The Eighteenth Dynasty (1550-1292 BC) were the biggest property developers of ancient Egypt. They kicked off the New Kingdom, ancient Egypt’s ‘Golden Age’, and successfully reversed the property slump of the preceding Second Intermediate Period. So cheer up, things are bound to improve, they always have. Two of the Dynasty’s most prolific developers were Queen Hatshepsut and Thutmose III, her stepson and nephew (work that one out!) Let’s try. Thutmose III was the son of Thutmose II by his ‘secondary’ wife, Iset. When Thutmose Senior died, Thutmose Junior was too young to rule, so Thutmose Senior’s ‘primary’ wife, Hatshepsut became Pharaoh. Thutmose Jr wanted to become Pharaoh, so, to bolster his Royal claim, married Hatshepsut’s (and his father’s) daughter Neferure. Hopefully readers in Norfolk and Kentucky are following this. I still don’t get the aunt bit.

Anyway, the upturn in the New Kingdom economy gave Hatshepsut the pharonic clout and slave-power she needed for some serious building projects. In an early example of Girl Power, she resolved to out-build all of Egypt’s previous tomb-builders and earn herself a place in construction history. Hatshepsut’s personal Trump Tower is the mortuary temple complex at Deir el-Bahri. Pedants might point out that, unlike Trump Tower, Hatshepsut’s complex was built for dead people. Well, yes, technically they were all dead, but they believed they were immortal, so let’s not split hairs.

The focus of the complex is the awe-inspiring Djeser-Djeseru (Holy of Holies,) Hatshepsut’s Temple. It’s not known how many architects tendered for the project, but the contract went, unsurprisingly, to Hatshepsut’s lover, Senemut. Senemut’s design included a vast number of royal and non-royal tombs. It was common practice, in the New Kingdom, to move mummies around from time to time, and from tomb to tomb, and here’s where the timeshare and fractional ownership come in.

Hatshepsut’s first tomb was built when she was still Great Royal Wife of Thutmose II, but when she became Pharaoh, she knew she’d need a bigger tomb, so built a new one, now known as KV20. She then dug up her father Thutmose I from his tomb (KV38) and put his mummy in a Grandad-flat in tomb KV20. When she died, Thutmose III moved his Grandad back to KV38 and moved Auntie Hatshepsut’s mummy into the tomb of her wet-nurse, Sitre-Re (KV60.) Further confusion about Hatshepsut’s whereabouts followed when an ivory box was found in the Royal Mummy Cache at DB320. The box contained a mummified liver, and was inscribed ‘Hatshepsut.’ Fractional ownership indeed.

Tomb-looting was a problem even back then. In about 1000 BC, 153 priests had to move the mummies of forty Pharaohs, including Thutmose III, to a safer, new tomb in the complex. We know it took 153 priests, because they’re all in there too. Hatshepsut’s mummy finally turned up, DNA-verified, in 2006, on the third floor of Cairo Museum, which suggests, in addition to her many building accomplishments, a great love of travel.

A Brief History of Timeshare III: Ancient Egypt is a post from: PROPERTYHOUSE.org

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Well, it might have been. In the first century AD, the Bay of Naples was the Florida of the Roman empire. Battle-weary generals and overworked senators would flock from Rome to this tourist hotspot for its entertainment (feeding Christians to lions,) watersports (pushing Chrisitians off galleys) and nightlife (pushing Christians off galleys, at night.) We know all this thanks to the Pliny family. The Plinys had a place across the bay at Misenum, and spent most summers there. Pliny the Youger was a great letter-writer, and his surviving letters give a detailed account of life, business, architecture and even garden-design in one of the world’s first purpose-built holiday resorts.

What about the earth-tremors? Well, yes, they did occur every couple of years, but the worst that tended to happen was a few roof-tiles falling off and killing a slave, so nobody paid them much attention. Property development continued apace and more and more luxury villas went up beside the shimmering sunkissed sands and the shimmering sunkissed volcano. Then, in AD 62, disaster.

No, not the one you’re thinking of – an earthquake. Half of Pompeii was seriously damaged, including the vast townhouse of Julia Felix. Julia Felix wasn’t a folk singer, she was a property heiress, who responded to the natural disaster with history’s first fractional ownership scheme. Problem #1 she couldn’t afford all the repairs on her house. Problem #2 there were lots of wealthy but suddenly homeless Pompeiians. Solution: Julia repaired the least-damaged part of her house, divided it into apartments and sold them. With the proceeds, she gradually transformed her former house (it was very big) into a condominium complex, complete with shops, taverns, more apartments and public baths. You can visit the House of Julia Felix today, and some of Julia’s promotional material has survived in the form of an inscription, which boasts that her shared swimming pool is “good enough for Venus.”

OK, now for the one you’re thinking of – the eruption of Vesuvius on 24th August AD 79. The runaway success of Julia Felix Towers™ was cut short, as those who could, er, ran away. Just about everything else in Pompeii was cut short that day, including the House of the Faun, the House of the Vettii and the Villa of Mysteries. Whilst there’s no hard evidence to suggest that these magnificent villas were timeshare properties, there’s none to suggest that they weren’t, and that’s good enough for me. What we do know is that they were decorated with extremely rude murals. So rude, in fact, that King Francis I of Naples had them removed in 1819 to a secret room at the National Museum, to be viewed only by “people of mature age and respected morals”. If that applies to you, go see.

Next time – Pyramid-selling in ancient Egypt

A Brief History of Timeshare II: Pompeii is a post from: PROPERTYHOUSE.org

Technorati Tags: bay of naples, pompeii, vesuvius

1. Cave-Share

The Lascaux caves can be found in the Dordogne department of France, and contain beautiful and elaborate wall-paintings from the Upper Paleolithic era (about 16,000 years ago.) The Lascaux cave-system contains several chambers, including The Great Hall of the Bulls, the Lateral Passage, the Shaft of the Dead Man, the Chamber of Engravings, the Painted Gallery, and the Chamber of Felines.

This immediately suggests a condominium arrangement, whereby individual owner-occupiers were at liberty to paint bulls or cats on their walls, whilst general responsibility for access, draughts, cold running water and bats would have fallen to a housing association. It is only a short step from here to realise that these luxury appartments, set in a breathtaking location in a highly-sought-after part of France, would quickly have attracted the interest of the Paleolithic leisure industry.

Little is known about the timeshare agents of this period, though it’s reasonable to assume that there would have been good and bad ones, as there are today. A good agent would have had no trouble finding buyers for The Great Hall of the Bulls or The Painted Gallery, though The Shaft of the Dead Man might possibly have required a harder sell. Here’s where the bad guys come in. Prospective clients would be lured to a cave-share promotion with free stone axes, and would then innocently hand over their hard-earned sabre-tooth-tiger, er, sabre-teeth, in return for a draughty, damp cave in an unfashionable part of the complex. With a dead man in it.

Some prehistoric human remains found at the Hönne caves in Germany show signs of violence and even cannibalism. This strongly suggests a Holiday Club hotel promotion which went badly wrong. Today’s hapless victims of promotional scams often find that they’ve parted with thousands of pounds for non-existent timeshares. At the promotion, they are subject to aggressive sales techniques, and then find that they are, for whatever reason, unable to obtain legal redress. Cro-Magnon man was more direct in his response. If he discovered he’d been ripped off, he simply ate the promoter.

Frequently, timeshare properties turn out to be very different from the way they are described at the promotion. Gorham’s Cave, on the South side of the Rock of Gibraltar, is today only a few metres from the sea. When it was occupied by Neanderthal man 28,000 years ago, however, it was about 5 kilometres inland. This is a classic case of non-disclosure of crucial information regarding a timeshare property. Imagine how the owners must have kicked themselves as they saw the sea-level rise over 28 millennia.

Next time … Villa-share in the Roman era.

A Brief History of Time (-share) is a post from: PROPERTYHOUSE.org

Technorati Tags: Dordogne, history of time