Coptic Cairo

Coptic Cairo sits inside the walls of the Roman fortress of Babylon, and the density of religious history in a few hundred metres is extraordinary. The Hanging Church is suspended over a Roman gate tower, its nave floor built across the gap, with a section of glass floor showing the drop.

The Church of St Sergius stands over a crypt where the Holy Family is believed to have sheltered during the flight into Egypt. Ben Ezra Synagogue, restored and no longer in congregational use, produced the Cairo Geniza — 300,000 medieval Jewish manuscripts found in its storeroom in 1896 and now the single richest source on medieval Mediterranean life.

The Roman fortress dates to around 300 AD. The Hanging Church was probably founded in the 3rd century and rebuilt many times. Ben Ezra was a church sold to the Jewish community in the 9th century to pay a tax.