Anecdota Oxoniensia. Semitic series.

MELKITE MIONASTERY OF AL-KUSAIR.

15I

the vizierate of Al-Afdal, and afterwards, until he was put to death in the
year 528 (A.D. II34). In this church there is one altar, surmounted by
a small baldakyn; and over the midst of the church there is one large
cupola of conspicuous size. The church contains pictures of the forty
martyrs of Sebaste; and beneath it is the tomb of the said Abu 'l-Fada'il.
(7) The church of the martyr Barbara, which is small.
(8) [The church of] Saint Thomas.
(9) The church of Cosmas and Damian and their brothers and their
mother, who were all martyred for the name of Christ.
(lo) Below this is the church of Saint John, the Baptist and Forerunner, in a cave, and with a stone roof, supported on a pillar, like
a house which is concealed. In the midst of it, and on the roof, are
ecclesiastical paintings, most of which have been effaced. Near this
church is the tomb of John the monk, who planned the walls of
Cairo and its gatesl, in the caliphate of Al-Mustansir, and in the
uncultivated, or of any village in ruins, I will cut off thy head I' to which the
metwalli answered: 'Far be it from thee that in thy days any village should be
ruined, or land left uncultivated, or well allowed to fall out of repair!' Al-Makrizi
confirms the statement of our author that Abf 'l-Barakat was put to death in
A. H. 528. See Khi.tat, i. p. t. i.
1 This piece of information is very interesting, and is one more proof that the
Copts were the architects of Cairo, as I have always contended, and not the
Moslems.
What Abf Sallih says is that John the monk planned the new walls of Cairo
in the vizierate of Badr, under the caliphate of Al-Mustansir. The original walls,
of brick, were built by Jauhar, under the caliph Al-Mu'izz in A. D. 969 or 970 (see
Al-1Makrizi, Khitat, i. p. rvv ff.); but a century later these walls, being outgrown,
were demolished by Badr al-Jamall, in A. D. o087, who extended the boundaries
of the city, especially on the northern and southern sides, erecting new walls of
brick, with gateways of stone (see Al-Makrizi, Khitat, i. p. rvi). In his learned
essay on the topography of Cairo, M. Ravaisse gives a very clear plan, showing
the walls of Jauhar and those of Badr. Saladin subsequently extended the citadel
and made other enlargements, but in the main the existing walls are more probably
those of Badr than those of Saladin. See M. Ravaisse in Mem. Archeol. de la
Jfiss. Franf. au Caire, I88I-4; esp. plate 2 facing p. 454. (A. J. B.)