The
oldest part of Alexandria, lying along the causeway linking the
former island of Pharos with the mainland, consists of the
districts of al-‘Anfwshiy, Gumrok (the customs district)
and Ra's al-Tiyn ("cape of figs"). They were only
established, at the very earliest, during the 16th century. Gumrok,
the oldest of the three, flourished as a result of the decline of
medieval
Alexandria, which lay further south on the site of the
ancient city. Although the medieval city had became quite important during
the Mamaliyk period, its population was decimated
by plague in the 17th century and by 1658 the city was little
more than a heap of ruins punctuated by a few dilapidated dwellings. New
houses were built outside the city walls, and these constituted the
nucleus of a new city which was to expand rapidly in the early 18th
century before it, too, was hit by plague.
When
the French expedition led by Bonaparte landed in Alexandria
in 1798 the "Alexandria " was a little more than a small
town of eight to fifteen thousand inhabitants centered around the
Gurmrok district and subsisting mainly from fishing. The later urban
development of Ra’s al-Tiyn and al-‘Anfuwshiy Bay
dates from the reign of Muhammad `Aliy Pasha al-kabiyr
(1805-48), whose expansionist aspirations, which hinged on the development
of a naval fighting force, led him to choose Alexandria as the center
of his Mediterranean policy. This was the beginning of a period of
major construction for the city.
Ra's al-Tiyn
palace
In
1818 Muhammad `Aliy Pasha began to build the huge palace
of Ra's al-Tiyn of which certain sections, especially theHaramlik,
were reminiscent of his native Macedonian architecture. The present
palace, which was built in 1925 by Italian architects, houses the
Admiralty and is closed to the public. A military hospital and camps were
built to the east of the palace. In 1825 Muhammad `Aliy commissioned
the French engineer Lefebure de Cerisy to construct an arsenal,
whose workshops soon employed more than four thousand workers. Several
years later he undertook the relocation of the cemeteries that were scattered
along ‘Anfuwshiy Bay, so that the land could then be sold
by lots and used for the establishment of a new district. The site
revealed some of the most ancient necropolises in Alexandria.
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