Babylon Egyptian

Babilon of Egypt - an ancient fortress city ​​in the Nile Delta , located in the area of Coptic Cairo . In ancient times, it was located in the Heliopolis nome, on the eastern bank of the Nile , at 30 ° north latitude, not far from the beginning of the Pharaoh Canal (also called the Ptolemy Canal and the Trayan Canal) running from the Nile to the Red Sea .

The city was located on the border between Lower and Middle Egypt , where riverboats paid duties when climbing or descending the Nile. Diodorus ascribes the construction of the first fortress in these places to Assyrian prisoners, former rebels, in the reign of Sesostris , and Ctesias dated his construction during the reign of Queen Semiramis ; Josephus believed that his structure was connected with the activities of the Babylonian King Cambyses , and the construction dated to about 525 BC. er The Romans built a new fortress, with typically Roman bound masonry of red and white bricks, closer to the river ^[1] .

The name comes from Babylon , the largest city of Mesopotamia , but there is another version of the origin of the name of the fortress, connecting it with the ancient Pr-Hapi-n-Iwnw (“Nile of the Heliopolis House”), the sanctuary of the Hapi deity in the city of Heliopolis . Hapi was the deity of Nile ^[2] . In Arab times, this fortress became known as Qasr al-Shami , or the Palace of Candles, because in its towers at the beginning of each month, many bright candles were lit so that people could follow the movement of the sun from one tower to another. Within the ancient fortress are the Coptic Museum , a convent and several churches, including the churches of George and Mary ^[3] .

According to ancient sources, the first fortress here was erected by the Persians around the VI century BC. e., but at that time was located on the rocks near the river. When Egypt was captured by the Romans, they used the old fortress for some time, recognizing its great strategic importance on the Nile, but because of problems with water supply, the Roman emperor Trajan moved the fortifications to the present place, which was located closer to the river at that time. Since then, the waters of the Nile "moved" about 400 meters to the north.

During the reign of Octavian Augustus, the “Babylon of the Delta” gained a new meaning: it housed the headquarters of three legions who provided Roman power over Egypt. In Notitia Imperii, Babylon is referred to as the location of the barracks of the XIII Pair Legion . The ruins of the city and the fortress have survived to our time to the north of Old Cairo ; among them are the ruins of a large aqueduct , which Strabo and early Arab topographers wrote about.

Subsequently, the city was the residence of the Christian bishop-suffragan of Leontopol (the metropolitan diocese of the Roman province of Augustusnik Secund). The names of some of the Babylonian bishops have survived to our time ^{[4] [5]} (see Babylonian Vicariate ).

During the Muslim conquest of Egypt, the fortress of Babylon was under siege for about seven months, before being taken in April 641 by the Arab commander Amr ibn al-As .