Damiette 7.15

Damietta, also known as Damiata, or Domyat, is a port and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt, a former bishopric and present multiple Catholic titular see. It is located at the Damietta branch, a distributary of the Nile, 15km from the Mediterranean Sea, about 200km north of Cairo.HistoryIn Ancient Egypt, the city was known as Tamiat, but in the Hellenistic period it was called Tamiathis (Greek Ταμίαθις). Mentioned by the 6th-century geographer Stephanus Byzantius, the town later became known as Damiata and as Damietta, which probably derived from an ancient Egyptian word "Damt" that means the ability, since Damietta had the ability to combine the salt water of the Mediterranean Sea and the fresh water of the Nile together in one place. Other historians note that the city was called "Tam Heet" which means the city of the water or the city of the running water. Another derivation of the name might be "Tam Hēt", meaning city of North.Under Caliph Omar (579–644), the Arabs took the town by treachery and successfully resisted the attempts by the Byzantine Empire to recover it, especially in 739, 821, 921 and 968. The Abbasids used Alexandria, Damietta, Aden and Siraf as entry ports to India and the Tang Empire of China. Damietta was an important naval base during the Abbasid, Tulunid and Fatimid periods. This led to several attacks by the Byzantine Empire, most notably the sack and destruction of the city in May 853.