[Editor: This postcard incorporates a photograph of an interior section of a church. It appears that the postcard was sent by a soldier who was stationed in Egypt in 1916, during the First World War (1914-1918).]
[Front of postcard]
Matarieh — Intérieur de la Chapelle.
[Description: A photograph of an interior section of a church.]
[Reverse of postcard]
Carte Postale
[Handwritten text, in italics]
Egypt
Dear Ethel,
This is a P.C. of a French Catholic Church; it is very old & very beautiful inside.
There are paintings all around the walls describing the coming & going of Christ.
There are some splendid statues of different ones connected with ancient history.
It is near the holy tree, a P.C. of which I am inclosing.
We visited this place on 11/2/1916.
Will
[No identifying information about the manufacturer was included on the postcard.]
Source:
Original document.
Editor’s notes:
Dimensions (approximate): 141 mm. (width), 91 mm. (height).
The French text printed on the front of the postcard, “Intérieur de la Chapelle”, means “Interior of the Chapel”.
The church in the postcard is the Holy Family Church, located in the El Matareya district of Cairo (Egypt). The church was built next to the Tree of Mary (also known as the Tree of the Virgin Mary), a sycamore tree under which the Virgin Mary is believed to have sheltered during a journey through Egypt by the Holy Family (Jesus, Mary, and Joseph).
See: 1) Ziad Khalifa, “The Holy Family Church in Matareya ”, Egypt Tour Packages [see the section “Catholic Church of the Holy Family”, which includes a photo of the same section of the building as depicted in the postcard]
2) “كنيسة العائلة المقدسة بالمطرية” (translation from Arabic: “Holy Family Church in Mataria”), Blessed Egypt [includes a photo of the same section of the building as depicted in the postcard]
3) “Holy Family in Matareya”, Blessed Egypt
4) “Matariya”, Holy Family in Egypt, 8 May 2017
5) “El Matareya, Cairo”, Wikipedia
Christ = Jesus Christ (also known as: Jesus the Christ, i.e. Jesus the Anointed, or Jesus the Messiah)
See: 1) “Jesus”, Wikipedia
2) “Christ (title)”, Wikipedia
3) “Jesus the Christ”, Unity
4) “Why is Jesus occasionally referred to as “The Christ”? Is there a different definition between the two?”, StackExchange
inclosing = an archaic spelling of “enclosing”
See: “Enclose vs. inclose”, Grammarist
Matarieh = an alternative spelling of El Matareya, being the name of a district of Cairo (Egypt) and the name of a coastal town in the Dakahlia Governorate (Egypt)
See: 1) “El Matareya, Cairo”, Wikipedia
2) “El Matareya, Dakahlia”, Wikipedia
P.C. = an abbreviation of “post card”
[Editor: For ease of reading, the original text has been separated into paragraphs; punctuation and capitalisation have been inserted as deemed appropriate.]
[Editor: Changed “around the the walls” to “around the walls”.]
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