MELIK (photographer). Egypt – Denshawai Incident 1906.

A rare pamphlet illustrating the execution of Egyptian villagers by British forces.

Oblong small folio (193 x 275 mm.) 6 collotype plates showing the executions, signed by Melik in the plate, each with explanatory text in Ottoman Turkish on verso. (Some light spotting). Original printed stapled wrappers with red star and crescent to upper cover (light browning and soiling, a few faint creases).

On 13th June 1906, a group of British officers arrived in the Egyptian village of Denshawai to shoot pigeons. The pigeons they shot turned out to belong to local villagers, who naturally remonstrated with the officers. In the resulting fracas the officers opened fire, wounding a female villager and further enraging the Egyptians who then set upon the officers with sticks and stones. One British officer, who managed to escape the scene, fled towards camp before collapsing and dying, presumably from heat stroke. The British seized upon his death as an opportunity to administer severe punishment to the villagers, returning the next day to arrest fifty-two men in the village, four of whom were sentenced to death while many others were given hard labour or ordered to be flogged. The first four plates in this pamphlet illustrate the lead-up to the execution by hanging of the four villagers, while the last two plates show others being flogged. This incident, which had its roots in an ill-conceived desire to suppress any Egyptian discontent with the British, had, in the long run, the disastrous effect of enflaming Egyptian nationalism and anti-colonial sentiments.

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