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BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 A STUDY IN THE HISTORY OF 
 OLD CAIRO 
 
 A. J. BUTLER 
 
 Price Four Shillings and Sixpence net 
 
 OXFORD 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 A STUDY IN THE HISTORY OF 
 OLD CAIRO 
 
 BY 
 
 A. J. BUTLER, D.LiTT. 
 
 FELLOW OF BRASENOSE COLLEGE 
 
 OXFORD 
 
 AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 
 
 1914 
 
OXFORD UNIVER'SITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON EDINBURGH GLASGOW NEW YORK 
 TORONTO MELBOURNE BOMBAY 
 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD M.A. 
 
 PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 Scope of inquiry — Babylon a city on a site with many names — 
 Evidence of Diodorus Siculus — Josephus — Ptolemy : great 
 importance as native of Egypt and contemporary of Trajan — 
 Northward extension of Babylon — Itinerarium Antonini — 
 Notitia Dig^itatum Imperii — The name Makeduntah or Mace- 
 donia — Oxyrhynchus Papyri — John Moschus . pp. 1-14 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 The name KhSmi or K6me ; Amdlineau's contribution to the 
 question' — Coptic and Arabic scalae and name equations — 
 Connexion of Babylon and Heliopolis — Meaning of Lioui 
 and of Lfiniah — The term Misr al Kadimah — Amdlineau's 
 conclusions — Coptic Ostraka .... pp. 15-22 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 Resumption of evidence in chronological order — Zosimus — John 
 of Nikiou's importance — His identification of site of Kasr ash 
 Shama' with that of early Persian fort — Amdlineau's strange 
 misconception — Proof that Misr and Babylon are one and 
 the same to John of NikioU' — Life of the patriarch Isaac — 
 Greek and Arabic Papyri — The name Fustat : its origin and 
 meaning — Area of the town and gradual extension — Becker's 
 opinion controverted — Alterations in course of Nile — Arab 
 authorities upon extent of ancient city — Baladhurf — Ibn 
 Dukmik's remarkable statement — Question about Ar Rasad — 
 
 Origin of term Hamra pp. 23-37 
 
 A 2 
 
4 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 Citations from Makrizt, Idrist, Abfi Sllih — The form Babylonia 
 again — Use of term Babylon for Egypt in Middle Ages — 
 Amari's evidence from Pisan and Florentine treaties, &c. — 
 Coptic evidence and Casanova's theory — Coptic as living or dead 
 language in thirteenth century — Arab evidence for broad use of 
 term Babylon as Egypt — Narrow use by Arab writers for par- 
 ticular fort or building — Explanation of usage — Gate of Yun 
 or Lffln — Kasr ash Shama' — Ibn Dukmik on churches by 
 Babylon — Meaning of term Dair Bablfln — Church of St. Bar- 
 bara — Al KudSt and Makrtzt — Babylon and Ar Rasad — Ibn 
 'Abd al Hakam — Ibn Dukmak's confirmation of Al Kud^'t very 
 doubtful pp. 38-51 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 Question of ancient remains on Ar Rasad — Casanova's theory 
 of distinction between Babylon and Kasr ash Shama' at con- 
 quest — Evidence against it — John of Nikiou again — Archaeo- 
 logical evidence — Lane's views as cited by S. Lane-Poole — 
 Pococke's testimony — Identification of Persian and Roman 
 fortress by Arabs — Origin of Persian fort — Nebuchadnezzar 
 and Artaxerxes Ochus — Dome of Smoke — Mardsid al Ittild' — 
 Severus — Mas'fldi — Abfi SS,lih — Eutychius — No evidence 
 for fort on Ar Rasad in Arab times — Summary and Con- 
 clusion ........ pp. 52-63 
 
 Index . . . . . . . . . . p. 64 
 
BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Although a good deal depends upon the meaning 
 to be attached to the term Babylon in the Arab 
 chronicles of Egypt, and although oriental scholars 
 have given some attention to the subject,^ I am not 
 aware that any comprehensive study of the question 
 has been made with a view either to define the 
 proper usage of the term in the seventh century of 
 our era or to examine critically those misunder- 
 standings and misapplications of the term, which 
 originated with Arab authors, but have been 
 followed with too ready acquiescence by at least 
 some modern historians. 
 
 Of course all are agreed that the name finds 
 its local habitation somewhere in the region of 
 Ancient Misr, now called Old Cairo : but the expres- 
 sion Babylon is often narrowed in historical writings 
 to denote either the Roman fortress built by Trajan 
 and called I^asr ash Shama', or else a fort in the 
 neighbourhood of Kasr ash Shama' but not identical 
 with it; and upon these interpretations are based 
 
 I Quatremfere {M^m., i. 45 seq.), Amdlineau in his G^ographie de 
 I'igypte a t^poque copie, and Casanova in Noms copies du Caire, 
 as well as in his edition of Makrizi and other works, have dealt 
 with some aspects of the question, and to them I render all due 
 acknowledgement. 
 
6 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 conclusions seriously affecting both the history and 
 the topography of the Arab conquest. 
 
 On the contrary I shall show, or aim at showing, 
 in this essay that for many centuries before the 
 conquest Babylon was the recognized name of 
 a town or city of great importance : that the term 
 was so understood at the time of the conquest : 
 and that this usage prevailed for some centuries 
 after the conquest. At the same time it will be 
 made clear that, owing to that strange dualism of 
 nomenclature which the normal coexistence of 
 different languages in Egypt renders so common 
 there, the usage of the term cannot be sharply 
 distinguished from other names of the same town 
 or locality : but that in fact the primeval name of 
 ^HJUi, the ancient name of Misr (which was also 
 adopted by the Arabs), the name of Memphis, the 
 old capital, the Greek name Letopolis, and finally 
 the name Fustat, bestowed on the place by the 
 Arabs, are all used more or less interchangeably 
 with Babylon at different epochs by various writers, 
 Coptic, Greek, or Arabic. 
 
 I cannot pretend to say what is the earliest men- 
 tion of Babylon in history. But it is sufficient for 
 my purpose to begin with Diodorus Siculus, whose 
 account of Egypt may probably be dated about 
 50 B.C. He relates^ that a number of prisoners 
 were brought from Asiatic Babylon by Sesostris to 
 carry out his public works in Egypt, and were driven 
 by the hardships of their task to revolt. There- 
 upon they seized a strong position on the Nile, 
 carried on war against the Egyptians, and harried 
 
 ^ i- 55- 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 7 
 
 the country round : but they were finally amnestied, 
 and they founded a settlement on the spot which 
 they called Babylon. Ctesias, he adds, gives a 
 different account, alleging that Babylon was founded 
 by some of those who came to Egypt with 
 Semiramis. 
 
 Both Sesostris and Semiramis are so remote and 
 so legendary that these stories have little impor- 
 tance except as testifying to the tradition that the 
 name Babylon in Egypt had a real historical origin 
 — 'which Pauly denies.^ 
 
 Diodorus is said to have travelled in Egypt. 
 Strabo certainly visited that country in 24-25 b. c, 
 and saw at Babylon a fortified position held by one 
 of three Roman legions then garrisoning Egypt.^ 
 He confirms the tradition ascribing the foundation 
 of this Babylon to a revolt of Babylonians, and in 
 another passage he even applies the term Baby- 
 lonians to the people of the place.^ But I have 
 discussed Strabo's evidence so fully elsewhere * that 
 I need not repeat my argument here : I am satisfied, 
 however — and most scholars agree — that the Roman 
 encampment at that time must have been on the 
 elevated plateau which lies to the south of Kasr ash 
 Shama', and which was called later by the Arabs 
 Ar Rasad. But the camp in that position was 
 dependent, as Strabo shows, for its water supply 
 upon a series of water-wheels which raised it from 
 the Nile : and machinery of this kind was obviously 
 
 > Real-Encyclopadie, s.v. Babylon. * Geog., xvii. 35. 
 
 ' 'The Babylonians opposite Memphis,' Ot Kara Mifji<j>iv 
 Ba^vXiivioi KTJ^ov Ti/jMcn, xvii. 812. 
 ' Ancient Coptic Churches, i. 172. 
 
8 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 open to destruction by any hostile force. It was 
 clearly this consideration which made Trajan erect 
 Kasr ash Shama" on the flat, close to the river bank, 
 with an inlet for boats from the Nile to the southern 
 gate of the fortress, and he made up for the loss of 
 advantage in position by the immense strength and 
 the height of the walls and towers of the new 
 castle.^ 
 
 Josephus, writing perhaps about a. d. 8o, and 
 speaking of the Israelite exodus, says that the 
 Hebrews journeyed Karii. Ar/ToOs ttoXlv, iprjfiov tots 
 ovaav Ba^vXwv yap varepov KTi^erai eKei, Ka/jL^vaov 
 KaTa<TTpi(f)OHiVOV rfiP AiyvTTTOV.^ What does eprjuov 
 
 mean ? There seems no record of Letopolis as a 
 name of Babylon in later times : and there are only 
 two possible interpretations of the word. Either it 
 means that the place was mere desert at the time of 
 the exodus, that the city of Letopolis subsequently 
 arose there, and that Babylon later occupied the 
 same site ; or that Letopolis was an old Egyptian 
 city then abandoned. The latter supposition must 
 be nearer the truth, since it is well known that 
 Pharaonic monuments existed on the spot, and some 
 of them lasted till long after the Arab occupation. 
 
 However, Josephus's account would give about 
 525 B.C. as the date for the foundation of Babylon : 
 and inasmuch as it tends to confirm Strabo's 
 account by suggesting a true historical origin for 
 the name, it supplies a further argument against 
 Pauly's theory. For Pauly contends that Babylon 
 was merely a fanciful name given on the analogy of 
 
 1 The walls were originally at least 60 feet high. 
 ^ ^«/.,ii. 15(315). 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 9 
 
 scores of other Greek town-names in Egypt. But 
 how can this theory be reconciled with the fact that 
 in this instance the already existing and quite 
 classical Greek name of Letopolis was discontinued, 
 being superseded by a name of non-Greek origin 
 like Babylon ? Surely it is more reasonable to sup- 
 pose that such a change was made by Persians 
 during a Persian occupation of Egypt, whether 
 under Cambyses, as suggested by Josephus, or 
 under Nebuchadnezzar, as alleged by John of 
 Nikiou and several writers. Indeed the strength of 
 this tradition which gives a Babylonian origin to the 
 fortress, if not to the town, indicates that it rests on 
 a historical basis, and is no mere myth or legend. 
 
 We now pass to a very definite and interesting 
 notice of the town or city of Babylon by Ptolemy.^ 
 He not only indicates the geographical position of 
 Babylon in proximity to Heliopolis, but adds the 
 very important remark that the River of Trajan 
 (the well-known Amnis Trajanus, or canal connect- 
 ing the Nile and the Red Sea) flows through 
 Heroon Polis and the city of Babylon. Now 
 although the course of the Nile has varied in the 
 region of Cairo even during historical times, the old 
 alignment of the eastern bank is fairly well known. 
 It is certain, for instance, that the channel between 
 the island of Raudah and Kasr ash Shama' was 
 much wider than at present. Nasir-i-Khusrau,^ who 
 visited the place about a.d. 1047, says that this 
 channel was spanned by a bridge of 36 barges : 
 while Idrisl, about a century later, gives the number 
 as 30. Moreover, in a.d. 642, the mosque which 
 1 Geog., iv. 5. ^ Ed. Schefer, p. 153. 
 
io BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 'Amr then founded, and of which the site has never 
 changed, stood on the river bank. Ab(i Salih,^ too, 
 records that the church of Mini in the Hamra 
 formerly stood on the bank of the Nile : while from 
 John of Nikiou it is clear, as I have elsewhere 
 pointed out,^ that the eastward trend of the Nile 
 continued as far north at least as Maks, and that the 
 quays of Males lay close to the modern Ezbekiah. 
 On these and the like data a definite line can be 
 drawn for the right bank of the river from the rocky 
 headland south of Kasr ash Shama' through the 
 region now called Old Cairo and Cairo : and the 
 point where the canal of Trajan took off from the 
 river can be determined with tolerable accuracy. 
 But the physical conformation of the ground is such 
 as to render it improbable that any great variation 
 of the alignment took place between the era of 
 Ptolemy and the Arab invasion : in other words, 
 the mouth of the canal upon the Nile had not then 
 shifted much from its old position, though un- 
 doubtedly after the seventh century the land 
 encroached so rapidly upon the eastern shore of 
 the Nile that the canal mouth had to be pushed 
 further and further to the west as the water 
 receded. 
 
 But the fact of cardinal importance is that 
 Ptolemy describes the canal as flowing through the 
 city of Babylon — not by it, or near it, but through 
 it : so that the canal divided the city, just as later 
 it divided Misr al ^adimah (or Old Cairo) and Cairo 
 itself up to the present century. It follows beyond 
 
 * Ed. Evetts and Butler, p. 104. 
 ^ Arab Conquest of Egypt, p. 217 n. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO ii 
 
 all question that In Ptolemy's time the name Babylon 
 denoted a city which lay both north and south of 
 the canal of Trajan, and that it could not be limited 
 to any town, still less to any point or post, south of 
 the canal. 
 
 That Babylon was a city, therefore, and that it 
 was widespread and intersected by the canal, are 
 the two facts which the evidence of Ptolemy estab- 
 lished irrefutably. 
 
 For Ptolemy, it must be remembered, was a native 
 of Egypt : he spent most of his life in Alexandria : 
 and as his last recorded observation is dated 
 A.D. 151, and he is said to have lived to the age 
 of 78, it is clear that both the construction of Kasr 
 ash Shama' by Trajan and his excavation of the 
 canal must have taken place in Ptolemy's lifetime. 
 Ptolemy, therefore, wrote with local knowledge, as 
 a contemporary historian as well as geographer, 
 when he called Babylon a city.^ 
 
 I may add that the northward extension of the 
 city is fully confirmed by Arab writers. Thus 
 Ibn Dukmdk^ says: 'Al Matariah, called also 
 'Ain Shams (or Heliopolis). There were wonderful 
 remains there, especially the two obelisks famous in 
 all countries. The city in ancient times was very 
 long and wide and contiguous to Ancient Afisr on the 
 site of the present FustAt.' Inasmuch as Misr and 
 Fustit are more or less identical with Babylon, this 
 passage corroborates the statement that Babylon 
 
 * His words are : — Hpcuaiv ttoXis St' ijs xai BajSvXwvos irdAeus 
 Tpaiavos TTOTa/tos pet. 
 2 Part V, p. 43. 
 
12 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 reached far enough northward to come into touch 
 with the suburbs of Heliopolis. Al Kudi'i, too, 
 seems to record a gate of Ancient Misr consider- 
 ably northward of the city's recognized Hmits, when 
 he speaks of ' a place called Munyat Harb near the 
 gate of Ancient Misr, on the spot, it is said, where 
 Cairo now stands '.^ 
 
 But to resume the sequence of historical evidence. 
 In the Itinerarium Antonini of the second century 
 we find the place designated Babylonia, the order 
 being Babylonia, Heliu, Scenas Veteranorum, Vicum 
 Judaeorum, Thou, Heroon, Serapiu, Clysmon. It 
 should of course be noted (i) that there is no sort of 
 confusion here between Babylon and Heliopolis ; 
 and (2) that Babylonia, Heliu, and Heroon are all 
 Greek forms in a familiar language which suppresses 
 the complement TroXty; and (3) that in the Greek 
 form Babylonia, the accent would lie upon the 
 penultimate, and that this accent determined the 
 Arab pronunciation (as usual in such cases), so 
 that Babylonia transliterates into the Bab al Llinlah 
 of Arab history. 
 
 About the year a.d. 303 we read that Apa Til 
 was taken by forcible conscription and enrolled in 
 the garrison of the fortress of Babylon :^ and the 
 same document records that the governor of Egypt, 
 Arianus, came to Babylon and ordered all the 
 soldiers there to worship idols. 
 
 In the Notitia Dignitatum Imperii are two entries 
 of interest as follows : — 
 
 ^ Quoted by Ibn Khallikan : ed. de Slane, ii. 603. 
 
 = MSS, Copt. Vat 66, fol. 158, quoted by Quatrembre. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 13 
 
 Legio quinta Macedonica'^ — Memphi: 
 Legio tertia decima gemina — Babylonia : 
 
 which show that in the time of Arcadius and 
 Honorius not only were Memphis and Babylon 
 clearly distinguished, but each was garrisoned by 
 a legion. 
 
 Of about the same date is the mention of Babylon 
 by St. Jerome,^ who speaks of Hilarion's journey 
 from Pelusium to that city : and by Rufinus, who 
 says that there were great numbers of anchorites in 
 the region of Memphis and Babylon. 
 
 Among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri is a document " 
 dated a. d. 303, in which the comarchs, or village 
 headmen, record the expenses of three workmen 
 ' sent to Babylon ' from the village of Tampeti. 
 
 Pegdsh,* in the well-known story, was taken on his 
 journey from Pelusium to Babylon. 
 
 ^ Casanova, in Noms Copies, pp. 8i seq., devotes several 
 pages to the question why the name Macedonia was sometimes 
 applied to Misr according to the testimony of certain Arab writers. 
 He can give no confident explanation of the fact, but suggests 
 a rather elaborate ancient Egyptian etymology for the word 
 Macedonia. I cannot help thinking that a much simpler solution 
 of the difficulty may be found in this statement of the Noiitia 
 Dignitatum. Given the fact that the Macedonian legion was 
 stationed at Memphis, nothing is more natural than to suppose 
 that the regiment, in recollection of their place of origin or the 
 scene of their titular triumphs, gave the name Macedonia to the 
 district about them, just as Babylonians originally named the city of 
 Babylon after their home in Asia. In giving the name of Macedonia 
 to Misr, the Arabs intended the region about Memphis and Babylon, 
 as Casanova justly supposes, and not the country of Egypt. 
 
 ^ Life of Hilarion, in Rosweyde's Vitae Patrum, i. 62. 
 
 ' Part VI, p. 206. 
 
 * Revillout, Actes et Confrafs{i8'j6), no. 55 : and Muse'e Guimet, 
 xvii. I (Vita Pachomii, §1). 
 
14 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 ApoUinaris Sidonius in his letter to Agricola 
 about Theodoric says that ' the tables were covered 
 with cloths of Babylon ',^ thus proving that the city 
 then, as later, was famous for its textiles. 
 
 Babylon is incidentally mentioned by Palladius, 
 when the writer, speaking of the mount of St. Antony, 
 remarks: eKcidrjTO 8e fiera^if Ba^vXStvos koX 'HpaK\iovs — 
 a passage definitely ranking Babylon as a city about 
 the year a. d. 400.* 
 
 That Babylon was the seat of a bishopric is 
 certain. Zosimus, bishop of Babylon, is mentioned 
 by John Moschus,^ as appointed by the patriarch 
 ApoUinaris, probably in the fourth century : Cyrus, 
 bishop of Babylon, is named in the Acts of the 
 Council of Ephesus and in the first Act of the 
 Council of Chalcedon (a. d. 451): and a bishop of 
 Babylon is again recorded in the time of Benjamin — 
 seventh century. Now it is clear that a bishop 
 cannot derive his title from a fort, and must derive 
 it from a city. 
 
 * Hamilton Jackson's Shores of the Adriatic: The Italian Side, 
 p. 256. 
 
 ^ Ed. Dom C. Butler, p. 63, xxi. and note. The mount is at 
 Pispir on the Nile, not that by the Red Sea. 
 
 " Pratum Spirituale {Vitae Patrum, x. 676). But this patriarch, 
 ApoUinaris, though twice mentioned by John Moschus, is not in 
 Renaudot or in the usual lists of patriarchs. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Although it may not be quite consistent with the 
 chronological order which I am following, I may 
 here examine the evidence of M. Amelineau and 
 Mr. Crum. The former remarks^ under the word 
 Kim6 KHxie that while the term usually denotes 
 Northern or Lower Egypt, it seems also to be used 
 as the name of a town, Wkejja^ in Arabic. This 
 town he takes to be Memphis, and he refers to 
 Kevillout's Aciese^ Coft^rais, pp. 104, 105, 106, 109: 
 adding, however, that these passages are too frag- 
 mentary to found any serious thesis upon. The 
 Synaxar, he proceeds, speaks of a town which it 
 calls Misr al Kadimah, and also of a town of Misr, 
 ' which cannot be Cairo, because that town was built 
 long after the persecution of Diocletian '. That 
 surely is a strange remark. Of course the truth is 
 that Misr was the earlier name, and that the epithet 
 Kadimah was added only in later times, when the 
 place had to be distinguished from the new town in 
 the vicinity, viz. Misr al Kdhirah or Cairo. In the 
 time of Diocletian there was only the one name Misr, 
 though beyond reasonable doubt it was applied to 
 Memphis as well as to Babylon.^ 
 
 Indeed, M. Amdlineau himself goes on to point 
 
 ^ G^og. copte, pp. 223-5. 
 
 '^ Champollion thinks it improbable that the name Misr, what- 
 ever its origin, was in vogue among native Egyptians. 
 
i6 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 out that in the Acts of Apatlr ^ : ' le castrum de 
 Babylone est rendu en arabe par^^ja^' : and in the 
 history of Timotheus the martyr, who belonged to 
 Misr al Kadimah, and suffered under Diocletian, 
 Misr again is equivalent to the Castle of Babylon. 
 I would rather say equivalent to Babylon, although 
 the association of the place with a strong fortress 
 naturally caused the town to be spoken of as the 
 Fortress of Babylon. 
 
 But the scalae give other equivalents. Thus, in 
 MSS. Copt. Bib. Nat, No. 43, we find 
 ju.e«6e juJttjJiJi jjclki (JuU 
 
 No. 44 RTrnTon juen&e jjo^ ^ 
 Nos. 50, 53, 54, 55 
 
 No. 54 A«.eqi Ti^_c:^\ jjc>^ ^_^^ (Ju« 
 
 In the Bodleian Codex Mareschalchus, and also in 
 Lord Crawford's MS., the same ton kcaa £i8wfiT\tOM = 
 (_^*uui c>A^ J y>^^ occurs : while in the British 
 Museum Codex Orientalis we have with o>« «€»«. 
 fcaJnrXton the Arabic o*u^ o^i ^^ » you^ — a v.xik- 
 tion which identifies Babylon with 'Ain Shams, and 
 both with Misr : also iXiott =jjci^ ^ . o*u-ii e»<^ 
 
 In the list of bishoprics * we have aiiot Sia^cov- 
 
 ^ Hyvernat, Acies des Martyrs, p. 91. 
 
 " Quatrembre quotes no. 44, fol. 79, as giving to FustSt the name 
 of Babylon : by Fustat he may mean Misr. (M^m., i. 48.) 
 
 ' Most of these equivalents are taken from the scalae given by 
 Am^lineau in App. Ill to his G^og. cople. * Id., App. IV. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 17 
 
 {sic) iaUom/* y&rc. 
 
 While in another list the Arabic is more correct : 
 
 These correspondences prove that ()n — variously 
 called Iliou, Eil^ou.^ Heliopolis, and 'Ain Shams — is 
 closely coupled with Babylon,^ indeed identified with 
 
 ' It is obvious that these Coptic forms account for the Xio-iri 
 which puzzled ChampoUion {IJEgypte sous les Pharaons, ii. 35) as 
 ■well as Quatremfere {Mini., i. 49), and which Amdlineau {Giog. 
 copte, p. 541) regards as the original name of the locality called 
 Fustat by the Arabs on the strength of an equivalent Xiok-i = 
 i^UUI. There seems no evidence to support this conclusion, and 
 I think it quite mistaken. Surely Lioui is a mere variant of Iliou, 
 which again, like EilSou, is taken from the Greek 'HXtov, the iroKvi 
 being often omitted in such words, as in the Itinerarium Anionini, 
 cited above (p. 1 2). The confusion of Lioui or 'Ain Shams with 
 Babylon, Fustat, and Cairo is plain enough from the quotations 
 I have given, and the identification of Lioui with Cairo amounts 
 to precisely the same thing as the identification of 'Ain Shams with 
 Babylon — an error or an exaggeration frequent in Arab writers. 
 
 * This coupling of On with Babylon in the list of bishoprics 
 gives the clue to the meaning of the Arabic phrase ' the two sees 
 united ', which Am^lineau has missed somewhat strangely (op. 
 cit., p. 540). He says: 'II y avait la deux sifeges rdunis, celui de 
 Fostat et celui de Babylone, et ils ^taient rdunis dans une ville qui 
 se nommait EilSou ' : and he goes on to remark that Lioui can 
 only mean Cairo, appealing to the word Lfiniah, which Abii Salih 
 gives as equivalent to Fustat, in confirmation or his view. Thus he 
 argues that Luniah is a wrong reading for Lfliah. In fact it is 
 a totally diiferent word, arising, as I have shown, from the false 
 etymology which split up Babilonia or Babil&ntah into Bab al 
 Liinlah. Moreover, it is on the one hand impossible to suppose 
 that the Arab settlement of Fustat was ever erected into a bishop's 
 see, and on the other certain that there was an ancient see of 
 Babylon ; certain also that the still more ancient metropolis of 
 
 1S5II B 
 
1 8 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 Babylon, with Misr, and with Fust^t : and the fact 
 that all these several identifications are made shows 
 how hazy were the topographical limits of the several 
 cities, and how names survived in disregard and 
 confusion of such limits, despite historical changes 
 and the long passage of time. 
 
 On the whole subject of these correspondences 
 one may refer to M. Casanova's Noms copies du 
 Caire^ with most of which I cordially agree. Thus 
 he remarks : ^ ' Ainsi pour les Coptes aucune difference 
 entre 'Ain Chams, le Caire, Fostat et Babylone. 
 Tous ces noms se confondent et s'^changent' : and 
 again, ' Le nom de Babylone s'^tend jusqu'au dela 
 du Caire, jusqu'a I'ancienne Hdliopolis'. 
 
 But obviously in these scalae or lists the use of 
 the term Fustat and of the epithet Kadimah applied 
 to Misr before Cairo was founded, requires to be 
 explained. The explanation seems simple enough. 
 Such usage is clearly anachronistic, though the 
 
 Heliu was the seat originally of a bishopric. This proposition, which 
 I first laid down as a theory based on inherent probability, I have 
 now proved as fact by the discovery of a passage in John Moschus 
 (cap. 124) as follows: — ' Tenensque nos Papa Alexandrinus beatis- 
 simus ApoUinaris omnes tres fecit episcopos : unum quidem Helio- 
 poleos, alium Leontopoleos, me vero in Babylonem misit' i^Vitae 
 Pairum, x. 676). John Moschus is not speaking of himself, and 
 the exact date of ApoUinaris's patriarchate I do not know: but 
 there is no question that the two separate sees of Heliopolis 
 and Babylon existed simultaneously. Nor can it be doubted that, 
 as Heliopolis sank down and decayed, while Babylon advanced 
 in importance, it became necessary to unite the two sees. It was 
 equally natural that the name of Babylon should ultimately prevail 
 in the combination, as it did prevail. But the ' two sees united ' 
 of the scalae were Babylon and Heliopolis, not Babylon and 
 Fustat. 
 
 ' pp. 38 seq. 2 p. 41, 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 19 
 
 anachronisms cannot have existed in the original 
 lists, but represent additions or alterations made by- 
 copyists, as the changes of time rendered further 
 equivalents necessary. 
 
 To return to M. Amdlineau. There is one remark 
 of his which needs some qualifying. He argues 
 that the name khjac was given first to Memphis, 
 but that in after time as Memphis declined, that city 
 was called Misr al Kadimah. Despite the precise 
 identification of Memphis with Misr al Kadimah in 
 the scalae quoted above, I do not think it true to say 
 that the site of Memphis was commonly called Misr 
 al Kadtmah. It is not alleged that such a use of 
 the name to denote Memphis as opposed to Babylon 
 is unknown : for 'Abd al Latif, in a passage describing 
 the ruins of Memphis, calls the site Misr al Kadimah, 
 and all doubt of his meaning is removed, because 
 he defines the place as in the region or province of 
 Jizah. But such usage is rare and exceptional. 
 Misr al Kadimah, it must be remembered, is a term 
 of Arab origin, and when it arose — in the seventh 
 century or later — Memphis had practically disap- 
 peared as the capital, and the Misr of the Arab his- 
 torians undoubtedly lay on the eastern bank of the 
 Nile. Indeed, M. Amdlineau's proposition is rather 
 the converse of the truth. For it is quite certain 
 that Arab writers often transferred the name of 
 Memphis to Misr al Kadimah : they imagined, in 
 fact, that Memphis had occupied the site of Babylon. 
 This I take to be the true explanation of the corre- 
 spondence between the two cities given in the scalae, 
 in which Misr is rather called Memphis than Memphis 
 called Misr. The Arabs had little knowledge of 
 
 B 2 
 
20 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 Memphis, but it was easy for them to transpose the 
 site, or to extend the boundaries, of ancient Memphis 
 to the ancient city of Misr on the other side of the river. 
 Apart from this, however, M. Amdhneau's final 
 conclusion is that the name KHiie was given to three 
 different towns in Egypt, viz. (i) to Memphis ; (2) to 
 Babylon after the Persian conquest and during the 
 Roman period ; and (3) to FustcLt and Cairo : and 
 this conclusion, with certain reserves as to the chrono- 
 logical divisions, seems sound. 
 
 But apparently the word KHjuie is used in contexts 
 in which it is both impossible to translate it by 
 Lower Egypt and difficult to render it as a city, 
 whether Memphis or Misr. Thus in Mr. Crum's 
 Coptic Ostraka KHJuie occurs in no. 385, and a note 
 elsewhere ^ refers to a phrase in Revillout's Actes et 
 Contrats, 56, viz. ' in the monastery or without in 
 Kerne ', whence it is argued that K^me must mean 
 the valley, and cannot mean Babylon, because Baby- 
 lon is mentioned in the same text; and Mr. Crum 
 cites Stern's opinion that K^me in the Jeremias 
 papyri from Memphis means Upper Egypt. Refer- 
 ence is also made to the story of Pegdsh, who in his 
 journey from Pelusium was made to avoid Panau 
 lest he should be rescued before reaching K^me, and 
 who was taken to Babylon and thence to Antinoe. 
 Here again Mr. Crum alleges that Keme must be 
 identified with Upper Egypt; while Sir F, G. Kenyon, 
 on the same evidence, suggests that K6me is an 
 intermediate district — Middle Egypt. 
 
 On this I would remark that all difficulty would 
 disappear, at least in regard to the quotation from 
 ' Id., p. 73. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 21 
 
 Revillout and the story of Peg6sh, if Kerne is 
 understood to mean Memphis. The fear was that 
 the prisoner Pegosh might be rescued in the Delta 
 before he could reach Memphis on his journey south- 
 ward : accordingly he was taken direct — no doubt 
 over the desert — to Babylon, where he would 
 naturally be made to cross to the western bank by 
 the bridge of boats or by ferry, and so to Memphis 
 and Antinoe. To hold this hypothesis at least is 
 easier than to reconcile M. Amdlineau's statement 
 that K^me usually means Lower Egypt with 
 Mr. Crum's view that it means Upper Egypt, or 
 Sir F. G. Kenyon's that it means something between 
 the two. 
 
 The confusion between Memphis and Babylon 
 had not arisen among Coptic writers of this period. 
 I have shown that somewhat earlier each of the two 
 cities had its own Roman legion, and the distinction 
 between them is made clear by many passages in 
 Coptic MSS.^ Yet it must be remembered that, 
 just as Misr is used to denote both the city of Misr 
 and the country of Egypt, so K^me or Khemi was 
 also used ambiguously. Thus in the life of Pacho- 
 mius,^ in a phrase which definitely contrasts Egypt 
 with the Thebaid, the word for Egypt is yjujuLi ; 
 while in the Coptic Apocrypha,' where the arch- 
 
 * Thus in Hyvernat's Acies des Martyrs, p. 94, we have TaLixjuwoir 
 nxe Aiejuiqi for the village of Tamm6ou, near Memphis, on the 
 western bank (v. Amdlineau, G^og. copte, p. 477) : and 6niKa.CTpon 
 iiTc ie.feu-\a)n, pp. 91 and 93. The latter phrase Hyvernat 
 curiously renders ' au champ de Babylone ', but surely it means 
 to the fortress of Babylon. 
 
 ' An. Mus. Guimet, xvii, p. i. 
 
 ' Ed. Wallis Budge, p. 105. 
 
22 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 bishop of Alexandria ' sent festal letters southward 
 throughout all K^me', obviously K^me denotes 
 neither Lower Egypt nor Upper Egypt exclusively, 
 but the whole of Egypt within the archbishopric. 
 But such instances illustrate the flexible character of 
 these Coptic terms, and prove that no very rigid 
 conclusion as to the precise meaning of Keme or 
 Khemi can be based upon any particular text or 
 passage. It was an elastic term. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Returning now from this digression to the 
 sequence of authorities upon the use of the word 
 Babylon, I come to Zosimus, who wrote probably 
 c. A.D. 450. In describing the defeat and death of 
 Probus in the campaign against Zenobia's occupation 
 of Egypt, he relates that the Roman general seized 
 TO irpoi TTJ Ba^vXwvi opos^ — the mountain near 
 Babylon. What mountain was in the writer's mind ? 
 There are only two alternatives : either it was some 
 part of Mount Mukattam, such as the place where 
 the citadel of Cairo now stands, — and this fulfils the 
 condition of commanding the route to Syria better 
 than any other ; or it was that other elevation called 
 by the Arabs Ar Rasad or Jabal Jflyiishi — that 
 elevation with which both M. Casanova and 
 Mr. Guest associate specially the name Babylon. 
 But the language of Zosimus renders it quite im- 
 possible that he can have regarded the name 
 Babylon as attaching to either mount. For which- 
 ever hill he had in mind, it was near Babylon, and 
 so was not Babylon. In thus clearly distinguishing 
 it from Babylon, he proved not only that neither 
 hill could be called Babylon, but also that Babylon 
 was the name of the city and not of a mount. 
 
 ' Corp. Scrip/. Hist. Byzant. (ed. Bekker, Bonnae), lib. i, c. 44. 
 
24 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 We now come to John of Nikiou, whose important 
 evidence requires close examination. His account 
 is as follows : ' Trajan went to Egypt and there built 
 a fortress with a powerful and impregnable citadel 
 having an abundant supply of water, and he named 
 it Babylon of Egypt. This fortress had originally 
 been founded by Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Medes 
 and Persians, who called it the Fortress of Babylon. 
 It was at the time when he had become king of 
 Egypt by the will of God, and when after the 
 destruction of Jerusalem he had exiled the Jews, 
 who stoned the prophet of God at Thebes in Egypt 
 and committed many crimes. Thereupon Nebu- 
 chadnezzar came in person to Egypt with a large 
 army, conquered the country — for the Jews had 
 rebelled against him — and called the fortress after 
 the name of his own capital, viz. Babylon. As for 
 Trajan, he raised the circuit walls and enlarged the 
 other buildings of the fortress. He also had a small 
 canal excavated for carrying Nile water to Clysma 
 and connecting the Nile with the Red Sea. This 
 he called the canal of Trajan.' ^ 
 
 Now there are two main points to notice in this 
 narrative. 
 
 (i) The site of Trajan's fortress (which is un- 
 questionably Kasr ash Shama'), is absolutely iden- 
 tified by John of Nikiou with the site of a Persian 
 fortress dating from the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. 
 John betrays no consciousness whatever that the 
 original Babylonian fort may have occupied a 
 different site from that of Trajan's stronghold : and 
 his evidence must be taken to prove that at the 
 ' Ed. Zotenberg, pp. 413-14. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 25 
 
 time of the Arab conquest all trace of a Persian fort 
 on Ar Rasad had disappeared — a conclusion which 
 is singularly borne out by other Egyptian writers. 
 Thus Eutychius, who wrote c. a.d. 920, and who 
 was a native of Old Cairo, strongly retains the 
 Persian tradition : but he alleges ^ that King Arta- 
 xerxes Ochus 'built at Fustat Misr the fortress which 
 is now called Kasr ash Shama' '. 
 
 (2) The original foundation of the fortress is 
 associated with a rebellion. But while Strabo makes 
 out that the rebels were Babylonians who built the 
 first fortress in aid of their revolt, John of Nikiou 
 declares that it was Nebuchadnezzar who built the 
 fortress in order to secure the country after he had 
 crushed a rebellion of the Jews. I confess that 
 John's story, though written so long after Strabo's, 
 has the greater air of probability. The date of 
 Nebuchadnezzar's invasion of Egypt is about 
 567 B.C. 
 
 But passing on from this question for the moment, 
 one must note further that all through the cited 
 passage it is the Fortress of Babylon which is spoken 
 of. Upon this M. Amdineau remarks : ' Puis, dans 
 un grand nombre de passages, il est parl6 de la ville 
 de Babylone avec une confusion incroyable, que ne 
 fait {sic) qu'augmenter les notes du traducteur.' I 
 cannot understand this remark. M. Am^ineau refers 
 in a foot-note to five passages, but in no single one 
 of them does the expression ' town of Babylon' occur. 
 On pp. 555, 556, and 562 the term is 'the citadel of 
 Babylon' : on pp. 557 and 559, ' Babylon of Egypt': 
 on pp. 562 and 566 it is ' the citadel of Babylon ot 
 1 Ann., i. 67. 
 
26 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 Egypt': on p. 575 the patriarch Cyrus went 'to 
 Babylon' simply: and on p. 577 we read that the 
 victorious Arabs forced the Egyptians to clear out 
 Trajan's canal (which had become choked up) in 
 order to bring the Nile water from ' Babylon of 
 Egypt' to the Red Sea. The text, therefore, of 
 John of Nikiou does not present any trace of that 
 incredible confusion on the subject of Babylon which 
 M. Amdlineau discovers there. 
 
 However, I fully grant, and indeed insist strongly 
 on the point, that, although there is no confusion 
 whatever in John of Nikiou's language as it stands, 
 the word Babylon is used in some of these passages 
 to denote a town or city. But I hold that this is 
 due to no error on the part of writer or translator, 
 but is deliberately intended by John of Nikiou. 
 When he says that Cyrus went to Babylon, and that 
 the canal was cleaned out so as to make a waterway 
 from Babylon to the Red Sea, it is quite clear that 
 Babylon denotes a city : and we get back again to 
 the statement of Ptolemy that the city of Babylon 
 lay across the canal of Trajan. So when John 
 speaks of the ' fortress of Babylon ', he means either 
 the fortified city of Babylon, or simply the fortress 
 in Babylon, i.e. Kasr ash Shama', which formed the 
 citadel of Babylon : and the term ' Babylon of 
 Egypt ' corresponds to the Coptic fejvfe'rA.con «Te 
 ^HJiAi and is used generally as equivalent to the city. 
 
 Much is made of the distinction which John 
 appears to draw between Babylon and Misr in the 
 chapter-heading CXIV (CXV), which runs: 'How 
 the Muslims gained possession of Misr in the 14th 
 year of the lunar cycle, and took possession of the 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 27 
 
 citadel of Babylon in the 15th year.'i The differ- 
 ence of expression is undeniable : but if it can be 
 shown that Misr and Babylon were convertible 
 terms, as I believe, then the difference has no 
 deeper cause than mere avoidance of tautology. It 
 seems to me that the proof of my contention lies in 
 the very next chapter-heading CXV (CXVI) : for 
 it tells ' Of the return of the patriarch Cyrus from 
 exile and his departure to Misr to pay tribute to the 
 Muslims '. Now in the chapter which bears the cor- 
 responding number in the text there is nothing at 
 all about these events. The discrepancy is ex- 
 plained by the fact that the text is notoriously 
 disordered. But in chapters CXIX and CXX, on 
 the other hand, we have an unmistakeable recital 
 of the very events to which chapter-heading CXV 
 refers. For there ^ is the record of Cyrus's return 
 from exile, followed by an account of the ceremonies 
 and services which he attended at Alexandria : and 
 immediately afterwards come the words : ' Cyrus then 
 journeyed to Babylon to treat for peace with the 
 Muslims, and offered to pay them tribute if they 
 would put an end to the war in Egypt.' ^ Here the 
 correspondence between the title of the chapter and 
 the actual narrative of the text is so close and so 
 certain that it cannot be questioned : but Cyrus is 
 described in the one as going to Misr to pay tribute 
 to the Muslims and in the other as going to Babylon 
 to pay tribute to the Muslims. Whence it follows 
 that John of Nikiou did regard Misr arid Babylon 
 as meaning the same thing, and also that he did 
 speak of Babylon as a city. 
 
 ' p. 357- ' P- 572- ' P- 575- 
 
28 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 John of Nikiou's date is roughly the latter part of 
 the seventh century, and similar use of the word 
 Babylon to denote the city is found in another 
 authentic Coptic document of about the same date — 
 the Life of the patriarch Isaac. In that story the 
 bishops summoned from Alexandria by 'Abd al 'Aziz 
 ' arrived at Babylon '. Then we read that the bishops 
 and ' a number of people from Babylon and Alexan- 
 dria ' ^ met in the church of St. Sergius, which still 
 exists in the fortress of Kasr ash Shama' : and when 
 Isaac's consecration as patriarch was accomplished, it 
 was celebrated by an outburst of joy and festivity 
 ' from Babylon to Alexandria '. Nothing could more 
 decisively establish the meaning of Babylon as city 
 of Babylon than this coupling of the two capitals, 
 Babylon and Alexandria, together. 
 
 So in the Memphitic codex,'' which contains the 
 same history, the term Babylon occurs three times 
 on a single page denoting the city. The date of 
 Isaac's consecration was a.d. 690, as I have shown 
 elsewhere.^ 
 
 A little later both Greek and Arabic papyri* are 
 found constantly using the term Babylon, especially 
 in connexion with payment of taxes or delivery of 
 corn at the city, which had become the capital under 
 Muslim rule, to the neglect of Alexandria. Thus in 
 A.D. 708 Kurrah orders the people of Ashflih to pay 
 their tax or tribute quarterly at Babylon. An Arabic 
 
 ' Hisioire du patriarche copte Isaac, par E. Am^lineau : Paris, 
 1890, pp. 45, 46. 
 
 * Zoega, Cat. Codd. Copt., p. no. 
 ^ Arab Conquest 0/ Egypt, p. 552. 
 
 * Papyri Schott-Reinhardt, i, p. 86 (Heidelberg, 1 906). 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 29 
 
 text contains an order for delivery of produce at the 
 granaries of Babylon, and I may note here in passing 
 that the Arabic form of the word is Bib al Yiin 
 Vi^«>J| ol>.^ With this compare the aiTip toD o-itov 
 Ba^vXmvos, quoted from Wessely by Becker,^ which 
 corresponds to the Roman praefectus annonae. A 
 similar order seems referred to in the eighth-century 
 Greek papyrus in the Khedivial Library at Cairo, 
 where the expression occurs KaOoXiKmv oppiwv Bapv- 
 X&vos.^ Many like allusions are found in the Aphro- 
 dito papyri in the British Museum.* Thus nos. 1335 
 and 1407 speak of the corn-stores at Babylon and 
 delivery of wheat ' for the Muhajirtin of Fustat'. In 
 nos. 1 37 1 and 1376 Raudah is described as 'the 
 island of Babylon'. In no. 1378 mention is made 
 of a palace being built ai Fustat near the river for 
 the Amir al Mfi'minin, and materials are ordered to 
 be delivered ' in Babylon for the said palace '. This 
 use of Babylon and Fustit in the same document is 
 curious : but the form in the Greek is (pocTo-drov, 
 which occurs also in no. 1379 and in the Schott- 
 Reinhardt papyri.^ In nos. 1386, 1387, and 1404, 
 granaries at Babylon are again named, while in 
 no. 1379 we read of a granary being built at Fustit. 
 In the account of tribute from the village of Aphro- 
 dito, no. 141 1, after payments in respect of various 
 field apportionments comes the item ' from the men 
 
 * Id. ib., p. 98. 
 ' Id. ib., p. 45. 
 
 * Siudi'a Sinaitica, no. XII, p. i (1907). 
 
 * Translated by Mr. H. I. Bell in Der Islam, June and November, 
 1 91 1, March and October, 191 2. 
 
 » p. 90. The Coptic t^wca^Ton occurs in the Catalogue of the 
 Rylands Papyri, p. 173. 
 
30 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 who are at Babylon ', which possibly refers to work- 
 men sent there from Aphrodito : as in no. 141 4 we 
 read of skilled workmen employed on the palace of 
 the Amir al Mu minin and at the dockyards in Baby- 
 lon^ and again in no. 1433 mention is made of one 
 workman ' for the building of the fortress of Babylon' 
 — which must refer to some sort of repair. In the 
 same interesting document a ' carpenter for work 
 ordered by the Amir at Babylon ', material for the 
 Amir's palace at Babylon, a ' currier for the Amir's 
 tent which is being made at Babylon ', and a ' shift 
 of iron-workers at Babylon ', may be noted : and the 
 carabi or vessels being built ' in the island of Baby- 
 lon ' are three times named in this papyrus and as 
 many times in no. 1434, and again in no. 1435. 
 Two other uses of the term Babylon in the eighth 
 century may be found in Mr. Crum's Rechtsurkunden 
 aus Djime,^ and there are many instances in the 
 British Museum Catalogue of Coptic MSS. The 
 frequent recurrence of Babylon in these documents 
 of daily life, and the total absence in them of any 
 corresponding Arabic name, show how familiar and 
 widespread was the use of the term to denote a 
 capital city. The same may be said of the references 
 in the Papyrus Rainer.^ 
 
 These instances are more than enough to prove 
 that in popular parlance the term Babylon was used 
 to denote the whole region covered by the term 
 Misr at that time and later by Misr al Kadimah. 
 They prove also, I think, that at that date the dis- 
 
 ' Nos. 5. 21 and 93. 17 (Leipzig, 19 12). 
 ' For 1887, p. 58. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 31 
 
 tinction between Babylon and Fustat amounted only 
 to this — that Fustfit was a mere quarter in the city : 
 in other words, the term Fustit had not then won 
 its way to acceptance as the definite designation of 
 any Muslim town. I have already shown that the 
 supposed connexion between the name Fustat and 
 the tent of 'Amr is mainly legendary ; that Fustat is 
 a word foreign to the Arabic ; ^ that its origin is to 
 be found in the Byzantine <f>6<ra-aTov or ^oa-a-dTov, which 
 signifies a camp ; and that the Arabs probably caught 
 the name in the first instance from the Romans at 
 Babylon, who naturally spoke of the region north of 
 the fortress where 'Amr pitched his standard as ' the 
 camp '. This explanation of the term has now been 
 generally accepted. From it there follows the 
 conclusion that the area covered by the name Fustat 
 was originally a very restricted one — that in fact, as 
 I have said elsewhere, the town of Fust&t was not 
 laid out on any large scale with a definite plan of 
 making it the Muslim capital. 
 
 There is no question that the first fixed settlement 
 centred about the region marked by the Mosque of 
 'Amr, and that the Muslim town gradually spread 
 eastward and southward from that point. But the 
 evidence of the papyri shows that even sixty or 
 seventy years after the conquest the name FustSt 
 had not acquired that wider significance which it 
 attained in later times, when it became equivalent to 
 Misr. When one finds, for example, in the Aphrodito 
 papyri the use of both terms Fustit and Babylon 
 together, one is bound to infer that Babylon is still 
 
 ' Ara6 Conq^uest of Egypt, pp. 339-40. and notes. 
 
32 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 the general term for the city, while Fustat denotes 
 merely the particular locality in which the Arabs 
 were quartered. This conclusion is in general agree- 
 ment with that of Becker/ who says, ' As far as we 
 know from papyri, Babylon and Fustit were still 
 distinguished at the end of the first century (a.h.). 
 ... In Fustat lived the Muhijirun . . . there their 
 KhitSt were marked out, and the seat of the adminis- 
 tration '. So also Mr. Guest in his well-known article 
 on the Foundation of Fustit : ^ 
 
 ' Speaking generally one may say that the founda- 
 tion of Fustit probably did not mean much more 
 than the making permanent of the camp already on 
 the site ' : and again, ' The busy commercial town 
 described by Ibn Hauqal,^ with its crowded markets 
 and blocks of buildings, some containing as many as 
 two hundred people, belongs to the tenth century. 
 This state must have been reached gradually. A 
 long straggling colony of mean houses and hovels, 
 or more likely of huts and booths, such as one may 
 see nowadays attached to some town to which semi- 
 nomad Arabs resort ; arranged irregularly in groups 
 in loose order concentrated to some extent about 
 the Mosque of 'Amr as the focus formed by the 
 centre of authority . . . this is the picture that our 
 accounts of Fustit in the days of 'Amr enable us to 
 draw.' 
 
 In what way and at what times the first Muslim 
 settlements spread, and Fustat advanced to a civic 
 
 ^ Encyclopaedia of Islam, s.v. Babylon. 
 "^ J. R. A. S., January, 1907. 
 
 ' Also, I may add, by Nasir-i-Khusrau. See Schefer's well- 
 known edition of the Sefer Nameh. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 33 
 
 dignity and importance which enabled it in Muslim 
 acceptation to rival the ancient name of Misr, and 
 to supersede that of Babylon, — these are questions 
 with which this essay has little concern. But in 
 Mr. Guest's admirable article, and the well-known 
 studies of MM. Casanova and Salmon upon the 
 topography of Cairo, will be found the principal in- 
 formation available. My purpose has been merely 
 to show that at the time of the conquest the term 
 Babylon denoted the same thing as Misr, just as 
 Fustit afterwards denoted the same thing as Misr ; 
 and that consequently it must be a pure anachronism 
 to limit the meaning of the term Babylon, as used in 
 the early historians, to that point in the topography 
 of Old Cairo where the name Biblfin happens to 
 linger to-day, or indeed to any point in the wide area 
 of the city. 
 
 Yet it is certain, as Becker says, that the original 
 distinction between Fustit and Babylon became lost, 
 the name Babylon tending to fall out of vogue with 
 the Arabs, while it survived in Coptic usage. 
 I cannot agree with him, however, when he avers 
 that the application of the term Babylon was extended 
 by the Copts, who 'occasionally used Babylon to 
 describe the whole of the great series of towns from 
 Kasr ash Shama' through Fustat or Cairo to Mata- 
 riah — Heliopolis '. What proof is there of any such 
 extension ? Becker's suggestion is indeed the exact 
 converse of the truth, which is that, in using the 
 term in its wider significance, the Copts were merely 
 maintaining with their wonted conservatism the 
 custom and habit of antiquity : whereas the Arabs 
 did undoubtedly extend the use of the term Fustat 
 
34 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 (which first applied to a mere section of Babylon) to 
 denote the whole city, until the name Babylon was 
 narrowed and fell into abeyance and disappeared 
 from the popular language. 
 
 The entire history of the usage of the word from 
 the time of Ptolemy onwards shows that the area 
 covered by the name in Roman times already ex- 
 tended far enough to embrace the whole of that 
 * great series of towns ' not merely from Kasr ash 
 Shama', but from Ar Rasad in the south to the 
 northern limits of Fust^t and Cairo. Any extension 
 of the name Babylon, therefore, took place before 
 and not after the Arab conquest ; and when Ptolemy 
 speaks of Trajan's canal as ' flowing through Babylon 
 city', he implies that the city extended north as well 
 as south of the canal. 
 
 What, then, was the line of the canal, and where 
 was its mouth on the Nile, in a. d. 640 ? I have 
 already stated that these questions admit of fairly 
 precise answers, thanks to the scholarly labours of 
 M. Casanova and of Mr. Guest. It is needless here 
 to recapitulate their results : indeed, of M. Casanova's 
 great work on the topography of FustcLt only a part 
 at present has been published. But, besides the 
 plan at the end of his Noms Copies, he gives a sketch 
 showing where the canal of Trajan took off from the 
 Nile,^ and gives the authorities upon which it is 
 
 ' Essai de reconstilution topographique de la ville de Foustdt ou 
 Misr, par P. Casanova (Inst. Fran?. d'Arch. Orient., 191 3), croquis 
 no. 26, p. 78. See also his Noms Copies, p. 99, 'Les Ddplacements 
 du Nil ' : and Prince Caetani's Annali dell' Islam, vol. iv, p. 568, 
 though this last plan is very rough and sketchy. Another small 
 plan may be found in The Story of Cairo, by S. Lane-Poole, 
 p. 256. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 35 
 
 founded; and Mr. Guest ^ has drawn a rough plan 
 of Fustat in a.d. 642, in which the mouth of the 
 canal is just north of the church of Mari Mtna. 
 Until M. Casanova has published his complete map 
 uniting his detail sketches of the topography, I am 
 unable to say how minutely the two authorities agree : 
 but judging from his Essai and from the very definite 
 statement in his edition of Makrizi ^ there seems little 
 room for divergence of opinion. In any case the 
 difference cannot be material for my purpose, which 
 is merely to show that, unless and until Ptolemy's 
 explicit evidence is discredited or rather disproved, 
 the city of Babylon, spreading on both sides of 
 Trajan's canal, must in those days have occupied 
 northwards a considerable area now included in 
 modern Cairo. 
 
 And of this wide-spreading city the Arab his- 
 torians have some clear traditions remaining. 
 Thus Al Baladhuri and Al Hazimi both speak of 
 an earlier town on the site occupied by Fustit : ^ 
 but almost the only precise statement with 
 regard to the older city of Babylon to be found in 
 Arab writings is that the most thickly populated 
 part of the township was the region known to the 
 Arabs as Al Hamri al Kuswi. But this isolated 
 statement made by Ibn Dukm&k* is of singular 
 
 ' Misr in the Fifteenth Century, by A. R. Guest and E. T. Rich- 
 mond: inJ.R.A.S., 1903. 
 
 " Description historique ei giographique de I&gypte : trad, par 
 P. Casanova, pp. 307-8 (Inst. Fran?. d'Arch. Orient., 1906). 
 
 ' J.R.A.S., January, 1907, Guest's article on the 'Foundation 
 of Fustit', p. 63, Al Hazimi is cited by Makrizi (1. 287), but his 
 date is uncertain. 
 
 * iv. 91, as quoted by Guest, loc. cit. 
 
 C 2 
 
Z6 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 interest and importance, because a glance at the map 
 furnished by Mr. Guest ^ will show that Al Hamra 
 al Kuswi was the most northern quarter of Fustit, 
 lying between Kom al Ahmar and Jabal Yashkur, 
 towards the mouth of Trajan's canal, by which it was 
 intersected. In other words, this casual remark of 
 Ibn Dukmik provides a very singular confirmation 
 of Ptolemy's statement that the canal of Trajan 
 flowed through the city of Babylon. 
 
 Differing from Mr. Guest, I venture to think that 
 great weight must be attached to this piece of 
 information, which seems to fit in with all the facts 
 and to serve for correction of some erroneous con- 
 clusions. Thus it contradicts my former theory that 
 at the time of the conquest it was Ar Rasad and the 
 adjacent locality ^ which were mainly occupied by 
 the town of Misr or Babylon. But being thus in 
 conflict with Ibn Dukmik, I must admit that he is 
 right, and I am wrong ; and though I still hold that 
 the town — or at least the name — of Babylon origi- 
 nated upon Ar Rasad, I accept literally Ibn DukmcLk's 
 statement that in Roman times it centred much 
 further north and lay across the canal of Trajan. 
 This at once makes it easier to understand the 
 settled tradition that the confines of Babylon and of 
 Heliopolis were almost in touch, and it clears up 
 John of Nikiou's statement that the city of Misr not 
 only fell long before the fall of the fortress, but fell 
 without offering any marked resistance. Indeed, 
 one can now realize how this main part of the city 
 blocked the path of the advancing Arabs, and had 
 
 ' loc. cit. after p. 83. 
 
 ' Arab CoTiquest of Egypt, p. 245. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 37 
 
 to be captured before 'Amr could pitch his camp 
 against the walls of the fortress.^ 
 
 ' The name Hamra is supposed to denote a Roman settlement 
 by the ' red ' complexion which the Arabs associated with the 
 Romans : and Ibn DukmSk elsewhere (iv. 5) explains the term by 
 saying that the three Hamras were settled by those Romans who 
 had embraced Islam in Syria, and had accompanied 'Amr in his 
 march on Egypt. It may be questioned whether 'Amr carried with 
 him enough Romans to settle so wide a district, and whether the 
 name is not rather in reminiscence of the conquered Romans on 
 the spot. But this etymology may be quite fanciful: and Abfl 
 SSlih (p. 102) explains the name otherwise by saying that it refers 
 to a red standard which was set up by the Arabs at the conquest. 
 On the other hand, Goldziher, in Byzantinische Zeitschrift for 
 October, 1903, points out that it was a common practice with the 
 Arabs to designate non-Arab western folk as 'red', i.e. fair- 
 complexioned, and he refers to a note of his own. 
 
 I may add that Europeans were also called by the Arabs the 
 ' fair ' or ' tawny ' race, Banii al Asfar : see, for example, Ibn 
 Khallikin (ed. de Slane), vol. iv, p. 8, the curious passage with its 
 play on colour, p. 371, and note 6 on p. 590. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 There is no want of additional " evidence in Arab 
 writers, though they are not as explicit as might be 
 desired. Thus Makrizt quotes Ibn Sa'id as saying, 
 on the authority of the Kitcib al Kamaim — ' As for 
 Fustat Misr, its buildings originally joined those of 
 'Ain Shams. Islam arose. There was (at Misr) 
 a fortress round which were dwelling-places. It was 
 against this fortress that 'Amr camped, and he 
 pitched his tent on the site of the mosque called 
 after him.' This, of course, identifies the fortress 
 absolutely with Kasr ash Shama" ; it also shows that 
 Misr or Babylon extended from Kasr ash Shama' 
 northwards as well as west and south. In the 
 account quoted by Makrizi of the Khittat Ahl ar 
 Riyah ^ it is probable that the houses and gardens^ 
 already existing to the north of the fortress were 
 apportioned to the Muslims : moreover, this passage 
 gives additional confirmation of the identity of the 
 fortress which 'Amr besieged with Kasr ash Shama'. 
 Ibn Dukmik ^ cites the same tradition from the 
 Kitib al Mughrib of Ibn Sa'id, and in much the 
 same language. So Ab(i Silih, in speaking of ' the 
 city of Misr and outside it the city of 'Ain Shams ',* 
 
 * Casanova, pp. 143-4. 
 
 ' Vide Arab Conquest of Egypt, p. 243. 
 » Part IV, p. 3. 
 
 * Ed. Evetts and Butler, p. 86. I have followed the Arabic 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 39 
 
 seems to refer to them as closely adjoining, and he 
 also implies that they were founded together. In 
 curious correspondence with Abii SsLlih is the geo- 
 grapher Idrist, who says, ' Ancient Misr was also 
 called "Ain Shams ';' and again, ' The town of Misr 
 bears in the Greek language the name of Banbilfinah 
 *^-^^')^ or Babylon. From these two passages 
 taken together it is obvious that Idrist regarded the 
 city of Misr as having extended far to the north of 
 the town as he found it c. a.d. i 150,^ and that in his 
 day the name of Babylon still survived, and was not 
 the name of a fort or of any particular spot in Misr, 
 but the name of the city itself, though a name not 
 then prevalent in use by the Arabs. 
 
 Abfi Silih, whose date may be given roughly as 
 A. D. 1 200, confirms Idrisi — with a strange difference — 
 for he remarks, ' The name of Misr in Prankish 
 Roman (or Greek) is Babylon the Fortress ',* a sen- 
 
 rather more literally than in the English translation on that page. 
 Only one obelisk now marks the site of Heliopolis : but 'Abd al 
 LatJf, speaking of 'Ain Shams in his day, tells of marvellous images, 
 immense statues of hewn stone — colossi thirty cubits high, some 
 standing on pedestals, some seated on thrones or seats of massive 
 construction — aiid countless obelisks mostly overthrown and broken. 
 He adds that one of the city gates ' remains to this day ' ; ed. 
 Pococke, pp. 109 seq. The passage gives an impressive idea of the 
 size and splendour of the city which contained these monuments. 
 
 ' Ed. Joubert (Paris, 1836), i. 301. 
 
 ^ Id. ib., p. 302. The first ^J is clearly a copyist's error. 
 
 ' Idrisi describes the town in his day as surrounded on all sides 
 by gardens, plantations, sugar-canes, &c. At the time of the Arab 
 conquest the plain north of the fortress is described by Makrizi 
 as covered with gardens and convents : but I think Idrisi is the only 
 writer who gives the information that the site of the Mosque of 'Amr 
 was originally occupied by a Coptic church, which 'Amr seized and 
 converted into a mosque (p. 303). * p. 86. 
 
40 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 tence which at once extends and limits the meaning 
 quite inconsistently. But in another place Ab6 Scllih 
 shows clearly that in his opinion the name Babylon 
 applied to the whole town at the conquest, where, 
 speaking of 'Amr's arrival, he says, ' Al Fustit was 
 then called Al Lfiniah'.^ This, as I have shown 
 above, is merely a mutilated form of the word Baby- 
 lonia, which in the Greek would be pronounced 
 Babilunia, and which the Arabs understood as Bib 
 al Liiniah, or gate of Liiniah, Liiniah being the city. 
 Ab(i Salih proceeds to speak of the Governor of Al 
 Lflniah after the conquest demanding the poll-tax 
 from the people — -just as we find in the Aphrodito 
 papyri that the people are ordered to deliver their 
 tribute in money or kind at Babylon, 
 
 But this form Babylonia — which explains Idrisi's 
 Banbillanah and Abu Salih's Lflniah, and which dates 
 (as I have shown) at least as early as the Itinerarium 
 Antonini, persisted quite unaltered in Italian usage, 
 and practically identical in European usage, far into 
 the Middle Ages. Of this fact there is abundant 
 evidence in the treaties and letters edited by Michele 
 Amari^ from the archives of Florence. Thus the 
 grant of a warehouse at Babilonia is twice recorded 
 in the treaties of a.d. 1154.^ In the contemporary 
 version of a treaty between Pisa and Egypt, Saladin 
 is described as ' king of Babilonia ' ;* the treaty is 
 executed at Babilonia (Sept. 25, a.d. 1173), ^i^d 
 witnessed by ' Marcus, Patriarch of Alexandria, of 
 Babilonia, of Nubia, and of Saba ', and the phrase 
 
 ' P- 74. 
 
 ' I Diplomi Arabi del R. Archivio Fiorentino^YxxfazR, 1863, 
 
 ' pp. 243 and 248. * p. 257. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 41 
 
 ' Sultan of Babilonia of Egypt ' or ' Sultan, lord of 
 Babilonia' frequently occurs,^ with dates ranging 
 from A.D. 1207 to 1434. But in all these instances 
 the Arabic text of the treaties is not given — only an 
 Italian or Latin version : and whether the term 
 Babilonia corresponds to BSblfin or to Misr in the 
 Arabic cannot be absolutely determined. More 
 probably the word was Misr: for I do not think that 
 a Coptic patriarch at any time would have styled 
 himself ' patriarch of the city of Babylon ' in writing 
 his titles, whereas 'patriarch of Alexandria and of 
 Egypt, Nubia ', &c., would not have been irregular.^ 
 It might seem, therefore, that where Misr in the 
 sense of Egypt occurred in these treaties, the Pisan 
 and Florentine envoys misunderstood and took it in 
 the narrower sense of the city of Misr, which city 
 was familiarly known as Babylon to western peoples 
 from the days of the crusaders. ^ On the other hand, 
 it is beyond question that sometimes in these docu- 
 ments Babilonia stands, and was meant to stand, for 
 the city and not the country : where, for example, the 
 concession of a warehouse at Babylon is recorded, 
 the allusion plainly is to Cairo or Old Cairo. 
 
 Beyond vague and rather baseless conjecture, there 
 is nothing to explain how or why Babylon became 
 almost synonymous with Egypt in western parlance. 
 But this much at least is certain : if Babylon has not 
 been the familiar name of a great and famous city, it 
 
 ' pp. 280, 344, 357, 468. See also p. 287, and Appendix, p. 15. 
 
 ' See Ancient Coptic Churches, ii. 302. 
 
 ' See, for example. Devise des chemins de Bdbiloine in Archives 
 de V Orient Latin, t 11, p. 89 (Paris, 1884), and Ab(i SSlih, p. 86, 
 n. 6. 
 
42 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 would never have been identified with, or used as 
 the symbol of, Egypt itself. And it must be 
 remembered that this identification is not confined 
 to western or foreign nations. In a well-known 
 Coptic document of the year a.d. 12 io we find 
 a sovereign of Egypt ^ described as ruler ' of 
 Babylon of Egypt, Phoenicia, Syria, &c.', which, as 
 M. Casanova remarks, is like describing the king of 
 Great Britain as ' king of London, Wales, Ireland, 
 and Scotland '. But he propounds the theory that 
 the Coptic document is a translation from an Arabic 
 orginal ; then for the Coptic fc&.feTr7V.(OM KTe ^mii 
 he supposes that^^>j*=^^^'?.<^ stood in the Arabic text, 
 and that the Copt translator, ' ignorant les finesses de 
 la langue Arabe, a cru que " les maisons" designaient 
 une ville et non une contree', and so rendered by 
 fc*wfi'yA.(OM «Te ^fUAi instead of x*"** alone. This 
 is certainly ingenious, but there is one strong objec- 
 tion against it. Surely it is very difficult to believe 
 that in the thirteenth century a Cairene Copt would 
 know Coptic better than Arabic, or would so far 
 ignore the niceties of Arabic as to misunderstand 
 the familiar phrase jj«a^^l>o. Ibn Khallikfin, who 
 was born just about the date of this document, and 
 wrote his Biographies about a.d. 1260, numbers 
 Coptic among the extinct written languages ; ^ and 
 although this assertion is exaggerated, or should at 
 least be confined to Lower Egypt,* yet it is far more 
 
 ' Casanova shows reason for regarding Saladin as the sovereign 
 referred to. Notes sur un texte Copte du XIII' stick, par P. Casa- 
 nova (Le Caire, 1901), 
 
 ' In the Life of Ibn Bawwdb in vol. ii, p. 285. 
 
 ' According to Abii Silih, at the opening of the thirteenth 
 century, Coptic was still spoken in Upper Egypt. Thus speaking 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 43 
 
 probable that the author of the story of John of 
 Phanidjoit's martyrdom was ignorant of the precise 
 value of the Coptic form which he was employing, 
 and that, as he found ^(i^haii (in the sense of country) 
 and fijvfeTT^ujK KTC ;x^haai (in the sense of city) both 
 rendered by Misr in Arabic, he confused the two or 
 thought them equivalent. Of course it may be held 
 that the Copts by this time had extended the 
 meaning of Babylon from city to country, like the 
 westerns, in forgetfulness of the original limitation 
 of the term. But M, Amdlineau shows ^ that in this 
 very document the word yinxx\ is used both for 
 Cairo and for Egypt without fiaii-rXoin.^ Clearly 
 the elements of confusion existed : and it was this 
 confusion which made Babylon a synonym for Egypt. 
 Nor is the definite recognition of this synonym 
 wanting in Arabic writers. Thus Makrizi^ quotes 
 'Abd al Malik Ibn Hishim as saying : ' B^bliiin is a 
 name denoting Egypt ', and Al Kudi'l {0^. a. d. 1062) 
 as saying : * Outside Fustat is the Kasr known as 
 
 of Udrunkah, he says ; ' The Christians living there are learned in 
 their religion and in expounding the Coptic language' (p. 315); 
 and again, of the same place : ' The inhabitants . . . understand 
 the Coptic language, which is the means of communication there 
 both for children and adults, and they are able to explain it in 
 Arabic' (p. 343). More curious is another remark: 'The Christian 
 women of Upper Egypt and their children can hardly speak anything 
 but the Sahidic dialect of Coptic ; they have, however, also a perfect 
 knowledge of the Greek language' (p. 317). Unless GreeA here is 
 an error for Arabic, the last statement is almost incredible: the 
 idea of Coptic women in Upper Egypt possessing a perfect know- 
 ledge of Greek is absurd. 
 
 ' Giog. copte, p. 539. 
 
 ^ See also Casanova, Noms Copies, pp. 49-51. 
 
 ' Khitdt, i. 287. 
 
44 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 Bib Lilin (Babylon) on the hill. Liun is the name 
 of the country of Egypt in the language of the 
 negroes and of the Greeks '. Again, in the compen- 
 dium of Yak(it called Marasid al Ittili' ^ we find it 
 stated that ' Babylon is a general name for Egypt 
 in the language of the ancients and a special name 
 for Fustit ' — very remarkable testimony. 
 
 I have now endeavoured to trace the history and 
 meaning of the term Babylon of Egypt from pre- 
 Christian times down to the fifteenth century of our 
 era, and have shown that while originally it denoted 
 a settlement of no great size, the town advanced to 
 become the second metropolis of Egypt, outlasting 
 the more ancient cities of HeliopoHs and Memphis : 
 that for centuries before and for a long time after 
 the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs, Babylon was 
 the name of a great city : and that when the Arab 
 designation Fustdt so far prevailed that the term 
 Babylon passed out of vogue in the popular lan- 
 guage, such nevertheless was the renown of Babylon 
 that the name was used as a symbol and synonym 
 for Egypt itself throughout Europe. 
 
 The evidence is strong and continuous, and the 
 conclusion it carries seems to me irresistible. It 
 is this : that when Arab historians, of whom the 
 earliest wrote some centuries after the conquest, 
 speak of Babylon as if it were this or that par- 
 ticular fort or building or locality in Ancient Misr, 
 they speak erroneously. 
 
 That they do so speak, however, is undeniable : 
 and this fact has yet to be considered. Two things 
 ' Ed. Juynbollj i. 113. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 45 
 
 are certain : first that the Arab settlement called 
 Fustdt gradually spread all over the site of Babylon 
 or Misr, so as to encompass Kasr ash Shama' on 
 every side ; and next that all the Roman and other 
 ancient remains of Babylon disappeared under this 
 process with the single exception of that great for- 
 tress. It is clear, too, that the conquerors tended 
 more and more to apply the name FustAt, which 
 reminded them of their first encampment in Egypt, 
 to the spreading Arab town ; and that of the two 
 coexisting ancient names for the locality they pre- 
 ferred Misr^ with its simply Arabicized form to the 
 puzzling Babylon or Babylonia, with its misleading 
 suggestions Gate of Yiin or 6n, Gate of Li6n, and 
 Gate of Lflniah. But it is perfectly natural that as 
 the Roman remains vanished, so the Roman name 
 Babylon became more and more divorced from the 
 Arab town and more and more strictly confined and 
 limited to the fortress of Kasr ash Shama', which 
 challenged time and change, and stood as the one 
 enduring monument of the Roman dominion. 
 
 That this explanation fits the facts better than 
 any other, I have no doubt : nor do I doubt that 
 where an Arab writer speaks of Babylon in con- 
 nexion with the conquest, he means either the city of 
 Babylon or else Kasr ash Shama' : but in most cases 
 the consciousness that Babylon was a great city at 
 the conquest had been lost when the chronicles 
 were written. I hold, therefore, that the expression 
 Fortress of Babylon, which I have applied to Kasr 
 ash Shama', is correct in both senses, i.e. whether 
 
 * Idrfst uses the terms Misr and Fusdt indifferently with a slight 
 preference for Misr. 
 
46 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 used — analogously to Tower of London — to denote 
 the ancient fortress of the city, or used in the sense 
 of Babylon the Fortress. 
 
 But it will be said that Arab writers sometimes 
 localize the name Babylon to a point which is outside 
 the fortress and which therefore must be distinguished 
 from the fortress. This is apparently true : and it 
 must be granted that more than one such point 
 is mentioned. For instance, Ibn Dukmfik has the 
 following passage:^ 'Kanisat as S'aidah. This 
 church is on the skirt of K6m ibn Ghurab among 
 the potteries near Bib al Ydn (Babylon). Kantsat 
 Ab4 Kir. This church adjoins the last near Bib 
 al Yfin. Kanisah known as Santadur (Tddrus). 
 This church, too, adjoins the two preceding near 
 Bib al Y(in. All three are in one place.' 
 
 There can be no doubt that the writer here refers 
 to the three still existing churches which I have 
 elsewhere described.^ The first is now called the 
 ' Church of Al 'Adra by Babylon of the Steps ', and 
 the others Abfi Kir wa Yuhanni and Tidrus ; so 
 that the names subsist unchanged to this day.^ 
 
 ' iv. 107. ^ Ancient Coptic Churches, i. 250 seq. 
 
 ' Casanova in Noms Coptes (p. 30) cites this passage and 
 also a corresponding passage from Makrtzt, which gives, however, 
 a church of Aba Mind instead of Abfi Ktr. Either Makrizt is 
 mistaken and is thinking of the Abft Mini (or MM Mtni) which 
 lies north of Kasr ash Shama' : or if this other church of St. Menas 
 existed when he wrote, it has completely disappeared. Probably 
 there is a textual error as Casanova supposes. But on the 
 same page Casanova quotes from Am^lineau a passage in the 
 Synaxarium which alleges that the bodies of SS. Barbara and Juliana 
 were laid in a church of Abfl Ktr. Now I find that the text of 
 the Synaxarium as given by Basset does not agree with this : it 
 says that ' The bodies of the two saints were laid in a church outside 
 the city of Ghalaliyi, and the body of St. Barbara is to-day in the 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 47 
 
 But the question is what does Ibn Dukin4k mean 
 when he speaks of these churches as near Babylon? 
 Can it possibly imply that the name Babylon was 
 then specialized to denote a place identical with the 
 locality in which the name B4bllan is still preserved? 
 I think not. These churches are not said to be in 
 Babylon, but near Babylon : consequently the place 
 at which they stood and still stand was not Babylon. 
 If it is argued that the name must have belonged 
 to the spot, because it is there still, I answer that 
 the title of the church to-day is not ' Church of 
 Babylon ' but 'Church of the Virgin by BablUn of the 
 Steps'. That is the official title, and Dair Bibllin 
 is a mere popular abbreviation of the name of the 
 convent : which is still, therefore, properly described 
 
 city of Misr in the church of Ab<i Kir ' (^Palr. Or., t. Ill, fasc. iii, 2, 
 p. 404). Casanova rightly observes that this church has nothing 
 to do with Abfl Kir on the north coast (as Amdlineau supposes), 
 but must be either the church in Dair Tidrus or else a church in 
 Kasr ash Shama' : and he cites Eutychius in favour of the latter 
 locality. I have already shown (^Ancient Coptic Churches, i. 249) 
 that there is no evidence for such a church in Kasr ash Shama' to 
 corroborate Eutychius. But if it were true, it is certain that this 
 church was destroyed : and I think it far more probable that 
 a new church dedicated to St. Barbara was erected, with or without 
 her relics, than that the existing church of St. Barbara was origi- 
 nally called Abfi Kir and has changed its dedication, as Casanova 
 supposes. But it is not even certain that Eutychius meant to say 
 that the church was inside the Kasr : his language might be inter- 
 preted merely to be a loose description of the existing Abfl Kir as 
 by the entrance of the Kasr. For Ibn DukmSk (ii. 26) speaks of 
 the gate which is on the eastern side of the fortress, and was called 
 the Iron Gate, as the gate by which the whole of Kasr ar Rflm is 
 entered, Kasr ar Rflm being of course another name for Kasr ash 
 Shama'. This gate, therefore, was specially recognized as the 
 entrance of the Roman fortress : it is the one still remaining, and 
 Dair Bablun is very near it. 
 
48 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 not as Babylon or in Babylon, but near Babylon. 
 Babylon is a name belonging not to the site but 
 to the vicinity: and the actual proximity of this 
 group of churches to Kasr ash Shama' fully explains 
 all that needs explanation in the title.^ Accordingly 
 neither Ibn Dukm^k nor the modern name of the 
 place can be held to prove any such use of the term 
 Babylon as would necessarily distinguish it from 
 Kasr ash Shama'. 
 
 But the passage from Al Kud^'i cited by Mak- 
 rizl, which describes the Kasr called Babylon as 
 outside Fustit and on a hill, would seem to imply 
 that a Fortress of Babylon existed in the eleventh 
 century which was not Kasr ash Shama', but was on 
 a hill : and that consequently an ancient building still 
 remained upon the height, which is taken to be Ar 
 Rasad. Indeed, Al Kudi'l goes on to say, 'A little 
 of it remains built in stone at the extremity of the 
 
 ' The term ' of the Steps ' remains puzzling. It might perhaps 
 refer to the steps which have been brought to light by the south 
 gate of Kasr ash Shama' — the nearest point of the fortress. But 
 it may be possible to get a little closer to the true explanation. It 
 is pointed out by Guest and Richmond in J. R. A.S., 1903 
 (p. 804), that ' there seems to have been a gate in the town wall of 
 Misr which was called Gate of B^blfln ', and reference is made to 
 Khitdt, ii. 517, 1. 12. The position of this wall or section of the 
 wall was, according to the writers, south of Kasr ash Shama', and 
 il ran east and west near Dair TSdrus and Dair Biblfin. The 
 tradition that this wall was part of the ancient circuit wall of 
 Babylon city may well have lingered on, so that the gate in it 
 became known as the Gate of Babylon, just as the fortress wiihin 
 was called Fortress of Babylon. And assuming that the line of the 
 wall is correctly indicated, the wall must have risen near the two 
 convents ; and there may well have been steps inside leading up 
 to the gate. This is merely conjectural : but it seems that, in 
 explaining the origin of the name Bablfln in Dair Biblfln, one may 
 trace it to a point even nearer than the fortress. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 49 
 
 mount {jaba!), and at the present day there is a 
 mosque on it'. 
 
 Makrizl comments upon this as follows : ' This is 
 obviously an express assertion that Kasr Bab al Yfin 
 is not the same as Kasr ash Shama' : for Kasr ash 
 Shama* is in the interior of Fust4t, and this Kasr 
 Bib al Yfin, according to Al Kudi'i, is on the hill 
 known as Ash Sharaf, and Ash Sharaf is outside 
 Fustit. But it is contrary to what Ibn *Abd al 
 Hakam says in his Futtih Misr'. 
 
 Makrtzl therefore refutes Al Kudi'i upon the 
 evidence of Ibn 'Abd al Hakam, and believes that 
 Babylon and Kasr ash Shama' are identical. 
 
 Moreover, Makrizi is fully aware that the Babylon 
 of Ibn 'Abd al Hakam and the Kasr ash Shama' of 
 Al Kudi't were one and the same. For he puts 
 side by side the description of the fortress as it is 
 given by each of the two writers : (i) Ibn 'Abd al 
 Hakam says: 'The Persians had begun the building 
 of the fortress called Babylon, that is the fortress 
 which is now in Fustit: but when the armies of 
 Persia were defeated and driven out of Syria by the 
 Romans, the latter finished the building of the strong- 
 hold, and reoccupied it. Egypt then remained 
 under Roman rule until God conquered it for 
 the Muslims'.^ The corresponding passage of Al 
 
 * There is no doubt whatever that this refers to Kasr ash Shama'. 
 Professor C. C. Torrey, of Yale, who is editing the unpublished 
 MS. of Ibn 'Abd al Hakam, has been kind enough to give me the 
 benefit of his complete knowledge of the text, and he writes as 
 follows : — ' This statement of Ibn 'Abd al Hakam agrees with whai 
 he says everywhere else. According to his account in the Futfih 
 Misr, the ultimate stronghold of the Greeks, ihe " fortress" where 
 the decisive battle was fought was ^^yJ\ i_jL> . . . Babylon is the 
 
 lt59 D 
 
5Q BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 Kudi'i occurs in that writer's description of Kasr 
 ash Shama', and is as follows : — (ii) ' It is said that 
 the Persians when they overcame the Romans and 
 ruled Syria as their masters, and also got possession 
 of Egypt, began the building of this fortress and 
 constructed a fire-temple in it. It was not com- 
 pleted, however, by their hands : but when they 
 were conquered by the Romans, the latter finished 
 the building and fortified it. They then remained 
 in it till the time of the [Muslim] conquest.' It is 
 clear, therefore, that what Ibn 'Abd al Hakam calls 
 Babylon, Al Kudi'i calls Kasr ash Shama', and that 
 Al Kudai in putting the fortress called Babylon in 
 quite another place is in glaring contradiction with 
 Ibn 'Abd al Hakam. 
 
 On the other hand it is fair to remember that 
 Ibn Dukmik seems to confirm Al Kudai when he 
 remarks* that Al Hikim built the mosque of 
 Ar Rasad on the sharaf near the remains of the 
 
 fortress on the river bank, connected with the island by a pontoon 
 bridge, over which the Mukaukis made his escape, emerging from 
 the castle by the southern gate. In the passage in which Ibn 'Abd 
 al Hakam first mentions the fortress in his account of the conquest, 
 it might seem that he makes a distinction between a more compre- 
 hensive fortification (^^^-ail) and a smaller citadel (^,-ajJl) . . . But 
 the fact is . . . that Ibn 'Abd al Hakam here uses the term ^j<A 
 loosely, referring to the whole settlement at this strategic point. 
 In the sequel, in speaking of the actual siege, he uses the terms 
 , .« 11 and . -°ll interchangeably without any distinction whatever.' 
 My thanks are also due to Professor Torrey for some of the 
 information which I have embodied in the text above. 
 
 ^ Part IV, 58. Ibn KhallikSn also, in his Life of Al Hikim (ed. 
 de Slane, iii. 457), records the completion of a mosque on Ar Rasad 
 called Jami' al Filah, which was begun by Al Afdal in a. d. 1104. 
 Guest refers to Makrlzfs Khiidt, ii. 451. {/.R.A.S., January, 
 1907, p. 72.) 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 51 
 
 Kasr known as Babylon — in the year a. d. 1012. 
 But I think the significance of this passage is merely 
 that the sharaf was near the remains of Kasr ash 
 Shama', and that such destruction of the circuit wall 
 to the north of the fortress as had then taken place 
 justified Ibn Dukmik in speaking of its 'remains'. 
 Yet Makrizi ^ himself elsewhere identifies the hill of 
 Babylon with one near Zain al 'Abidin — perhaps 
 that on which the citadel of Cairo now stands — 
 proof that he is rather at sea in the matter, and can 
 place the hill north as readily as south of Kasr ash 
 Shama' ; indeed, in yet another passage^ he puts 
 Babylon again to the north, but near Maks. His 
 evidence, therefore, is too contradictory to support 
 any very definite conclusion. But it may even be that 
 Al Kuda'i also, in placing Babylon outside FustS,t 
 and in speaking of some remains in the jabal 
 together with a mosque, is not thinking of Ar 
 Rasad at all, but of Al Mukattam, as the site of 
 the ancient Babylon. 
 
 * Khitdt, i. 298. See Casanova's edition, p. 148, and his note. 
 He inclines to think that Makrizi's text here must be corrupt. 
 
 "^ Id., ii. 452. See Guest and Richmond's Article on Misr in 
 J.R.A.S., 1903, p. 807. 
 
 D 2 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Apart from these confused statements, there 
 seems to be no evidence for the existence of any 
 ancient remains upon Ar Rasad, nor of the name 
 Babylon as a particular name attaching to that 
 elevation. Upon one of the citations from Ibn 'Abd 
 al Hakam made by Makrlzi, M. Casanova in his 
 edition of the latter writer ^ propounds a theory that 
 Kasr ash Shama' and Babylon were distinct, and 
 that there were two separate sieges — one of Kasr 
 ash Shama' and one of Babylon. But the very text 
 which he quotes contains the refutation of this 
 theory: because, while Ibn 'Abd al Hakam is 
 describing the siege of a fortress which he ex- 
 pressly calls Babylon, he makes the Mukaukis quit 
 the fortress by its south gate and cross to the island 
 of Raudah.^ The south gate of Kasr ash Shama' is 
 the one remaining to-day, and the quay is still there 
 at which boats were moored, as the story requires, 
 for crossing to the island, which lay opposite the 
 fortress : and these details, which are so exactly 
 conformable with the topography and the structure 
 of Kasr ash Shama', are totally at variance with any 
 theory which places Babylon upon an elevated rock 
 
 " p. 1 20, n. 4. 
 
 ° Casanova admits that the arsenal proves the island to be 
 Raudah : id., p. 121, note i. The arsenal of Raudah is frequently 
 mentioned in Arab history. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 53 
 
 like Ar Rasad, I have dealt with this question 
 elsewhere,^ and must refer to the argument there. 
 
 But there are one or two other pieces of evidence 
 which may be added. That Makrlzi himself regards 
 the fort {him) which 'Amr besieged as Kasr ash 
 Shama' is clear from the words in his chapter called 
 ' The site of Al Fust^t before Islam '. They are to 
 the effect that the only building' there was ' a fortress 
 called to-day Kasr ash Shama' and Al Mu'allakah ', 
 ar^ortress which then looked on to the Nile, though 
 he adds that convents and churches were scattered 
 all over the plain around.^ Nothing could be less 
 ambiguous. 
 
 And that this fortress was the only fortress apart 
 from 'Umm Dtinain mentioned, or correctly men- 
 tioned, in Arab histories of the conquest, can be 
 proved by other evidence. I have already dealt above 
 with John of Nikiou's distinction between the capture 
 of the city of Misr and the capture of the citadel 
 of Babylon, and have shown that the distinction as 
 regards the names is accidental, and the names might 
 be reversed. John might just as well have said the 
 city of Babylon and the citadel of Misr. But there 
 is, so far as I am aware, no trace in Arab writers of 
 any consciousness that there was any struggle around 
 Ar Rasad, still less that at the conquest a fortress 
 there existed which could be called the citadel. For 
 consider : if M. Casanova's theory were true — if the 
 fortress of Babylon really were placed on Ar Rasad — 
 then we should have this strange result, that there 
 stood upon that height a building so vast and so 
 
 ' The Treaty of Misr in Tabari, pp. 19 seq. (Oxford, 1913.) 
 ' Ed. Casanova, pp. 104-5. 
 
54 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 strong that Kasr ash Shama' with all its huge walls 
 and towers — its powerful and impregnable defences, 
 as John of Nikiou calls them — was comparatively 
 easy of capture, indeed fell almost without a blow, 
 while a siege of seven months was necessary to reduce 
 the stronghold on Ar Rasad. For if Babylon were 
 on Ar Rasad, that story would be required, and that 
 alone could be founded on John of Nikiou's 
 narrative. 
 
 But that story is obviously unhistorical. Archaeo- 
 logy, too, is against it. For Trajan's fortress with- 
 stood the shocks of time in the main unbroken for 
 more than thirteen centuries,^ while no one has ever 
 been able to point out any authentic ancient remains 
 whatever upon Ar Rasad. There is, however, one 
 piece of evidence which might be cited against this 
 statement, and which must be examined, 
 
 In Cairo Fifty Years Ago^ the common mis- 
 understandings about Babylon are exemplified, e.g. 
 ' The Egyptian Babylon was situated on a rocky hill 
 called in Arabic ash Skaraf : Kasr ash Shama' 
 ' was on the north-west of Babylon ', while the other 
 fortress ' was upon the hill, and this being within 
 the town was particularly called by the Arabs " the 
 Fortress or Palace of Babylon" (Kasr Bibelyiin), 
 though it is clear that Kasr ash Shama' was the chief 
 fortress or defence of Babylon '. But the writer, 
 Lane, goes on to say that the building now used as 
 
 ' See my plan in Arab Conquest of Egypt, p. 240. This plan 
 has been reproduced by Caetani in his Annali dell' Islam, vol. iv, 
 p. 272, who also gives some photographs on pp. 184 and 256. 
 
 " Ed. S. Lane-Poole, 1896, p. 146. I have reason to think that 
 Dr. Lane-Poole would no longer agree with the opinions here 
 quoted. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 55 
 
 a powder magazine upon the hill was named Istabl 
 Antdr, and that ' this was probably what the Arabs 
 called " Kasr Bibelyiin ".' No proof at all is given 
 to support this opinion, and there is nothing at 
 present to show that the ' massive walls ' of this 
 magazine on Ar Rasad are not of Arab construction. 
 The nature of the building unfortunately debarred 
 me, as it has debarred others, from examining it 
 and studying its construction: and it may be that 
 some traces of Roman or even earlier architecture 
 may be discovered there whenever a proper survey 
 is permitted and carried out, But against this possi- 
 bility must be weighed the evidence of Pococke, 
 who wrote a hundred years before Lane, and who 
 carefully studied the remains on the spot. He gives 
 a sketch of what he calls 'Jebel Jehusi, the Old 
 Babylon',^ i.e. Ar Rasad, a sketch which conveys 
 a fair idea of Strabo's rocky ridge ; but all he shows 
 upon the eastern end of the hill, where the powder 
 magazine now stands, is a small round building like 
 a low tower. There is nothing whatever corre- 
 sponding to the large rectangular building with 
 which the traveller is familiar : and though it is 
 possible that this building lay outside Pococke's 
 field of view, the inference rather is that the build- 
 ing was not standing there at the time of Pococke's 
 visit c. A.D. 1740. Indeed, the silence of Pococke 
 confirms this inference from the picture. He believes 
 that the hill is the site of the ancient Babylonian 
 settlement — indeed, that the city of Babylon centred 
 about the hill ; and he proceeds to say : 
 
 1 Description of the East, vol. i, p. 25, pi. viii. See also the 
 photographs in Annali dell' Islam, vol. iv, facing p. 168. 
 
56 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 ' On the top of the hill is the uninhabited convent 
 of St. Michael, to which a priest goes every Sunday 
 to officiate. The town of Babylon, probably in time, 
 extended down to the plain ' [from the hill] : ' for to 
 the north of that part of the hill which sets out 
 toward the river' (i.e. the rocky ridge) ' are remains 
 of a very extensive building, which I conjecture 
 might be a sort of castrum for the Roman legion 
 which was at Babylon. It is called Kasr Kieman, 
 &c.' Now of this Kasr Kieman ^ Pococke gives a 
 plan absolutely and incontrovertibly identifying it 
 with Kasr ash Shama'; indeed, in a note he 
 remarks, ' I found some called this place Casrke- 
 shemeh.' Pococke, therefore, knows of no fortress 
 of Babylon upon the hill. He mentions and 
 sketches Strabo's rocky ridge or Ar Rasad : he 
 mentions, sketches, and plans out Kasr ash Shama'; 
 but he is totally silent as regards the existence of 
 any building upon Ar Rasad except an abandoned 
 or nearly abandoned Coptic convent. But if the 
 ancient remains which Lane imagined he saw in 
 1840 were really ancient, and if they represented 
 the Babylonian fortress of antiquity, they must have 
 been in better preservation and more conspicuous a 
 hundred years earlier at the time of Pococke's visit, 
 and Pococke could never have passed them over in 
 
 ^ The name is probably a corruption of the Coptic ktc 5(;^hjuii. 
 In my Ancient Coptic Churches, i. 176, I have perhaps done some 
 injustice to Pococke's plan of Kasr ash Shama'. It is true that he 
 did not measure the angles &c. of the circuit wall, and so produces 
 a neat parallelogram instead of a very irregular figure : but the second 
 pair of round towers which he indicates may have existed, and the 
 general extent of the remains which he saw may be given with 
 rough accurp.cy. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 57 
 
 total silence. Lane's evidence upon the subject must 
 therefore be regarded as mistaken. 
 
 Moreover, it is no exaggeration to say that the 
 Arab historians, with the slight exceptions given 
 above, are hardly conscious that there can be any 
 question of a difference between the site of the 
 ancient Persian fortress and the site of the Roman 
 fortress of Kasr ash Shama. To them the site of 
 Kasr ash Shama' is also the site of the Babylonian 
 fortress. 
 
 I have admitted and do not doubt that the 
 original Persian fortress was actually built upon Ar 
 Rasad, But the Arab writers so persistently iden- 
 tify the site of the original fortress with Kasr ash 
 Shama' that they are proved not to have suspected 
 any difference between the sites : and this again 
 proves that no ancient fortress can have existed 
 upon Ar Rasad in Arab times. When Trajan 
 built Kasr ash Shama', in lieu of the Persian strong- 
 hold upon Ar Rasad, for the Roman legion quartered 
 at Babylon, the Persian fortress was either dismantled 
 or perished subsequently by natural decay ; and the 
 period of more than 500 years which elapsed be- 
 tween the construction of Kasr ash Shama' and the 
 invasion of the Arabs fully suffices to account for the 
 total disappearance of the Persian fort. Vague tradi- 
 tions of its former existence survived in Babylon, and 
 some echo of these traditions was caught by the 
 Arabs : but their writers were driven irresistibly to 
 identify the vanished castle of the Persians with the 
 still standing castle of the Romans, that castle which 
 "Amr had conquered with so much difficulty. 
 Some further proofs of this may be given. 
 
58 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 I have already dwelt upon John of Nikiou's evi- 
 dence showing that this early Coptic historian defi- 
 nitely calls Kasr ash Shama' by the name Babylon, 
 and definitely assigns its origin to Nebuchadnezzar 
 and its reconstruction to Trajan ; whence one must 
 argue that, if the Persian fort on Ar Rasad had been 
 in existence when John wrote in the seventh century, 
 it would have been quite impossible for him to 
 allege that it was the same fort which Trajan rebuilt. 
 The Arab writers may have got their information 
 from John's history: but if so, they see no reason 
 for doubting his account of the matter. Thus 
 Makrizi^ repeats the same story. Kasr ash Shama', 
 he says, was founded after the devastation of Egypt 
 by Nebuchadnezzar, though other opinions are held 
 as to the date of its construction and the name of 
 the founder. He goes on to say that it (the Persian 
 fort) lay in ruins for 500 years, and hardly a vestige 
 of it remained : until the Romans, having conquered 
 Egypt from the Greeks, sent Arjalis (? Archelaus), 
 who rebuilt the fortress upon the old foundations, 
 which he discovered.* According to Ibn Sa'ld it 
 was Kasharj6sh, the Persian, who built Kasr ash 
 Shama' : others say Artaxerxes, or a king of Egypt 
 named Kastfl, who built a temple of fire on the bank 
 of the Nile. I will not repeat Ibn 'Abd al fiakam's 
 evidence. Al Ij^udi'i in his chapter ' on the Fortress 
 of Kasr ash Shama' ' gives much the same story, but 
 adds that the temple of fire is the building still called 
 in his day the ' Dome of Smoke ' : and this account 
 
 ^ Ed. Casanova, p. 107. 
 
 ' This is quoted from Al Wakidt : see Hamaker's edition, Notes, 
 pp. 90 seq. Arjalis might be Trajan's engineer or general. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 
 
 59 
 
 seems to stand in opposition to Al Kudai's other 
 account cited above, which places Babylon on the 
 sAara/ or cM.^ 
 
 So, again, the Marisid al Ittil^'^ alleges that Kasr 
 ash Shama' was a castle, on the site of Fustat in 
 Egypt, built by the Persians and completed by the 
 Romans. Severus ^ knows nothing of a fort on Ar 
 Rasad. His words are : ' Then the Arabs crossed 
 the hills (the desert) until they arrived at a fortress 
 built of stone situated between Upper and Lower 
 Egypt and called Babylon. And here they pitched 
 their tents, that they might prepare to fight a battle 
 with the Romans. Then the Arabs called that 
 place, namely the fortress, BablGn al Fustit (perhaps 
 BibWn of Al Fustit), and that is its name to this 
 day'. The fact that the camp was pitched before 
 the fortress proves that it was Kasr ash Shama', and 
 that fortress Severus says was called Babylon at the 
 time he wrote. And Mas udi, speaking with apparent 
 reason,* carries the name Kasr ash Shama back to 
 the date of the conquest, when he says that Al 
 
 ' See Casanova's Makrizi, pp. 107-9. The article in the 
 /.Ji.A.S., for 1903, says (p. 807) that 'Makrizi, despite the 
 conflicting statements of his predecessors, realized that the 
 ancient Babylonian fortress was not the same as Kasr ash Shama', 
 but it is evident that he had not identified its remains ' : and 
 the writers go on to explain Makrizi's own inconsistencies. But 
 their words which I have given appear to assume that remains of 
 the Babylonian fortress existed in Makrizfs time, and this 
 assumption does not seem well warranted. 
 
 2 ii. 221. ' Brit. Mus. MS. Or. 26100, p. 105. 
 
 * I have elsewhere expressed the opinion that the name Kasr 
 ash Shama' probably arose from the Coptic Ke.CTpon Stc j^hjui. 
 See Abfl Silih, p. 72, n. 4. I may add that it is sometimes called 
 (e.g. by Ibn DukmSk) Kasr ar Rflm, and that this name seems 
 rightly held by Casanova to lie underneath the Coptic ueigpuAu. 
 
6o BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 Mukaukis spent part of the year in ICasr ash Shama', 
 which to-day is known under the same name in the 
 middle of Fustit : ^ and his whole account proves 
 incontestably that this fortress of Al Yunah (or 
 Ltiniah as he elsewhere calls it), by which he means 
 Babylon, must be identified with I^asr ash Shama'. 
 Abfl Salih^ says that the people of Fustit dug a 
 moat against the Arabs; that Fustit then was 
 called Al Lflnlah (or Babylon) ; and that 'Amr, when 
 he had received reinforcements, took the fortress : 
 moreover, he speaks of ' the governor of Al LAnlah 
 or Fustit' after the conquest. It would clearly be 
 impossible to speak of the governor of Babylon as 
 governor of the conquered city, if Babylon were 
 a mere fort on Ar Rasad. On the other hand, 
 Abil Sdlih does mention two forts built by Kh6sh 
 (or Artaxerxes Ochus), king of the Persians, viz. 
 Kasr ash Shama' and another on the other side of 
 the Nile.^ But inasmuch as he alleges that the king 
 (Ochus) ' used to alight at both forts from his boat ', 
 Ab(i Sdlih obviously has no idea of any fort upon 
 a considerable elevation like Ar Rasad. Indeed, the 
 context leaves no shadow of doubt that this second 
 Persian fort was at Jizah, on the western bank of 
 the river. The notice is interesting, because it 
 proves that the Persians saw the military necessity 
 
 ^ Ed. de Goeje, p. 213. 
 
 ' p. 74- 
 
 'p. 177: 'There is a church of Mark the Evangelist and 
 Apostle in the fort built by Khfish, king of the Persians, at the 
 same time as Kasr ash Shama'.' This church of St. Mark was at 
 Jtzah. But from Ibn Dukmak (iv. 126) one is driven to conclude 
 that the fort at Jizah also had disappeared, because, in a.d. 642, 
 a fort was seen to be necessary, and the Arabs at first refused to 
 build one as ordered by Omar. 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 6i 
 
 of fortifying both banks of the Nile at the apex of 
 the Delta, just as subsequently the Romans stationed 
 one legion at Memphis and one at Babylon, and the 
 Arabs in turn placed a strong garrison at Jizah after 
 the conquest as well as at Babylon.^ But the very 
 fact that Abti Silih, while he mentions two fortresses 
 founded by the Persians, does not mention or betray 
 any knowledge of a Persian fortress upon Ar Rasad, 
 must be taken as one more proof that no ancient 
 remains existed there in Ab<i Salih's time, and that 
 the very tradition of Strabo's fortress was unknown 
 to him. 
 
 Finally, Eutychius,^ who has a similar tradition of 
 Artaxerxes Ochus, mentions only one fortress as 
 built by him, and that fortress he expressly identifies 
 with Kasr ash Shama'. 
 
 It would be easy to produce other passages from 
 Arab annals and to show that where the name 
 Babylon is applied to a fortress, it is of Kasr ash 
 Shama that the writer is thinking in every case, and 
 that there is no testimony whatever for the exist- 
 ence of any fortress upon Ar Rasad in Arab times. 
 In all these Arab authors, wherever the Persian 
 tradition is given, it is associated with Kasr ash 
 Shama' and not with Ar Rasad.^ Indeed, so strong 
 and so one-sided is the evidence of this association, 
 that I should be inclined to question Strabo's story 
 
 ' See Arai Conquest of Egypt, p. 43i' 
 
 = Migne, Pair. Gr., cxi, p. 967. 
 
 ' It may be mentioned that Suyfltt speaks of a Kasr Fans, or 
 Persian Fort, outside the walls of Alexandria (Husn al MuhSdarah, 
 pt. I, p. 65, Cairo ed.) : but there is nothing to show whether this 
 fort was older than the time of Chosroes. 
 
62 BABYLON OF EGYPT 
 
 of the ' rocky ridge reaching down to the Nile ', 
 were it not that such a ridge exists to-day, and after 
 a careful survey on the spot I am bound to admit 
 that the description of Strabo must have been 
 absolutely accurate, and that the Persian fortress 
 existed there at the time of Strabo's visit to Egypt. 
 
 But this admission in no way weakens the evi- 
 dence upon which I found the conclusion that at the 
 time of the Arab conquest the Persian fortress 
 recorded by Strabo had either vanished altogether 
 or lay in ruins. Any remains which then existed 
 were too insignificant either to bear part in the 
 Roman defences of Babylon or to impress the 
 imagination of Coptic or Arab historians. 
 
 To sum up. It seems established 
 
 (i) that on the site of Ancient Misr or Old Cairo 
 there originally existed in Pharaonic times a city of 
 some importance, marked by Egyptian monuments, 
 (such as the Suriyat abi al H61 or Doxy of the 
 Sphinx,) some of which survived to the days of 
 Al H4kim : 
 
 (2) that in the sixth century before our era there 
 was a Babylonian military settlement made and a 
 fortress erected upon the rocky height which the 
 Arabs later called Ar Rasad : 
 
 (3) that from this settlement the name Babylon 
 spread over the adjacent region, and became the 
 normal designation of a great town extending far 
 enough northward of Ar Rasad to touch with its 
 outlying suburbs the southern environs of the 
 mighty but decaying city of Heliopolis : 
 
 (4) that when Trajan, wishing to strengthen his 
 hold upon the apex of the Delta, resolved to build a 
 
A STUDY OF OLD CAIRO 63 
 
 powerful fortress as the citadel of Babylon, he aban- 
 doned the site of the Persian fort upon Ar Rasad 
 and planted his citadel upon the bank of the Nile, 
 so as to secure an unfailing water supply for the 
 garrison and free communication by river between 
 the garrison and the rest of Egypt : and this fortress 
 was called the Castle of Babylon, or the Castle of 
 Kh^mi, and that the Arabic form of the name was 
 Kasr ash Shama' : 
 
 (5) that the Persian fort on Ar Rasad thence- 
 forward fell into decay and oblivion, so that at the 
 Arab conquest, five and a half centuries later, only 
 vague traditions of its existence survived : 
 
 (6) that the name of Babylon, which the Arabs 
 found applied to the city otherwise called Misr was 
 gradually displaced by the new name Fustfit of 
 Arab origin ; and as the name Fustit grew and 
 prevailed to designate the city, so the name Babylon 
 fell into disfavour and disuse, until at the time when 
 the Arab chronicles began to be written it had 
 become practically restricted to the fortress of Kasr 
 ash Shama', yet curiously prevailed in Europe to 
 denote the whole country of Egypt : 
 
 (7) and that, finally, even the limited use of the 
 name tended to disappear in Egypt in more modern 
 times, as the association of the term Babylon with the 
 fortress was weakened or severed ; so that to-day it 
 is not among the ruins of Kasr ash Shama', but in 
 the little Coptic convent called Dair B^blun near the 
 southern gate of the fortress, that there lingers 
 the name of the great city which succeeded Mem- 
 phis as the capital of Middle Egypt. 
 
INDEX 
 
 "Abd al 'Aziz, 28. 
 
 'Ain Shams = Heliopolis, 
 
 ". 38, 39. *^<=- 
 Alexandria, 28. 
 Amari's Treaties, 40. 
 Antony, Mount of St., 14. 
 ApaXn, 13. 
 Apollinaris, patriarch, 14 
 
 and «. 3; 18 n. 
 Arianus, 12. 
 Arjalts, 58. 
 Aitaxerxes, 58 ; v. also 
 
 Ochus. 
 
 Bablian, 43. 
 
 Babylonia, 12, 13, 17 
 
 n. 2,40, 41,45. 
 Baladhurt, 35. 
 Banbilunah, 39. 
 
 Cambyses, 8, 9. 
 
 Canal of Trajan, 9, 10, 
 
 26-34, 35, 36- 
 Church of Abfl pr, 46 
 
 and «. 3. 
 
 Al "Adra, 46. 
 
 St. Michael, 56. 
 
 St. Mina, 10. 
 
 St. Tadrus, 46. 
 
 Clysma or Clysmon, 12, 
 
 24. 
 Coptic language, 42, 43. 
 Cyrus, bishop of Babylon, 
 
 14. 
 
 — patriarch of Alex- 
 andria, 26, 27. 
 
 Diodorus, 5, 6. 
 Dockyards at Babylon, 30. 
 Dome of Smoke, 58. 
 
 Eileou, 17 and «. i. 
 Eutychius, 22, 61. 
 
 Fustit, 29-34 and^assim. 
 
 — origin of name, 31. 
 
 Granaries at Babylon, 29. 
 Greek language, 42 n. 3. 
 
 Hamrft, 10. 
 
 — al Kuswi, 36. 
 
 — origin of name, 37- 
 Heliopolis {v. 'Ain 
 
 Shams), 33, 36, 62. 
 
 — bishopric of, 1 7 and 
 «. I. 
 
 Heliu, 12. 
 
 Heroon Polis, 9, 10. 
 
 Ibn 'Abd al Hakam, 
 49 seq., 52seq. 
 
 — KhallikSn, 37 »., 42. 
 IdrlsS, 9, 39. 
 
 Iliou, 37. 
 
 Isaac, patriarch of Alex- 
 andria, 2S. 
 Istabl Ant4r, 55. 
 
 Jabal Jehusi, 55. 
 
 — Jflyflsht, 23. 
 
 — Yashkur, 36. 
 Jimi' al Filah, 50 ». 
 John of Nikiou, 10, 
 
 24 seq., 54, 58. 
 Josephus, 8. 
 
 Kasharjfish, 58. 
 Kasr F^ris, 61 «. 3. 
 
 — kieman, 56. 
 
 — ash Shama', passim. 
 Kasta, 58. 
 
 iCom al Ahmar, 36. 
 
 Al KudSi'!,'i2, 43, 48 seq., 
 
 58. 
 Kurrah, 28. 
 
 Leontopolis, 18 ». 
 Letopolis, 6, 8. 
 Lioui, 17 «. I. 
 Uan, 44, 45. 
 Lfintah, 12, 17 «. 2, 40, 
 45, 60. 
 
 Macedonia (name applied 
 to Misr), 13 n, I. 
 
 Malj:s, 10. 
 
 Marisid al IttilS;', 44, 
 59-' 
 
 Marcus, patriarch of Alex- 
 andria, 40. 
 
 Memphis, 6, 15 seq., &c. 
 
 Misr al Kadlmah, 15, 
 18 seq., 30, &c 
 
 Mosque of 'Amr, 9, 39 
 
 «. 3- 
 
 Muhftjirfln, 29, 32. 
 
 N^sir-i-Khusran, 9, 32. 
 Nebuchadnezzar, 9, 24, 
 25, 58- 
 
 Ochus, Artaxerxes, 60. 
 On, 16, 17, and «. 2. 
 
 Panly, 8, 9. 
 Pelusium, 13. 
 Plans referred to, 34 «. 
 Pococke, 55-56. 
 Ptolemy, 9 seq., 36. 
 
 Ar Rasad, 7, 23, 34, 52, 
 
 53 seq., &c. 
 Raudah, 9, 29. 
 
 Saladin, 40. 
 
 Scalae, 16. 
 
 Scenas Veteranomm, 1 2. 
 
 Semiramis, 7. 
 
 Serapin, 12. 
 
 Sesostris, 6, 7. 
 
 Sevenis, 56. 
 
 Tammoou, 21 ». i. 
 Tampeti, 13. 
 Theodoric, 14. 
 Thou, I a. 
 
 Vicum Judaeomm, : 2. 
 
 Al Yfln, 46-49. 
 Yflnah, 60. 
 
 Zain al 'Abidln, 51. 
 
 Zenobia, 23. 
 
 Zosimus, bishop of 
 
 Babylon, 13. 
 — historian, 23, 
 
 Oxford : Horace Hart M.A. Printer to the University