Stephane Pradines

Stephane Pradines
Professor Stephane Pradines is an archaeologist and Professor of Islamic Art and Architecture at London’s Aga Khan University Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations. He was the director of many excavations in Cairo, the Indian Ocean and East Africa. He is a specialist of Muslim material culture of war: military architecture, and arms and armour and also of medieval trade in the Indian Ocean and Swahili archaeology and architecture. He is the author and editor of many books, most recently Muslim Cultures in the Indian Ocean (2023).

Archaeological excavations in Islamic Cairo, 2000-2016
In 1998, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) began creating a huge panoramic park in the heart of Islamic Cairo. In 1999, the discovery of the 12th-century historic City Wall built by Salah ed-Din presented an opportunity for AKTC to use what was once an urban division to unify and link a range of development initiative. Several city gates were restored, connecting the park to the medieval city. The archaeological mission’s aim was to establish a history of Cairo’s fortifications. Initially limited to the park, the project quickly incorporated the whole eastern walls of medieval Cairo and created an opportunity to study the urban medieval fabric in Cairo. The project included the largest field school in Islamic archaeology ever created in Egypt and Middle East.