Damietta

Geography

Damietta is 1-2 metres above sea level and 12 kilometres from the mouth of the eastern tributary of the Nile Delta. Coastal progradation by the Nile created the land in the area in the 1st millennium.

History

Early history and Islam

The first historical mention of Damietta was by the 6th-century geographer Stephanus of Byzantium . The city was called Tamíathis (Ancient Greek: Ταμίαθις) in the Hellenistic period. George of Cyprus wrote about the city around 605 AD. In 1885, Karl Baedeker wrote that a stone featuring the name of Domitian (r. 81–96) was in Damietta.

Miqdad ibn Aswad conquered Damietta and the rest of Egypt. The Byzantine Empire attacked Damietta in 708–709, 738–739, 852–853, 921, and 968. Caliph al-Mutawakkil had walls built for the city after the Byzantines sacked the city in 853.

The Amr ibn al-As Mosque is reported to be the second oldest mosque in Egypt.

The Sufi organisation Qalandariyya was founded by Jamal al-Din Saoji in Damascus and Damietta in the 13th century.

The Abbasid Caliphate used Alexandria, Damietta, Aden and Siraf as entry ports to India and Tang China.

Badr al-Jamali started his four year military campaign in Egypt after arriving in Damietta in December 1073.

The Veil of St. Anne was woven in Damietta in 1096 or 1097.

Crusaders

Damietta was attacked by crusaders in 1155 and by a joint crusader and Byzantine force in 1169. Amalric, King of Jerusalem sieged the city in 1169, but failed and additional city walls were created for Damietta.

During preparations for the Fifth Crusade in 1217, it was decided that Damietta should be the focus of attack. Control of Damietta meant control of the Nile, and from there the Crusaders believed they could conquer Egypt. From Egypt, they could then attack Ayyubid-ruled Palestine and recapture Jerusalem. After the siege of Damietta of 1218–19, the port was occupied by the Crusaders. The siege devastated the population of Damietta. After the crusaders captured Damietta in November 1219, they looted the city. Only 3,000 of the city's 70,000 inhabitants survived the siege.

Earlier that year, Francis of Assisi had arrived to negotiate with the Muslim ruler peaceably. In 1221 the Crusaders attempted to march to Cairo, but were destroyed by the combination of nature and Muslim defenses.

Damietta was also the object of the Seventh Crusade, led by Louis IX of France. His fleet arrived there in 1249 and quickly captured the fort, which he refused to hand over to the nominal king of Jerusalem, to whom it had been promised during the Fifth Crusade. However, having been taken prisoner with his army in April 1250, Louis was obliged to surrender Damietta as ransom.

Modern

Damietta was destroyed by the Mamluks in November 1250, and a new town was founded to the south around an old mosque. The first mention of Damietta in Mamluk sources after its destruction was when Sultan Aybak gave the town to Prince Ala' al-Din Aydaghdi al-Azizi in 1254. Sultan Baybars ordered that the river be blocked to seafaring ships in 1260, and this work was completed in 1264.

The Republic of Genoa attacked Damietta in May 1384, and February 1412.

The first mention of a governor for Damietta was by scholar Izz al-Din ibn Shaddad in 1285. The governorship was upgraded to viceroyalty by Sultan Barsbay in 1427. Ibn Battuta wrote during his stay in Damietta that Governor Ahmad ibn Bilbak al-Muhsini would not allow anybody to enter or leave the port without his permission. The historian Ibn Duqmaq was governor for a short period. Governor Muhammad al-Salakhuri was killed in a riot in 1418, after a group of fishermen rose up in rebellion.

A fire broke out across the city in 1425 and destroyed one-third of Damietta.

Sultan Al-Mansur Ali was banished to Damietta after being overthrown by Qutuz in 1259. Prince Yalbugha al-Salimi was exiled to the city from 1400 to 1402. The Ottomans banished people to Damietta, such as Umar Makram in 1809.

Ottoman soldiers sent to Arabia and Yemen commonly went via a sea route going through Damietta and then on land to Cairo.

Koca Hüsrev Mehmed Pasha was sent to Egypt to suppress a rebellion by Albanian soldiers. However, he was defeated in Alexandria and withdrew to Damietta. At Damietta he surrendered to an army led by Muhammad Ali of Egypt and Mamluk leader Uthman Bey al-Bardisi in July 1803.

Damietta was a centre of the Urabi revolt and city governor Abdul-Al supported the Urabi movement.

The first cholera case of the 1883 epidemic that killed 50,000 people in Egypt was reported in Damietta on 22 June.

Governors

Ecclesiastical history

Hellenistic Tamiathis became a Christian bishopric, a suffragan of the metropolitan see of Pelusium, the capital of the Roman province of Augustamnica Prima, to which Tamiathis belonged. Its bishop Heraclius took part in the Council of Ephesus in 431. Helpidius was a signatory of the decree of Patriarch Gennadius of Constantinople against simony in 459. Bassus was at the Second Council of Constantinople (553). In a letter from Patriarch Michael I of Alexandria read at the Photian Council of Constantinople (879), mention is made of Zacharias of Tamiathis, who had attended a synod that Michael had convened in support of Photius. Later bishops too of Tamiathis are named in other documents.

There are four known bishops for Damietta between 431 and 879. In 1249, when Louis IX of France captured the city, it became for a short time the seat of a Latin Church bishop Gilles of Saumur.

The Latin bishopric, no longer residential, is today listed by the Catholic Church twice as a titular see under the names Tamiathis (Latin) and Damiata (Curiate Italian), each at time of episcopal or archiepiscopal rank, of the Latin and Melkite Catholic Churches.

Titular Latin see

The diocese was nominally restored in the 17th century when established as Latin titular archbishopric of Damietta of the Romans (Latin: Tamiathis or Tomiathianus Romanorum; Italian: Damiata in Curiate) and had the following incumbents of the intermediary archiepiscopal rank:

• Bernardino Spada (later Cardinal) (1623.12.04 – 1626.01.19)
• Cesare Facchinetti (1639.09.05 – 1672.11.14)
• Neri Corsini (later Cardinal) (1652.08.12 – 1664.01.14)
• Angelo Maria Ranuzzi (later Cardinal) (1668.04.30 – 1678.04.18)
• Ercole Visconti (1678.07.18 – 1712)
• Marco Antonio Ansidei (later Cardinal) (1724.06.12 – 1726.12.16)
• Raffaele Cosimo De Girolami (later Cardinal) (1728.03.08 – 1743.09.09)
• Paul Alphéran de Bussan, Sovereign Military Order of Malta (O.B.E.) (1746.09.19 – 1757.04.20)
• Vincenzo Maria de Francisco e Galletti, Dominican Order (O.P.) (1757.12.19 – 1769.07.19)
• Bonaventura Prestandrea, Conventual Franciscans (O.F.M. Conv.) (1769.12.18 – 1777.12.21)
• Bartolomeo Pacca (later Cardinal) (1785.09.26 – 1801.02.23)
• Giovanni Francesco Compagnoni Marefoschi (1816.04.29 – 1820.09.17)
• Giovanni Giacomo Sinibaldi (1821.08.13 – 1843.01.27) (later Patriarch)*
• Vincenzo Gioacchino Pecci (later Pope Leo XIII) (1843.01.27 – 1846.01.19)
• Diego Planeta (1850.01.07 – 1858.06.05)
• Luigi Oreglia di Santo Stefano (later Cardinal) (1866.05.04 – 1873.12.22)
• Eugène-Louis-Marie Lion, O.P. (1874.03.13 – 1883.08.08)
• Eugenio Lachat, Missionaries of the Precious Blood (C.PP.S.) (1885.03.23 – 1886.11.01)
• Ignazio Persico, O.F.M. Cap. (later Cardinal) (1887.03.14 – 1893.01.16)
• Andrea Aiuti (later Cardinal) (1893.06.12 – 1903.06.22)
• Edoardo Carlo Gastone Pöttickh de Pettenegg, Teutonic Order (O.T.) (1904.11.14 – 1918.10.01)
• Sebastião Leite de Vasconcellos (1919.12.15 – 1923.01.29)
• Luigi Pellizzo (1923.03.24 – 1936.08.14)

Demoted in 1925 as Titular bishopric, it has been vacant for decades, having had the following incumbents, all of the episcopal (lowest) rank:

• Guglielmo Grassi (1937.01.13 – 1954.09.14)
• Eugenio Beitia Aldazabal (1954.10.30 – 1962.01.27)
• Marco Caliaro, Scalabrinians (C.S.) (1962.02.10 – 1962.05.23)
• Antonio Cece (1962.08.06 – 1966.03.31)

Titular Melkite see

Established in 1900 as titular bishopric of Damietta of the Melkite Greeks (Latin: Tamiathis or Tomiathianus Graecorum Melkitarum; Italian: Damiata), it was suppressed in 1935, after a single incumbent of this episcopal (lowest) rank:

• Titular Bishop Paul-Raphaël Abi-Mourad (1900.07.02 – 1935.08.08)

Restored in 1961 as Titular archbishopric, it has had the following incumbents of the archiepiscopal (intermediary) rank:

• Titular Archbishop Antonio Farage (1961.03.07 – 1963.11.09)
• Titular Archbishop Nicolas Hajj (1965.07.30 – 1984.11.03)
• Titular Archbishop Joseph Jules Zerey (2001.06.22 – ... ), protosyncellus of Jerusalem of the Greek-Melkites (Palestine)

Demographics

Benjamin of Tudela reported that Damietta had 200 Jews in 1170.

In the 1897 census there were 31,000 to 32,000 people recorded in Damietta, making it the 10th largest settlement in Egypt. In 1907, 1% of Egypt's population lived in Damietta. The Catholic Encyclopedia reported a population of 53,000, with all of them being Muslim except for 75 members of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church, 60 Roman Catholic, and 250 other Christians. Budge reported a population of 29,354 in 1911.

Climate

Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as hot desert (BWh), but blowing winds from the Mediterranean Sea greatly moderate the temperatures, typical to the Egypt's north coast, making its summers moderately hot with relatively high humidity while its winters mild and moderately wet where sleet and hail are also common.

Port Said, Kosseir, Ras El Bar, Baltim, Damietta and Alexandria have the least temperature variation in Egypt.

Economy

The Damietta governorate has a population of around 1,093,580 (2006). It contains the SEGAS LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) plant, which will ultimately have a capacity of 9.6 million ton/year through two trains. The plant is owned by Segas, a joint venture of the Spanish utility Unión Fenosa (40%), Italian oil company Eni (40%) and the Egyptian companies EGAS and EGPC (10% each).

The plant is unusual since it is not supplied from a dedicated field, but is supplied with gas from the Egyptian grid. As of 2010, EMethanex, the Egyptian division of Methanex Corporation, a Canadian owned company, was building a 3600 MTPD methanol plant. Damietta also has a woodworking industry and is also noted for its White Domiati cheese and other dairy products and Pâtisserie and Egyptian desserts. It is also a fishing port.

Sea trade

Changes to the Nile in the 9th and 10th century, such as the Canopic branch drying up, resulted in trade diverting from Alexandria to Damietta and Rosetta. The abandonment of the port city Tinnis in the 12th century increased the commercial importance of Damietta.

In 1783, 498 ships came to and left Damietta. From 1786 to 1798, around 11.5 million paras were collected by customs in Damietta. This figure was only behind the 12.3 million paras of Alexandria and 15.4 million paras of Cairo. One of the major rice growing areas of Ottoman Egypt was around Damietta.

The creation of the Mahmudiyya Canal diverted trade away from Damietta and to Alexandria. Its importance was further diminished by the Suez Canal. Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge blamed the growth of Port Said for the decline of Damietta.

Textiles

A textile industry exists in Damietta and it was a major producer of silk in the 19th century. The 1872 census reported that 166 workshops produced 20,000 pieces of silk per year. A 1919 government report stated that Damietta was one of the major centres of textile production and had over 200 looms. 'Abd al-Fattah Bey al-Lozy, the largest loom owner in Damietta with 37 looms, produced around 170,000 metres of silk fabric per year in 1910.

Damietta is very famous for its furniture industry. In addition to the Egyptian market, its furniture is sold in Arab countries, Africa, Europe, the United States, and almost all over the world. Today, there is a canal connecting it to the Nile, which has made it an important port once again. Containers are transported through the new Damietta Port.

Cityscape

Landmarks

• Tabiet Ahmed Urabi, ruins of Damietta Fort at Ezbet El-Borg.
• The Old Bridge (el-Kōbrī el-Qadīm), dating to the early 20th century.
• Souk al-Hesba, the old city centre, dating to the Abbasid rule era.

Mosques

• Amr ibn al-As Mosque (Damietta), the second mosque to be built in Egypt and Africa by the Arabs after entering Egypt. It was twice converted to a church during the city's occupation by the Crusaders. Louis IX of France's son, John Tristan, was baptized by a legate of the pope in this mosque.
• Al-Bahr Mosque, dating to the Ottoman rule era.
• Al-Hadidy Mosque in Faraskour, 200 years old.
• Al-Maainy Mosque, dating to the reign of al-Naser Mohammed ibn Qalawon.
• Al-Matbuly Mosque, dating to the Mamluk era.
• Al-Radwaniya Mosque, dating to the Mamluk era.

Notable people

• Jamal al-Din Saoji, Persian Sufi saint and ascetic
• Aisha Abd al-Rahman, Egyptian author
• Kamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Damiri, (1344–1405), writer on canon law and natural history
• Refaat Al-Gammal (Raafat el-Haggan), Egyptian spy
• Latifa al-Zayyat, activist and writer
• Professor Abdel Rahman Badawi, professor of philosophy
• St. Sidhom Bishay, Coptic martyr
• Rifaat El-Fanagily, football player
• Mohamed Fahim ElGindy, who established and developed the furniture industry during 20th century in Damietta
• Rifaat el-Mahgoub, former Head of the Egyptian Parliament and a member of the ruling National Democratic Party
• Besheer El-Tabei, football player
• Mohammed Hassan El-Zayyat, former minister of foreign affairs.
• Farag Foda, secular writer shot to death in his office on 8 June 1992 by two Islamic fundamentalists from the Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya group.
• Zahi Hawass, Egyptologist
• Yusuf Idris, writer and psychiatrist
• Zaki Naguib Mahmoud, writer and philosopher
• Ali Moustafa Mosharafa, physicist and contributor to the theory of relativity
• Farouk Shousha, poet; previously head of Egyptian Radio (El Soaraa village)
• Essam El Hadary, football player