So the other day I attended the event where the Arabian Horse Website of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina was launched, thanks to the efforts of Amr Shalabi. It is a nice portal that ambitions to gather the existing archives and documentation pertaining to Arabian horse breeding in Egypt. The event included a number of presentations, including an interesting one about equestrian matters in the Mamluk era by a local university professor, and an comprehensive one about Tahawi Arabian horse breeding by Yasser Ghanem. The Tahawis are supplying some archival materials including copies of hujaj to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina project. To me the most interesting aspect of that evening was the venue in which it took place. That’s the house (well, the palace) of Ibrahim Katkhuda El Sennari, which is now the Cairo antenna of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and is located in an Old Cairo street known as Harat Monge (Monge’s street). This Monge is none other than French mathematician Gaspard Monge, the father of differential geometry, who along with a host of other scientists from all disciplines, accompanied Napoleon Bonaparte on his Egypt campaign. The house, known as Beyt El Sennari, was built by Ibrahim Katkhuda El Sennari, a wealthy occultist-turned-politician…