In the Nile Valley and desert oases south of Cairo-Upper Egypt-surviving domestic buildings from the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries demonstrate a unique and varied strand of traditional decoration. Intricate patterns in wood, iron, or plaster adorn doorways, balconies, windows, and rooflines in towns and villages throughout the region.
One of the most distinctive cultural features of these traditional homes is the decorated wooden balcony-screen-with jigsaw-cut patterns often based on creative repetitions, inversions, and mirrorings of the Arabic letter waw-which...