The history of Alexandria, Egypt dates back to the city’s founding, by Alexander the Great, in 332 BC. It was the seat of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, and quickly became one of the greatest cities of the Hellenistic world — second only to Rome in size and wealth. It fell to the Arabs in 641 AD, and a new capital of Egypt, Fustat, was founded on the Nile.

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Busiris was an ancient city of Lower Egypt, located at the modern Abu Sir Bana. In antiquity, it was the chief town of the nome Ati in Egypt, and stood west of Sais, near the Phatnitic mouth on the western bank of the Damietta Branch of the Nile.

The town and nome of Busiris were allotted to the Hermotybian division of the Egyptian militia. It was regarded as one of the birth places of Osiris, as perhaps the name itself implies.

The festival of Isis at Busiris came next in splendor and importance to that of Artemis at Bubastis in the Egyptian calendar. Considerable ruins are still extant.

The temple of Isis, indeed, with the hamlet which sprang up around it, stood probably at a short distance without the walls of Busiris itself, for Pliny mentions Isidis oppidum in the neighbourhood of the town. The ruins of the temple are still visible, a little to the north of Abu Sir, at the hamlet of Bahheyt.

Tanis is a city in the north-eastern Nile delta of Egypt. It is located on the Tanitic branch of the Nile which has long since silted up. Read More…

Avaris was the capital of ancient Egypt under the Hyksos (15th Dynasty). It was located at modern Tell el-Dab’a in the northeastern region of the Nile Delta. As the main course of the Nile migrated eastward, its position at the hub of Egypt’s delta Emporia made it a major administrative capital of the Hyksos and other traders. Read More…

The recorded history of ancient Heliopolis covers different eras of ancient Egypt: Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Biblical eras. Read More…

Ancient Heliopolis was one of the oldest cities of ancient Egypt, the capital of the 13th Lower Egyptian nome that was located five miles (8 km) east of the Nile to the north of the apex of the Nile Delta. Heliopolis has been occupied since the Predynastic Period, with extensive building campaigns during the Old and Middle Kingdoms. Today it is mostly destroyed; its temples and other buildings were used for the construction of medieval Cairo; most information about the ancient city comes from textual sources. Read More…

Philae is an island in the Nile River (actually 2 islands) and the previous site of an Ancient Egyptian temple complex in southern Egypt. The complex was dismantled and relocated to a nearby island during a UNESCO project started because of the construction of the Aswan Dam, after the site was partly flooded by the earlier Aswan Low Dam for half a century. Read More…

The most conspicuous feature of both islands of Philae in Aswan was their architectural wealth. Monuments of various eras, extending from the Pharaohs to the Caesars, occupy nearly their whole area. The principal structures, however, lay at the south end of the smaller island. Read More…

The ancient city of Bubastis was the capital of its own nome, located along the River Nile in the Delta region of Lower Egypt. Bubastis is often identified with the biblical city of Phibeseth. Bubastis was situated southwest of Tanis, upon the eastern side of the Pelusiac branch of the Nile. Read More…

Bilbeis is an ancient fortress city on the eastern edge of the southern Nile delta in Egypt. Read More…