Damanhur s community is a mixture of villagers from the area on the Rosetta branch of the Nile, and Bedouin tribes from the vast desert west of Damanhur. The city is thus the place where desert and agriculture meet two contrasting communities which has marked it from time immemorial.

One of the oldest cities in Egypt, Damanhur was a Pharaonic city called Daman Hor , meaning the falcon Hor city. It was the capital of the West Delta Kingdom before the dynasties age in ancient Egypt and later became an Egyptian province, and it still maintains this status. Damanhur witnessed significant urban development in Pharaonic times and contained a temple of the god Hor. A temple of the god Hermes was built in Greek-Roman times. A number of columns used in

building temples and coins dating back to the Greek-Roman age have recently been discovered.

Damanhur was the bridgehead to the destruction of the Byzantines in Alexandria upon the Islamic conquest as Amr Ibn Al-As wrote to Omar Ibn Al-Khattab requesting permission to conquer it along with other cities. It witnessed bloody battles in the third century AH, or more exactly in the period AH 199-210 when there was a discord between Alamin and Almaamoon. Ibn Jebir visited Damanhur in AH 578 and described it as a walled town on a plain stretching from Alexandria to Cairo and has numberless villages on the right and left. Ibn Battuta visited it in the seventh century AH and described it as a large city. In the same century Almunzeri referred to it as the capital of Albeheira, and Damanhur clothes are attributed to it. As the writings of travellers and geographers showed, the location of Damanhur was the main reason behind its reputation as a producer of textiles, in addition to being a key station on the Cairo-Alexandria desert road.

Damanhur flourished during the Mameluke age, thanks to the efforts of its governor, the well-known geographer Gharsuddin Khalil Bin Shahin Alzaheri, the author of An Outline of the Geography of Countries , who built many mosques and schools. Ibn Duqmaq gave a broad outline of Damanhur during that period:

An old, bustling city with a mosque, schools, baths, hotels, markets, etc. It is the capital of Albeheira and the seat of the Viceroy of Lower Egypt, called the Chief Prince. Situated to the east and south of Alexandria, it has a bay which is part of the bay of Alexandria, and is known as Damanhur City. When riots broke out among the Bedouins of western Beheira in the 780s Sultan Alzaher Saifuddin Barquq ordered the building of a mud wall around it.

The above text gives many important facts First: Damanhur s urban prosperity in the Mameluke age, which qualified it to be the seat of the Viceroy of Lower Egypt. Ibn Duqmaq indirectly gave the reason behind such prosperity, namely that Damanhur has a bay, part of the bay of Alexandria, which stretched from Fuwa on the Rosetta branch of the Nile to Alexandria. Egypt s domestic and foreign trade used to be transported from and to Alexandria through this branch. Secondly, Damanhur s wall. Ibn Jebir had previously said that it was walled, but it seems the city expanded and the wall was pulled down, which led Sultan Barquq to build a new wall which still exists today and is called the castle .Most likely, a small castle was built in the middle of the wall surrounding the city. There was an alley in Damanhur called Bab (Gate) Alnasr, which means that Damanhur s wall gates had the same names as those of Cairo s military wall. Sultan Qaitbay took great care of the wall in AH 801 to defind the city against successive raids.

During the French military expedition against Egypt at the end of the 18th century a revolt broke out against the French. A man claimed to be a Mahdi in Beheira and called on people to fight the French. Many people, including members of Awlad Ali and Alhanadi tribes, responded to his call, in addition to the inhabitants of the villages he passed by. All those groups of fighters, led by the alleged Mahdi, marched towards Damanhur where there was a French garrison which was attacked and all its soldiers killed. When General Marmon, the commandant of Alexandria, heard about this disaster he sent a contingent armed with guns to join the French battolion at Rahmaniya, near Alexandria. Fierce fighting took place between the alleged Mahdi s army and the French ending in the retreat of the latter. The French massed their troops round Damanhur once again, and the city was destroyed and all its people killed.

Muhammad Ali Pasha took great care of Damanhur, where he set up a spinning factory with 100 machines and 80 combs as well as a weaving factory where the army s woollen outfit was made. Damanhur underwent an important transformation when Abbas, the pasha of Egypt, in 1850 took all necessary steps to build a railway between Cairo and Alexandria, naturally across the Beheira region, which led to the prosperity of the city.

A number of Pharohnic stones and statues have been discovered. Some old mosques are in Damanhur whose general style is similar to that of the delta s mosques. Among these mosques are:

Alkharashi Mosque

The mosque dates back to the Mameluke age and was renovated in the Ottoman age. The main entrance is in the south-west side leading to the second gallery in the middle of which there is a skylight. The interior of the mosque consists of four galleries with three arches in between The mihrab is in the middle of the south-east side surmounted by a fanlight. The minbar, which lies to the right, has an inclining of special wood with two pennons decorated with inclining wooden slats. Quranic verses are inscribed on the minbar, together with the name of its maker Ahmad Aziz.

Almaradni Mosque

Named after Prince Altanbagha Almaradni, a senior prince of Sultan Alnasser Muhammad Bin Qalawun, who built a big mosque in Cairo and another one is Damanhur. The entrance to the mosque is an arch with two daises decorated with bricks. Above the entrance there is a plaque showing the date of renovation in the Ottoman age. To the left there is a minaret on a square base, followed by an octagonal floor with a column triad in each edge and a pointed arch in between, above which there is a balcony supported by V-shaped mouldings, then another similar octagonal floor. Above this floor there is a pointed helmet which looks like the ends of Ottoman minarets. The mosque s interior consists of four galleries separated by three arches. Some other old mosques in Damanhur date back to the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, in addition to modern ones, mainly Altawba Mosque with many features of the Mameluke style, and Alhasafi Mosque, representing south-east Asian style, which is unique in Egypt.

Alhabashy Mosque

One of the most splendid mosques in Damanhur, combining all features of Mameluke architectural style. The mosque is surrounded by a fence with two doors leading to a garden. To the left of the left door there is an octagonal drinking fountain with a beautifully decorated iron window and a tap on each side. Above the windows there is an octagon with plant decorations and a higher smaller octagon with a blank window on each side. Above this level there is an octagonal dome with plant decorations surmounted by a crescent. On the mosque s south western and north-eastern sides two doors protrude from the walls. Each door is crowned with an arch and is surmounted by a row of balconies. The msoque s outside walls are covered with plant decorations and star plates. The mosque s interior consists of three galleries with two three-column arches in between. The two main doors open onto the central gallery above whose middle slab there is a big dome with outside decorations. The minaret resembles Ottoman ones. King Fuad laid the foundation stone of the mosque when he visited Damanhur in 1920 in the presence of the then Alazhar Sheikh Muhammad Abulfadl Algizawi and Hussein Bey Alhabashy, who executed his father s (Mahmoud Alhabashy Pasha) will to build the mosque. Hussein Bey gave King Fuad a coffee cup inlaid with diamond and corundum as a present.

Municipality building

King Fuad visited Damanhur again in 1930 when he laid the foundation stone of the Municipality building, cinema and library on 8 November 1930. This event was commemorated on a rectangular plaque placed near the main eastern gate of the building. On the plaque is written: This stone was laid by His Majesty Fuad I of Egypt, may Allah lengthen his happy reign, on Saturday 17 Jumada II AH 1349 (8 November AD 1930). The building was completed in 1931, and a plaque carrying the words Municipal Council (AH 1350-AD 1931) is placed on the upper part of the eastern front of the council.

The western section of the building was first called Farouk cinema and theatre, and was later renamed Municipality cinema by resolution of the Municipal Council on 6 December 1952 until 1977, when it was renamed Alnasr winter cinema and finally Damanhur Theatre and Opera. The library was first called King Fuad Library, renamed after the late writer Tawfiq Elhakim and is now called Mubarak Library. It has a collection of some of the rarest books in Egypt placed in a square shape divided into two north-south rectangles. The Municipality building occupies the eastern section; the cinema and theatre the western, which consists of a ground and three floors and includes the main entrance, a buffet and a ticket office. Most of the interior is covered by the theatre which consists of rows of seats. A row of baignoires are on both sides of the first floor, paintings on the second and the third class auditorium on the third. The stage in the southern section, mostly overlooking the theatre hall.

Damanhur Theatre and Opera

A unique work of art and architecture representing the features of Egyptian style in the early 1940s. The theatre replicates the design of Italian opera which was introduced into Egypt during the reign of Khedive Ismail. The theatre is unique in that it combines Islamic architectural features and decorations. The Italian architect Verroci was extremely successful in combining appropriate European designs with the Islamic architectural elements used since the Fatimid and subsequent ages, including broken columns.

In view of the theatre s artistic and architectural value, in addition to its Andalusian decorations and circular columns at the entrance, and as it complements Sayyid Darwish theatre in Alexandria which was built during the reign of King Fuad, the Islamic and Coptic antiquities sector of the Supreme Council of Antiquites, upon approval of the Permanent Committee of Islamic and Copti antiquites in 1988 and Minsiter of Culture order 449 of 1988, and by operation of Article 2 of Antiquities Protection Law 117 of 1983, the building was registered as an Islamic antiquity and was added to the list of buildings with artistic and historical value in Beheira following consideration by the committee set up under Prime Minister order of 30 September 1998.

The building consists of the main entrance in the northern front, in addition to six side entrances four in the eastern front, one in the back (southern) and one in the western. The main entrance with an arch triad leads to a rectangular lobby covered by a two-level roof: the upper is concrete and the lower, which is visible, is plaster of Paris covered with a layer of paint penetrated by three identical decorations. The western side to the right opens onto the entrance lobby which leads to the buffet, a rectangular opening with a sliding door. The eastern side to the left leads to the ticket box area, each of a rectangular window closed with iron bars.

The theatre s horizontal projection is oval with two parallel lines, one in the south and opens onto the stage, and the other is the north containing the loge. The floor inclines toards the stage and ends in an iron railing of stairs to the stage. The orchestra pit is enclosed by the stage and railing. The theatre used to have rows of seats, most of which have now been removed. The first floor, which consists of 20 loges, follows the same design and has a railing with a concave and convex front. The theatre has a two-level roof: an upper span roof which is visible from the outside and covered with brick slabs with iron chains hanging from the roof onto which is fixed the lower level which is visible from the inside. It is a small dome covered with plaster of Paris with a skylight having an iron base with engraved decorations. The stage occupies the southern section of the building and covers nearly a third of its total area. In the middle of the southern side there is a two-leaf door which was used to carry equipment and decorations through. The stage is surmounted by a grille with intersecting wood beams overlooking the theatre.

Damanhur is currently famous for its carpet industry as well as its stadium, one of the oldest in Egypt. It also has a branch of Alazhar and Alexandria universities.

Damanhur s Intelligentsia

A large number of intellectuals have pleasant memories of Damanhur. But what attaches me most to the city is a self-taught, self-made intellectual, the owner of a bookshop who sold used books to people like myself. I used to save some money, and in my travels from my native town Mtobus to Cairo through Damanhur, or vice versa, I stopped at Damanhur to buy such books that eventually formed a large part of my library. He held rare books, some of which are now out of print. I have never met a writer or friend from or around Damanhur who has not bought books from him. This reminds me of my late friend Hajj Madbouli, owner of the famous bookshop in Cairo. But if you have been to Damanhur without visiting the Abdelmoeti Elmessiri café, this means you have missed a lot. I got to know that from my late friend Dr. Abdelwahab Elmessiri, who started his journey in the world of reading in this café whose owner founded it in 1932. He taught himself and started writing at the young age of 22. He wrote 600 short stories, including The Thristy and Tales from the Café . However, his most important contribution was this café which was visited by prominent writers and intellectuals in Egypt, including Tawfiq Elhakim, where he wrote his Diary of a District Attorney in the Country , as well as Elaqqad, Taha Hussein and Anwar Elsadat. The habit of reading was initiated by the café owner who made it a library lending books to visitors while they stay there. Soon afterwards the café became an important forum for the exchange of opinions and ideas and literary discussions, in which Damanhur s elite take part, and its reputation reached Cairo and Alexandria. Abdelmoeti Elmessiri died on 28 September 1970, the same day on which Gamal Abdelnasser died, but his café is still playing its role, and is even supported by additional books from the Culture Ministry, raising the number of books in the library to 4,000 , some of which are rare.