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 rulers of India may have been more splendid in their materials, and more elaborate in their details; the houses of the great men of Damascus may be more costly than were those of the Mameluke beys; but for purity of taste and elegance of design both are far excelled by many of the mosques and houses of Cairo. These mosques have suffered much in the beauty of their appearance from the effects of time and neglect; but their colour has been often thus softened, and their outlines rendered the more picturesque. What is most to be admired in their style of architecture is its extraordinary freedom from restraint, shown in the wonderful variety of its forms, and the skill in design which has made the most intricate details to harmonize with grand outlines. Here the student may best learn the history of Arab art. Like its contemporary Gothic, it has three great periods, those of growth, maturity and decline. Of the first, the mosque of Ahmed Ibn-Tulun in the southern part of Cairo, and the three great gates of the city, the Bab-en-Nasr, Bab-el-Futuh and Bab-Zuwela, are splendid examples. The design of these entrance gateways is extremely simple and massive, depending for their effect on the fine ashlar masonry in which they are built, the decoration being more or less confined to ornamental disks. The mosque of Tulun was built entirely in brick, and is the earliest instance of the employment of the pointed arch in Egypt. The curve of the arch turns in slightly below the springing, giving a horse-shoe shape. Built in brick, it was found necessary to give a more monumental appearance to the walls by a casing of stucco, which remains in fair preservation to the present day. This led to the enrichment of the archivolts and imposts with that peculiar type of conventional foliage which characterizes Mahommedan work, and which in this case was carried out by Coptic craftsmen. The attached angle-shafts of piers are found here for the first time, and their capitals are enriched, as also the frieze surmounting the walls, with other conventional patterns. The second period passes from the highest point to which this art attained to a luxuriance promising decay. The mosque of sultan Hasan, below the citadel, those of Muayyad and Kalaun, with the Barkukiya and the mosque of Barkuk in the cemetery of Kait Bey, are instances of the second and more matured style of the period. The simple plain ashlar masonry still predominates, but the wall surface is broken up with sunk panels, sometimes with geometrical patterns in them. The principal characteristics of this second period are the magnificent portals, rising sometimes, as in the mosque of sultan Hasan, to 80 or 90 ft., with elaborate stalactite vaulting at the top, and the deep stalactite cornices which crown the summit of the building. The decoration of the interior consists of the casing of the walls with marble with enriched borders, and (about 20 ft. above the ground) friezes 3 to 5 ft. in height in which the precepts of the Koran are carved in relief, with a background of conventional foliage. Of the last style of this period the Ghuriya and the mosque of Kait Bey in his cemetery are beautiful specimens. They show an elongation of forms and an excess of decoration in which the florid qualities predominate. Of the age of decline the finest monument is the mosque of Mahommad Bey Abu-Dahab. The forms are now poor, though not lacking in grandeur, and the details are not as well adjusted as before, with a want of mastery of the most suitable decoration. The usual plan of a congregational mosque is a large, square, open court, surrounded by arcades of which the chief, often several bays deep, and known as the Manksura, or prayer-chamber, faces Mecca (eastward), and has inside its outer wall a decorated niche to mark the direction of prayer. In the centre of the court is a fountain for ablutions, often surmounted by a dome, and in the prayer-chamber a pulpit and a desk for readers. When a mosque is also the founder’s tomb, it has a richly ornamented sepulchral chamber always covered by a dome (see further, which contains plans of the mosques of Amr and sultan Hasan, and of the tomb mosque of Kait Bey).

After centuries of neglect efforts are now made to preserve the monuments of Arabic art, a commission with that object having been appointed in 1881. To this commission the government makes an annual grant of £4000. The careful and syste-matic work accomplished by this commission has preserved much of interest and beauty which would otherwise have gone utterly to ruin. Arrangements were made in 1902 for the systematic repair and preservation of Coptic monuments.

Museums and Library.—The museum of Egyptian antiquities was founded at Bulak in 1863, being then housed in a mosque, by the French savant Auguste Mariette. In 1889 the collection was transferred to the Giza (Ghezireh) palace, and in 1902 was removed to its present quarters, erected at a cost of over £250,000. A statue of Mariette was unveiled in 1904. The museum is entirely devoted to antiquities of Pharaonic times, and, except in historical papyri, in which it is excelled by the British Museum, is the most valuable collection of such antiquities in existence.

The Arab museum and khedivial library are housed in a building erected for the purpose, at a cost of £66,000, and opened in 1903. In the museum are preserved treasures of Saracenic art, including many objects removed from the mosques for their better security. The khedivial library contains some 64,000 volumes, over two-thirds being books and MSS. in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Amharic and Syriac. The Arabic section includes a unique collection of 2677 korans. The Persian section is rich in illuminated MSS. The numismatic collection, as regards the period of the caliphs and later dynasties, is one of the richest in the world.

History.—Before the Arab conquest of Egypt the site of Cairo appears to have been open country. Memphis was some 12 m. higher up on the opposite side of the Nile, and Heliopolis was 5 or 6 m. distant on the N.E. The most ancient known settlement in the immediate neighbourhood of the present city was the town called Babylon. From its situation it may have been a north suburb of Memphis, which was still inhabited in the 7th century Babylon is said by Strabo to have been founded by emigrants from the ancient city of the same name in 525, i.e. at the time of the Persian conquest of Egypt. Here the Romans built a fortress and made it the headquarters of one of the three legions which garrisoned the country. The church of Babylon mentioned in 1 Peter v. 13 has been thought by some writers to refer to this town—an improbable supposition. Amr, the conqueror of Egypt for the caliph Omar, after taking the town besieged the fortress for the greater part of a year, the garrison surrendering in April 641. The town of Babylon disappeared, but the strong walls of the fortress in part remain, and the name survived, “Babylon of Egypt,” or “Babylon” simply, being frequently used in medieval writings as synonymous with Cairo or as denoting the successive Mahommedan dynasties of Egypt.

Cairo itself is the fourth Moslem capital of Egypt; the site of one of those that had preceded it is, for the most part, included within its walls, while the other two were a little to the south. Amr founded El-Fostat, the oldest of these, close to the fortress which he had besieged. Fostat signifies “the tent,” the town being built where Amr had pitched his tent. The new town speedily became a place of importance, and was the residence of the náibs, or lieutenants, appointed by the orthodox and Omayyad caliphs. It received the name of Masr, properly Misr, which was also applied by the Arabs to Memphis and to Cairo, and is to-day, with the Roman town which preceded it, represented by Masr el-Atika, or “Old Cairo.” Shortly after the overthrow of the Omayyad dynasty, and the establishment of the Abbasids, the city of El-'Askar was founded ( 750) by Suleiman, the general who subjugated the country, and became the capital and the residence of the successive lieutenants of the Abbasid caliphs. El-'Askar was a small town N.E. of and adjacent to El-Fostat, of which it was a kind of suburb. Its site is now entirely desolate. The third capital, El-Katai, was founded about 873 by Ahmed Ibn Tulun, as his capital. It continued the royal residence of his successors; but was sacked not long after the fall of the dynasty and rapidly decayed. A part of the present Cairo occupies its site and contains its great mosque, that of Ahmed Ibn Tulun.

Jauhar (Gohar) el-Kaid, the conqueror of Egypt for the Fatimite caliph El-Moizz, founded a new capital, 968, which