of tombs and pyramids.”
Algeria “needs this experience,” he said.
Algeria possesses a certain number of pyramidal graves like “Al Ajdar” in Tiaret. Those graves are Berber mausoleums dating back to the first centuries after Jesus Christ.
Moreover, Mihoubi had recently announced that there was a project to classify these graves as universal heritage of humankind.
Algeria also encompasses the Royal Mausoleum of Mauretania in Tipaza, locally named “Qabr erroumia” (the Tomb of the Foreigner).
The Tomb was reportedly built by King Juba II in tribute to the memory of his Egyptian spouse Cleopatra Selene II.
The minister stressed the “importance for promoting co-publishing” and the need to publicize the Algerian cultural and literature movement in Egypt and vice versa.”
The Egyptian minister, as for him, emphasized the importance that this cooperation be “permanent,” and called for “enlarging it” to publishing, cinema, opera, search and training in archaeology.
Conferences on historical figures, who represented “a bridge” between the two countries like Emir Abdelkader, Imam Mohamed Abdou and Sheikh of Al Azhar Mohamed El-Akhdar Hussein, with Algerian descents have been organized, Al Nemnem said
Algeria will be the guest of honor at the 49th International Book Fair of Cairo in 2018.
