Vintage Photographs of Egypt From Between the 1860s and 1890s

River view, Alexandria

The Adelphoi Zangaki (Zangaki Brothers) were two brothers of Greek origin, active as photographers in Ottoman Egypt from the 1860s through to the 1890s. Little is known about them, except their initials, C. and G., and that they worked out of Port Said and Cairo from around the 1860s through to at least the 1890s. Many of the Zangaki photographs are signed with a brother’s initial and/or a place of business, e.g., “C. Zangaki” or “Zangaki, Cairo” or occasionally “A. Zangaki”.

The two brothers specialized in photographing ancient monuments and scenes of everyday life, producing photographic prints for the tourist trade, but it remains unclear how they came to learn photography. However, shortly after their arrival in Egypt they had become established photographers with studios in Cairo and Port Said.

The Zangaki brothers traveled along the Nile, accompanied by a horse-drawn darkroom wagon to document the Egyptian scenery, architecture and events. Their pictures included views of the pyramids at Giza or the Sphinx and cities, as well of Egyptians going about their daily lives. They occasionally worked with the French photographer Hippolyte Arnoux in Port Said, documenting the works on the Suez Canal. They were also among the first commercial photographers to produce large-scale images of late 19th- century Egypt.

Students in the Al-Azhar Mosque, Cairo