The Resting Place

Cemeteries can tell you a lot about a society. Technically speaking, a Muslim should be wrapped in a white cloth after death and buried in an unmarked grave in the desert. With a history of pyramid and tomb building, one can imagine that this particular tradition didn't sit too well in Egypt. So now we have tombs that are small rooms or small houses...not terribly Islamic, but very Egyptian. Near the cities, tombs are often small rooms or houses built of brick, but in the countryside they are very small structures as a rule with only enough room for a body.