The BA Releases the Prince of Maps as Part of Aref Film Series
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The Bibliotheca Alexandrina has released a new film entitled Prince of Maps: The Kamal Collection as part of its short documentary series Aref... Your Origin, Your Future. The film highlights Prince Youssef Kamal's unique encyclopedia, which is an unparalleled geographical and historical piece of heritage that comprises maps of Egypt and Africa over the centuries.
The film showcases this unique encyclopedia and reveals the passionate ingenuity of Prince Youssef Kamal. He was a lover of Egypt, a traveler, an explorer of antiquities, an art lover, the founder of the School of Fine Arts in 1905, and a national politician who took part in the 1919 revolution. For nearly 13 years, Prince Youssef had been roaming the world's most prestigious libraries and museums in Paris, London, the Vatican, Vienna, Berlin, and Leiden, collecting all the maps that document the geographical development of Egypt, Africa, and the Nile Basin from pre-Ptolemaic times to the beginning of the European Renaissance.
This film is part of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina's ongoing efforts to document Egypt's rich cultural and historical heritage and make it accessible to the public in an engaging and inspiring way, with the aim of promoting awareness of shared identity and history, and highlighting how the pages of history and maps tell the greatest stories about exceptional personalities and entire continents.
The film can be viewed on "Aref" official website or through the "Aref" playlist on the BA official YouTube channel in the following links:
https://reels.cultnat.org
https://youtu.be/Ngs70qb-DiA?si=MARsQdWSqPNtsGj1