Description:
This book presents a history of Old Cairo based on new archaeological evidence gathered between 2000 and 2006 during a major project to lower the groundwater level affecting the churches and monuments of this area of Cairo known by the Romans as Babylon. Examination of the material and structural remains revealed a sequence of continuous occupation extending from the sixth century BC to the present day. These include the massive stone walls of the canal linking the Nile to the Red Sea, and the harbor constructed by Trajan at its entrance around AD 110.
The Emperor Diocletian built the fortress of Babylon around the harbor and the canal in AD 300, and much new information has come to light concerning the construction and internal layout of the fortress, which continues to enclose and define the enclave of Old Cairo. Important evidence for the early medieval transformation of the area into the nucleus of the Arab city of al-Fustat and its later medieval development is also presented.
Brief description: Peter Sheehan is an archaeologist who has been working on sites and historic buildings throughout the Middle East since 1989. He has a particular interest in urban formation processes and the development of the historic landscape and has published extensively on his continuing work in and around the Roman fortress of Babylon in Old Cairo and at the World Heritage Site of al-'Ain, where he has been Historic Buildings Manager with the Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority since 2007.
Review Quotes:
"Every so often a book comes on the market which is extraordinary, not only in production, layout, original photographs, plans and line drawings, but also in ground-breaking content. Peter Sheehan's Babylon of Egypt is one such book."--Al-Ahram Weekly
"A landmark study . . . . Highly recommended."--Choice
That Sheehan was obliged to operate on an essentially rescue-archaeology basis makes the long list of achievements documented in this book all the more remarkable. . . . Any research that broadens our archaeological purview of Egypt to include the brilliance of Egyptian history in the medieval period is a welcome corrective to Egyptological obsessions and lingering and still widespread Orientalist tropes that present Egyptian civilisation as having ended with the death of Cleopatra. In contrast, Sheehan s multi-periodic treatment of Babylon presents the Egyptian past as an accretion of human action and occupation in which each layer of human activity is contingent on and shaped by that which went before. John P. Cooper, International Journal of Nautical Archaeology