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Rosetta, called Rashid in Arabic, is a port city of the Nile Delta in Egypt's Beheira Governorate, about 65 kilometres east of Alexandria on the western branch of the Nile near the Mediterranean. It is world famous as the place where the Rosetta Stone was found at nearby Fort Julien in 1799.
Founded around the 9th century on the site of ancient Bolbitine, Rosetta boomed as a port after the Ottoman conquest of 1517, and many merchant houses and mosques survive from that age. Its people resisted the French and defeated the British Fraser expedition of 1807, but trade moved to Alexandria after 1820.
Today Rosetta is known as an open-air museum of Islamic architecture, with the largest group of Islamic monuments in Egypt after Cairo. Visitors walk its old streets, enter the restored mansions, see the fort and the museum and stroll beside the Nile.
Fort Qaitbay of Rosetta, called Fort Julien by the French, was built by the Mamluk sultan Qaitbay in the 15th century on the west bank of the Nile branch. French troops took it in July 1799, and while repairing its walls they found the Rosetta Stone, probably reused long before in its masonry.
Rosetta National Museum fills the four floors of the 18th-century house of Hussein Arab Kili, a governor of the city, one of Rosetta's largest mansions. It tells of the town's fight against the French and British, with weapons, crafts, manuscripts and a copy of the Rosetta Stone.
The Rosetta Branch of the Nile is the western of the river's two arms through the Delta, and Rosetta stands on its west bank close to where it meets the Mediterranean. The town grew rich as a river port linking the sea to Cairo, until the Mahmoudiyah Canal of 1820 revived Alexandria.
Abu Mandour Mosque stands beside a ridge of sand hills just south of Rosetta and honours the Sufi scholar Mohammed Abu Mandour, said to have taught here. The present building dates from the late 19th century, it was registered as a historic mosque in 1987, and the hill is now a popular local outing.
Amasyali House is one of the most important historic houses of Rosetta, built in 1808 by Othman Agha al-Tubgi, an Ottoman army officer. It later passed to Ahmed al-Amasyali, whose family came from Amasya in Turkey, and its decorated facades and wooden lattice windows are much admired.
El Mizouni House on Badr el-Din Street dates from 1740 and rises five storeys, joined to a neighbouring house built at the same time. Its long ground-floor facade has five doors, leading to the two houses, their storerooms and a public fountain room whose doorway is topped with glazed tiles.
Ramadan House, home of Hajj Ismail Ramadan, is one of Rosetta's best-known Ottoman houses, built in the 18th century on Dehliz el-Molk Street. Its four storeys rise above a merchants' courtyard with vaulted storerooms, and its windows are filled with several kinds of turned wooden lattice.
Abu Shahin Mill on Amasyali Street was built in the second half of the 18th century by Othman Agha al-Tubgi to grind grain. Animals turned its two great millstones through large wooden gear wheels, and a room above one of its two grain-drying platforms housed the miller.
Zaghloul Mosque is one of the largest and oldest mosques in Rosetta, made of two joined mosques together 90 metres long and 48 metres wide, with many marble columns. It was a centre of learning, and the town's resistance to the French in 1801 and the British Fraser expedition of 1807 began here.
El-Abbasi Mosque stands at the southern end of Rosetta near the Nile and was built in 1809 by Mohammed Bek el-Tobozada. Named after Sayyid Mohammed el-Abbasi, who is buried there, it is built of small local Rashidi bricks laid in patterns and has a slender octagonal minaret.
Dimiqsis Mosque was built in the Ottoman period around 1700 and is known as the Hanging Mosque because prayers are held on its upper floor, reached by a stone stair. Its prayer hall has rows of columns and a qibla wall covered in tiles with Andalusian-style designs.
Hammam Azzuz is one of the most important historic bathhouses in Egypt, built in the 17th century as an endowment for the Zaghloul Mosque. It takes its name from a local man who owned it in the 1950s, and its water was raised by an animal-driven wheel at the end facing the Nile.
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Log in to add photosPhoto: Wael Mostafa, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Wael Mostafa El Sisi, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Photo: Alexguide, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: لا روسا, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Photo: Manshy482, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: Roland Unger, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: Roland Unger, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: Roland Unger, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: Roland Unger, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: Roland Unger, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: Roland Unger, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: Nermine Sami Ahmed 2025, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Roland Unger, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: Roland Unger, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
