Egypt - Historic quarters and monuments of Rosetta/Rachid

Historical background: Quite a strange destiny, that of Rosetta/Rachid, the small city in the Nile Delta, surrounded by water and sand and washed by the sea. It does indeed provide a good lesson in geographical determinism and evolution of a city in a dialectic and interactive relationship with its physical environment (the Nile Delta). The Nile and its whims, the sea and its moods, the sand and its movements have shaped the area of Rachid to their liking and imposed their will several times in the course of history. And men too have imposed their will. A product of the alluviums from the Nile accumulated over thousands of years which provide the precious silt for agriculture, ever since remote antiquity, the region around Rachid was renowned for its rich and varied agricultural production, especially rice which was exported by sea, and also wheat, barley, sugarcane, black grapes, oranges and dates…