Fort Babylon

Fort Babylon is a Roman Fortress on the east Bank of the Nile, in the town of Babylon, now a suburb of modern Cairo, Egypt.
Babylon is mentioned as a town from the Pharaonic period by Ptolemy (121-151 CE) in his ‘Geography’.

Fort Babylon is built on Latitude 30 Degrees North on the boundary of Lower Egypt and Middle Egypt.
The original Fort was built in around 525 BCE. Its name derives from a fort constructed there by the Persian King Nebuchadnezzar who conquered Egypt in 568 BCE. He named it after Babylon, his own capital city, and called it Babylon in Egypt.
The Romans then rebuilt it after they occupied Egypt.
The structure visible today was built by Diocletian in 300 CE.
Fort Babylon is a circular tower which formed part of a large Roman Fortress that was on the site.
In 641 CE April, the Fortress fell to the Arab army after a seven month siege.

What remains today is a circular Roman Tower with a diameter of 100 feet (31m).
It is built in layers of five blocks of limestone, followed by three blocks of red brick.
The Walls are 10 ft (3m) wide. The Towers are 32 ft (10m) high.
Originally, there were two circular towers guarding the Nile entrance to the Fort for shipping to enter a large docks and warehouse complex, surrounded by curtain walls and towers at regular intervals.

Inside the Fort is the Coptic Museum, the Church of St. George and the Hanging Church.

Fort Babylon was a Toll Collection Point and the river was blocked by a bridge which must have been a pontoon bridge.
The Nile flowed under the Walls of the Fort.
It commanded the Border between Lower Egypt and Middle Egypt and was the collection point for Tolls paid by shipping on the Nile in either direction.

Fort Babylon appears to have been the crossing point across the Nile to Giza.
It is unlikely that there was a stone bridge, so it was more probably a pontoon bridge.

Fort Babylon was also the junction of the Nile with the entrance to Trajan's Canal which ran from the Nile to the Red Sea.
Before this, the Pharaonic Canal and later Ptolemy’s Canal, had joined the Nile 37 miles (60 km) to the north.
A pair of massive parallel stone walls 20 ft (6m) wide and 130 ft (40m) apart running to the northeast, were found during excavations next to the tower between 1999 to 2005.
Fort Babylon was one of two circular towers on either side of the entrance to Trajan's Canal.
This canal only operated for a few months of the year, from September to December, when the Nile rose high enough to open the Canal and send ships down it. The rest of the year it was closed to prevent the salt water from the Red Sea, which was higher, entering the Nile Delta.

There was also a Port here for the transhipment of cargoes and had warehouses to keep them in.
The quayside under the walls of Fort Babylon was stepped, allowing its continued use as the level of the Nile rose or fell.
The Fortress and Port was rebuilt under:
- Trajan (98-117 CE), enlarged and re-equipped the Fortress along with the its harbour.
- Constantine I (in 335 CE), moved the shipping routes from Alexandria to Fort Babylon.
- Arcadius (395-408) CE, enlarged the Fort again.

Strabo
- mentions that in 25 BCE Egypt had three Legions, two in Alexandria and one in Babylon. But he does not specify which one.
Notitia Dignitatum (c.400 CE)
- states that a vexillatio of the Legio XIII Gemina was stationed here.

In 449 CE Cyrus, Bishop of Babylon is recorded as attending the Council of Ephesus.

Coptic Museum, Fort Babylon