Note 5 — Chapter II

Dr Butler’s suggestion is rather strengthened by Pococke’s statement that in his time the Kasr-esh-Shema‘ was also known by the name of “Casr Kieman.” It is not, however, quite certain that this Kasr-esh-Shema‘ represents the principal part of Babylon. There was another Roman building on a rocky hill, formerly washed by the Nile, south-east of the Kasr-esh-Shema‘, which according to several Arabic writers quoted by Makrízy was the town of Misr or Babylon besieged by ‘Amr, and contained the fortress known as Kasr Babelyún. Possibly the remains of this are commemorated in “Antar’s Stable,” of which massive foundations exist. See Lane, Cairo Fifty Years Ago, 146. Traces of walls beside the bed of the Nile have been noticed south of Masr el-‘Atíka, and it is probable that here we have vestiges of the vanished pre-Muslim city of Misr, guarded by its two forts. That Misr was a northern extension of the old but decayed capital, Memphis, is not so impossible as it seems. The distance it is true between the present ruins of Memphis and the fortress of Babylon is over ten miles, but it must be remembered that Memphis once had a circuit of seventeen miles, and stretched as far as Giza.