Fortifications of Cairo

The fortifications of the historic city of Cairo, Egypt, include defensive walls and gates that were built, rebuilt, and expanded in different periods.

In the 12th century, the Ayyubid sultan Salah ad-Din (Saladin) restored the walls and began a major extension to the south.

He also began construction on the Citadel of Cairo, a military complex that would serve as the center of power in Egypt for centuries afterwards.

Some sections of the historic walls are still preserved today, mainly on the north and east sides of the city, as well as much of the Citadel.

Jawhar al-Siqilli, the Fatimid general who led the conquest of Egypt, oversaw the construction of the city's original walls, which were built of mudbrick.

[4]: 245 Salah ad-Din, the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, restored the Fatimid walls and gates in 1170[6] or 1171.

This project included the construction of the Citadel of Cairo and of a 20 kilometer-long wall to connect and protect both Cairo (referring to the former royal city of the Fatimids) and Fustat (the main city and earlier capital of Egypt a short distance to the southwest).

[3]: 87, 96 Since 1999, the preserved northern section of Fatimid walls has been cleared of debris and part of a local urban regeneration.

[10]: 244  In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the rubbish hills east of the historic city were excavated and transformed by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture into al-Azhar Park, which opened in 2005.

[1] Badr al-Gamali rebuilt Bab Zuwayla further south than Gawhar al-Siqilli's original gate.

[5] The Mosque of al-Mu'ayyad Shaykh was built next to the gate between 1415 and 1420, at which time a pair of minarets were constructed on top of the two bastions that flank the gateway.

[10]: 190–192 One of the eastern gates of the city, part of the Ayyubid reconstruction of the walls, was also uncovered in 1998 and subsequently studied and restored.

It has a complex defensive layout including a bent entrance and a bridge over a moat or ditch.

Archeologists discovered a number of ancient stones with Pharaonic inscriptions that were re-used in the gate's construction.

[19]: 109–110  All of al-Kamil's fortifications can be identified by their embossed, rusticated masonry, whereas Saladin's towers have smooth dressed stones.

Bab al-Futuh , one of the two preserved Fatimid gates in the northern city walls, dated to 1087
Plan of Fatimid Cairo according to Stanley Lane-Poole , showing the city wall and the known gates
Northern section of the city walls between Bab al-Nasr and Bab al-Futuh , dating from the late 11th century Fatimid reconstruction
Part of the eastern city wall, dating from the Ayyubid period (12th–13th centuries) and excavated in the last few decades (as seen from al-Azhar Park )
Bab al-Nasr , one of the northern city gates in the Fatimid walls, dated to 1087
Bab Zuwayla , the southern gate of the Fatimid walls, dated to 1092
Bab al-Barqiyya (possibly the historic Bab al-Jadid), an Ayyubid gate rediscovered during excavations in 1998
Inside the northern enclosure of the Cairo Citadel , whose walls still largely date from the Ayyubid period (late 12th and early 13th centuries). [ 18 ] Other parts of the Citadel were repeatedly modified in later periods.