Southern enclosure of the Citadel of the Mountain. Cairo, Egypt

"The Citadel of the Mountain (Qal'at al-Jabal) in Cairo is a monument with a long history. It was funded by Salah al-din al Ayyubi in 1176 on a spur that was artificially cut out of the Muqattam Hills east of Cairo. Salah al-din's nephew, al-Kamil Muhammad completed its construction and transferred the court to it in 1206. after te Ayyubid period, the Citadel became the royal center of the Mamluk sultanate which ruled the Eastern Mediterranean from 1250 to 1517. During that period, the Citadel was endowed with an impressive number of palaces and other structures, divided, neglected, and also refurbished. In the Ottoman period, little construction took place until Muhammad Ali established himself as the semi-independent ruler of Egypt in the early nineteenth century. He renovated it entirely, altered its interior division, and constructed a few monumental buildings in it. As it stands today, the Citadel is divided into two enclosures: the northern one was a military and administrative center until recently, and the southern held the awesome mosque of Muhammad Ali and a number of palatial structures buit by him as well, in addition to the mosque of al-Nasir Muhammad, and a few scattered remains from earlier periods." [Nasser O. Rabbat., 1991: The citadel of Cairo, 1176-1341: Reconstructing Architecture from Texts. Massachusets Institute of Technology]. This photograph was taken when Eliot Elisofon was on assignment for Life magazine and traveled to Africa from August 18, 1959 to December 20, 1959.