Egypt court removes encroachments on Champollion House

Egyptian court ordered on Sunday the 26th of March the restoration of the abandoned palace of Said Halim Pasha, known as Champollion House, to begin.

The lawsuit was brought forward by Egyptian tour guide Sally Salah El-Din, complaining that the palace has been turned into storage for the surrounding workshops.

Salah El-Din said that the workers encroached on the palace and used the yard and the chambers for personal storage, which damaged the premise.

The palace was built in the late 1890s in Downtown Cairo, by Italian architect Antonio Lasciac, the Alexandria’s Montaza Palace architect. The palace is now a forgotten relic of Egypt.

The palace was designed by marble and stone imported directly from Italy. The palace was constructed over the period of 4 years, and was later gifted by Said Halim Pasha to his wife Emine İnci Tosun.

Halim was the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1917, however, his involvement in politics led to his demise.

He was one of the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide during the First World War, which led to his banishment to Malta and then to Rome, where he was assassinated for his crimes by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation.

The palace fell in the hands of King Fuad I in Egypt, who ordered the palace be converted to a school. The school was called El Nasriyah, and was considered one of the leading schools in Egypt until it closed down in 1952.

The palace was reportedly used in the 1952 revolution as training grounds for the soldiers, and has been abandoned ever since.

Nesreen El Khatib, an Egyptian photographer, made a photoshoot in 2019 of the abandoned palace. The photoshoot was inspired by the beliefs that Emine İnci Tosun’s apparition haunts the palace. The photoshoot depicts a woman in white, to represent Tosun. The photoshoot participated in Beirut Image Festival.