Two Egyptian journalists claimed that they manage to find the burial place of the decorations and installations of the Pharonic city that was built for the American epic "The Ten Commandments" produced by director Cecile B. DeMille.
The film which was based on the 1949 novel Prince of Egypt by Dorothy Clarke Wilson, was released in 1956 and its external scenes were filmed in Egypt, and starred "Charlton Heston", "Paul Breiner" and "Anne Baxter".
Journalist and writer, Muhammad Al-Shamaa, with his teammate Abdel-Majid Abdel-Aziz, who also a journalist and researcher said that they relied on US and Egyptian sources in their search of the location of the movie, including engineer Anis Serageldin, who was the designer of the movie decorations in Egypt and information provided by Egyptologist Zahi Hawass.
DeMille reproduced his epic movie in color in 1956 after first released in 1923, which was shot in the California desert. The second edition was filmed in Egypt, the actual place of the novel’s events, where Prophet Moses' journey and the Exodus have occurred.
The US director built a giant location, which was the largest at this time, representing the city of Seti I, and it included a huge gate of more than 100 feet high, in addition to four huge statues of Ramses II, each 35 feet long, and 16 Sphinx statues were placed before the gate.
The discovered location according to a report published in Arablite platform, claims that the film location was in the village of “Bani Youssef” located south of Giza.
According to the report, the Egyptian authorities provided support for the moviemakers at this time, requesting the director to leave the installations to become a cinematic landmark and a witness to this unique work, however, DeMille ordered his team to dismantle and buried all decorations and pieces that were made for the shooting the scenes after he finished filming, fearing that other studios would take advantage of the location if he left it.
The two journalists said they are seeking through this investigative report to push the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities to conduct excavations at the site they identified, with the aim of ensuring the presence of decorations and extracting them to be a distention for cinema’s fans.
Al-Shamaa, and Abdel-Aziz said that a similar effort in searching for the location of the first edition of the movie was conducted by the US journalist Peter Brosnan, who manage to find it in (1983).
And now the installations are displayed in Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center in Texas.
Previously, Al-Shamaa, and Abdel-Aziz, sparked debate after an investigative report to shed the light on the mysterious disappearance of two Egyptian actors where no one was able to know many their destiny, while rumors widely circulated among Egyptians that one of them was a spy for Egypt in Israel, but the report confirmed that they were living and moving between European countries and their journey ended up in Spain.
Comments
Leave a Comment