Dr. Moustafa Elfeki, Director of the BA, honored the late Journalist Zuhair El-Shayeb, and his daughter, Dr. Mona El-Shayeb, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Archaeology, Cairo University, for translating the French encyclopedic work Description De l’Egypte into Arabic. This came as part of the “Description De l’Egypte .. A Reading through Time and Place” seminar, which was organized by the BA on Tuesday, 22 October 2019, in light of the joint statement issued by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and President Emmanuel Macron, declaring 2019 an Egyptian-French cultural year.
Dr. Elfeki said that the late Zuhair El-Shayeb made a huge effort to present a thorough translation of the Description De l’Egypte at his own expense, and that his effort was continued by his daughter as she published several volumes of this highly significant work. Moreover, he asserted that three years of the French Expedition had a remarkable cultural impact on Egypt that was better than that of the British Occupation. He also noted that the French Expedition had left behind civil laws that are still used today, in addition to many schools of great quality and excellence.
The seminar was attended by Journalist Sherif El-Shoubashy, Dr. Ayman Fouad Sayed, Professor of Islamic History, and President of the Egyptian Society of Historical Studies, Dr. Rania Ezz El-Arab, Associate Professor of French Civilization at Alexandria University, Ms. Marie-Dominique Nenna, Head of the Centre d'etudes Alexandrines, and Felix Montserrat, Researcher at the Institut français d'archéologie orientale.