Are There Any Remains of the Fātimid Palaces of Cairo?

Author(s): Dorothea Russell and Dorothea Russel

Source: Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt, Vol. 3 (1964), pp. 115-121
Published by: American Research Center in Egypt
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40000990 .
Accessed: 30/03/2011 10:20

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless
you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you
may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .
http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=arce. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed
page of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

American Research Center in Egypt is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt.

http://www.jstor.org
 Are There Any Remains of the Fatimid Palaces of Cairo?
Dorothea Russell
Yes, I think there are still remains of these
Palaces, as I shall now proceed to show.
These great palaces were an extraordinary
conglomeration of buildings, including every-
thing necessary to the life of a great Oriental
court, mosques, and a burial ground. They were
of a shoddy brick construction and were plaster-
ed and whitewashed. There are fascinating des-
criptions of them in such books as MaqrizI1and
Nassiri Khusrau.2 The latter has a description
by the Crusadersof how they were received by
the Khalif. The Palaces contained great basins
of water presumably as protection in case of
fire and partly also for pleasure, and ramps by
which the Khalifs ascended to the upper floors
without dismounting from their mules. They
contained very great riches and we have
wonderful accounts of the throne room, of the
silk hangings, of the golden trees with jewelled
birds and of the beautiful vessels of crystal,
flower vases, cups etc., and the fine metal work.
These palaces were vast congeries of people and
at the time of the fall of the Fatimids in 1171
the Khalif was living in complete seclusion
amongst his women. He was so removed from
the outside world that he did not even know of
his deposition. He had 152 relatives in the
palace, mostly women, but about a score of
males and they were then all completely
secluded so that the dynasty might die out. At
one time the inhabitants of the palace were
estimated at no less than eighteen to thirty
1 Maqrizi, Khitat Topoqraphiquede VEgypteet du
Cairep. 411 (writing1416-1424)ed. Boulaq 1853.
2 Nassiri Khusrau, Sefer Nameh, 1045-1052 (Pans
1881).
9 "5
thousand souls. He was surroundedby eunuchs
and slaves and guards. The Fatimid burial
ground was within the palace precincts, and the
bodies were removed in baskets on the backs of
donkeys and thrown out onto the Barklya, the
great rubbish heaps to the north of the Citadel
by the conqueringdynasty, the Ayyubids.
Gawhar, the first Fatimid Khalifs great
general, probably an Armenian slave, had
built the palace from a design traced by the
hand of al-Mucizzhimself. They were on the
line of the old pilgrim road from north to
south and the area was about half a mile
square, about 1200 metres by 1000 and rather
longer than broad, its axis being from north to
south; the palace covered about a fifth of its
area.
The Palaces were surroundedby great walls
of sun dried brick on which two horsemen
could ride abreast. These rough sun dried brick
walls very soon crumbled and Saladin then
built great stone walls of which we can see a
good many remains today. The wall on the
west was behind the Lesser Palace of al-Hakim
and was almost along the Khalig which here
ran just outside the enclosure.The centre of the
enclosure was the great Meidan of Bain al-
Qasrein which was a parade ground flanked on
either side by the two palaces, the Great
Palace of al-Mucizzon the east and the later
Lesser Palace of al-Hakim on the west. This
great Meidan was the centre of the life of the
city and remainedso for a great many centuries.
But in the Fatimid times respect for the Khalifs
existed and the trafficwas cut off at night by a
chain which was hung at about where the
 gold bazaar is today, on the south; I don't
know what happened on the north, there is
nothing recorded. The palaces were apparently
not walled themselves but they had great gates
which led by long passages into the interior;
the great gates that we know, the Bab al-Futuh
the Bab Zuweyla and the Bab al-Nasr are all
in the actual fortification walls. There were
probably no windows in the outer walls of the
palaces. We know the emplacement of the
Bab al-Sirr on the north. On the south the
tower of the Bab al-Akhdar on the south-east
corner of the palace was the entrance from
another old Meidan to the shrine of Husayn,
where the head of Husayn had been brought in
a green silk bag by the undergroundpassage on
the other side of the palace and thence through
the palace to the shrine. The Bab al-Akhdar
was probably a public entrance for the people,
without traversing the palace.
It is with another gate we are concerned
today for we know that al-Hakim built a gate
facing the river, Bab al-Bahr, shortly after the
Palace of al-Mu'izz was built. This gate has
always been thought to have entirely disap-
peared. Why, I cannot think, for there is the
most obvious evidence of its presence and I
shall now proceed to show that something of
this still exists.
The great historian of the Palaces was
Maqrizi3who wrote about 1420. He saw all that
still remained of the Palaces at this date and
this was a considerable amount for the process
of destruction was a slow one and mainly one of
dis-integration. He had a very inquisitive turn
of mind and saw all that he could and never
failed to follow a clue and he examined every-
thing that he thought might have any bearing
on the history of the Palaces. He saw and
talked with many people who in their turn had
known people who rememberedthe remains of
the Palaces and who knew stories about them.
He left a wonderful description of these palaces
which had been partly inhabited up till only
about a hundred years before. He saw what
remained of them between 1416 and 1421. He
3 See note 1.
116
was justly called the Topographer' and he left
an Ariadne's thread by which Ravaisse4 be-
tween 1881 and 1890 made his constationof the
Palaces. Fortunately Maqrizi is translated,
otherwise, he would have been a closed book to
me. ( See Fig. 1)
There were two main Palaces: at first the
Great Palace of al-Mucizzon the East of the
Great Rahba and slightly later the Lesser
Palace of al-Aziz on the West. These Palaces
stood on the Great Rahba Bain al-Qasrein,
which occupied a large space in the then new
Fatimid city which was founded in 969 by
Gawhar, al-Mu'izz5Qaid (Commanderin Chief
and Grand Vizier), on a plan drawn by the
hand of al-Mucizzhimself. The square was a
great parade ground and was closed except for
the space at each end through which ran the
Qasaba, which Lane Poole calls the High
Street of Cairo- surely one of the oldest and
most wonderful streets in the world. This
great street followed the course of the old
Pilgrimroad from North to South and traversed
the Fatimid city and was continued right away
to the south to the old Burial grounds far
beyond the Bab-Zuwayla and Ibn Tulun.
Standing on the Nahassin looking north, to
the right was the Palace of al-Mucizzand to
the left the later Palace of al-cAziz. The right
hand was known as the Great Palace. Of the
Palace to the left and which was set further
back from the great road which kept to the
east of the parade ground, nothing is left and
indeed it was much farther back than the
present line of Mamlukmosques and tombs and
was on the site of the garden of Kafur and was
bounded on the west by city wall and by the
Khalig, the Canal of Misr. It is just possible
that that part of the Maristanof Qalaun might
be on the part of this palace site or its immediate
successors and when some years ago they were
doing something to the drainage works under
ground on this far back-line I saw uncovered a
fa?ade plastered in the Fatimid manner and
once certainly a frontage on the old face of the
4 P. Ravaisse, Essai sur I'Histoireet sur la Topo-
graphiedu Caired'aprbsMaqrizi.Caire 1881-84.
 FigureI

9*
117
Parade ground, which may have been part of
the original Palace. It was deep below the
foundation of the later mosques. But it is not
with this palace and its possible remains that
we are concerned today but with the Palace
of al-Mucizzto the right (East) of the parade
ground. MaqrizI says that to the uninitiated
the name of the great Meidan embalms the
names of the two emirs who in the beginning
of the 14th century acquired the two northern
cornersof the parade ground, the Amir Beshtak
on the right hand (eastern) corner and the
Amir Baisari the left (western) cornerand there
built their enormous palaces, but that they
were really that of the two Khalifs who dominat-
ed the Bain al-Qasrein long before the advent
of the Amirs. These royal palaces retained their
identity for a great many years after the fall
of the Fatimids in 1171. But these old build-
ings were in the main shoddy brick-built, and
rapidly disintegrated or fell to pieces but were
not finally pulled down for a long time. It was
at this time that under Saladin and his succes-
sors this part became the fashionable building
site. They were given or sold by Saladin and
his successorsto the great Amirs who built their
later palaces there, at first incorporatingmuch
of the old Palaces in the later buildings.
You must now look at the Eastern face of
Bain al-Qasrein. Here is a collection of in-
significant buildings between the remains of
the great mosque of Salih Ayyub (1242) and
the beginning of the Beshtak Palace. This line
of low buildings can be distinguished from the
roof of the house of Othman Kathuda (1361)
(slightlyto the south, in the ShariaBait al- Qadi),
and from here it can be seen that there is a
high line of buildings with a lower one to each
side running along north to south. There can
also be made out what appearto be the remains
of a round tower and this alone should give food
for thought, being just on this site. For here
was the end of the Throne Room and it is quite
obvious to any one that here was the Palace
and that the tall centre block represents the
remains of this, and the low block to either side
is the remains of the buildings that grew up to
Il8
either side. Here must be the site of the former
Bab al-Bahr which al-Hakim built rather later
than the Palace, directly on Bain al-Qasrein
north of the Throne Room and pointing out
towards the river. On this site grew up on Bain
al-Qasrein a Quarterof sellers of food stuffs, an
Armourers Bazaar, money changers and a
Quarter of prostitutes who we are told wore
a transparent bodice, red leather trousers and
often carried a dagger. It was on this block of
the Fatimid Palace that Beshtak made his
palace and enclosed this with a great gate and
this is just ahead of us and is today known as
the Bab Qadi <Askar (Gate of the Soldiers
Judge) but it is really the Gate of Beshtak's
Palace and more.
Now let us explore this gate. (See Fig. 2) The
entrance on Bain al-Qasrein is almost hidden
in the mass of later buildings but we find a
great nail studded gate and entering this find
ourselves within a long passage turning im-
mediately south. At the end of this we find the
passage turns directly East and if we pursue
this passage we should find on the left the great
gate to the Beshtak Palace or what remains of
it. The wall to the left has been rebuilt during
this century by the Comitede Conservationand
retains no trace of the wall of either Beshtak's
time or earlier. But our interest begins with the
end of the first length of the passage. Here we
see opposite us an apparently old wall and here
is a door sunk deep below the road level with
another beside it at slightly higher level. High
in the wall beyond this is what looks like an
arrow slit but Cresswell thinks that this was
not correct for the angle of fire and that this
must have been the remains of a window.
Going through the door we find ourselves in
what are obviously the remains of a great round
tower and this is the tower of which we saw the
top from the house of Othman Kathuda. We
follow the stair immediately opposite us be-
coming more and more certain as we go up
that this is a great tower and if we poke a
stick through one of the cracks in the wall on
the righthand side we find that this goes right
in, into complete darkness,and there is obvious-
Figure 2

119
ly a large mass of rubble outside, and a very
considerable thickness of masonry. But it is
impossible to get at the outside. You will find
that the whole tower is inhabited. Hurrying
down one is once again at the bottom of the
stair. At the bottom is a door in the eastern-
most side of the tower facing the stair. We
then find the old man who has the key for the
door in the left hand wall of the tower (this
wall is straight not rounded). When the door is
opened it discloses a great place built of fine
masonry and with the grooves for a saqya
(water wheel) in the walls. What can this be
but the saqya that Beshtak put to supply his
palace up to the fifth floor with water ? And
what is it in? It is in the immense remains of
part of a semi-round tower and this must be
assuredly the southern half of the Bab al-Bahr
which we are told al-Hakim built in the tenth
century shortly after the Palace of al-Aziz
(996-1021). Here we undoubtedly have the
remains of this gate and Beshtak must have
destroyed, or found destroyed, the north of the
passage and its southern tower standing, and
made the tower into his water works. The Bab
al-Bahr begins at the first turn east in the
entrance passage. This gate must have been
similar to the Bab-Zuwayla and to the Bab al-
Bahr and the Bab al-Nasr and must have been
like them both, with two great towers and a
long straight passage as was probably also the
palace Bab al-Eid on the North of the Palace.
This gate is situated exactly where Maqriziand
Ravaisse both locate it and beyond this Gate
on the South was the Throne Room. It was
probably impossible to identify at their dates
owing to old buildings encumberingit.
The tower could only be part of some great
construction and obviously it is only a half
that remains. The gates were undoubtedly of
stone. It opened onto Bain al-Qasreinand faced
towards the river as its name indicates (i.e.
the Canal).
We will now look for the other remains that
I think I have identified. We know that the
Khalifs had ascending ramps up which they
rode their mules without dismounting, to the
120
upper story. Follow the street along to the
north and at the end of Bain al-Qasrein it is
divided by the old sibil of Abd al-Rahman
Kikhya that we know was a building which
belonged to the stretchers of recently dyed
stuffs; leaving this on the left and having the
Beshtak wall on the right we carry on till
we get to the Sharia al-Tumbakshiya called
after a certain kind of tobacco sold here. This
street went originally by the name of Khatt
al-Rukn and I once took Mr Rowntree of the
Survey to see it and he said it was not called
by this name at all but I insisted that it was
and that if we asked one or two people we
should soon find that it is known by this name
and the third person we asked gave us the old
tenth century name Khatt al-Rukn! If you
stand on the corner behind the Gama al-
Akhdar, near the Prophet's drinking trough
and look East, you will see that the street has
a salient in the middle on the South. The
Fatimids were fond of these salients and this
hides the far end of the street from here, which
continues right on to the Mosque of Gamal al-
Din on the far corner and to the Meidan Qast
al-shaq.
This gate, the Bab al-RIh (Gate of the Wind)
must have been like the Bab Zuwayla and the
Bab al-Futuh, in fact this seems to have been
the pattern of all such gates. The Bab al-RIh,
was very long, about 30 metres, and very dark
and was not pulled down until 1340.5 Behind
the salient on the northern street are more or
less old, and, also modern buildings which I
have never succeeded in penetrating from the
Sharia al-Tumbakshiya but which must be on
the site of the old gate. Now return to the lane
just at the end of the Beshtak Palace and if we
follow this eastward we shall find ourselves at
the Mosqueof Mithqal and opposite what must
have been the inner opening of the Bab al-RIh.
Here is a building of indeterminate age to either
side of which are two sloping lanes going up
northwards.There is no rise in level marked on
5 Ravaisse 446 note 1, quoting Maqrizl, op. cit.,
who saw part of it.
the map here. The slopes are called al-Ha^ra
the sloping ground, which is probably a very
old name for the area.
I was once mooching round here exploring
and a very old gentleman saw me and asked
what I was looking for. I said 'just old buildings/
'In that case/ he said, 'come with me and I will
show you my own house.' We went up the
steep left hand passage and this ended in a
cross road with cul-de-sac on the right and on
the left was an old door. This he proceeded to
unlock with an immense key extracted from
some recess on his person and we then found
ourselves in an old Turkish house which is not
very unusual in this part of Cairo. 'Ah/ but he
said, 'this is not all, for once when we were
repairing the drains we found a whole house
below us/
Now what could this be? The Fatimids we
know had ramps up to the upper storeys to
enable them to ride up on their mules without
dismounting. This can only be one of the ramps
to either side of the place on to which the Bab
al-RIh opened and this house must be the
remains of the old palace below the floor of the
old Turkish House. The Vizier lived in this part
of the Palace or of the gate until as late as 1240
and the Dais, the esoteric teachers of the
Fatimids, also lived in this part of the Palace,
north of the Bab al-Bahr with a passage through
this to the Throne Room beyond. I feel sure
that this is what I say: Ravaisse apparently
never discovered the non-extinct gate itself
though he places it exactly here and the Bab
al-Bahr also where is the Bab Qadi cAskar.
Baibars is said to have pulled down the Bab
al-Sirr in 1340 and to have discovered treasure
which he published as boxes of old iron work;
the whereabouts of this treasure had never
been disclosed by the inhabitants of the Palace
and even torture had failed to discover it.
We do not know exactly where in the Palace
the Fatimid Khalifs lived but probably some-
where very close to the Throne Room.
I think this identification of the sites is
quite certain.
London
121