Babylon/ Memphis/ Alkair

Title

Babylon/ Memphis/ Alkair

Description

Map shows the city of Cairo in Egypt

ca. 1550

Artist

Wagner (1640-1701 ca.)

The Nuremberg private scholar and journalist Johann Christoph Wagner published several descriptions of the country in the 1680s, in particular of the Balkan countries and several Asian empires, in the publishing house of the Augsburg book printer Jacob Koppmayer. Johann Christoph Wagner was a Nuremberg calendar writer and entertainment writer, who in the 17th century AD. helped shape the image of the Western world about Muslims. Because he couldn't find a job in Nuremberg, he became a calendar writer. At that time, calendars were used to convey the constellation and were small astronomical and, above all, astrological reading books with additional information on world events. Under the title "Teutscher und Ausländischer Helden: As well as Turkish defeats, war and victory calendars" his calendars were published by Felsecker Verlag in Nuremberg. Wagner seems to have emigrated to Augsburg around 1680. When the Ottomans were defeated in 1683, he published an extensive volume with the description of Hungary and Turkey under the title: "Delineatio Provinciarum Pannoniae Et Imperii Turcici In Oriente: The whole state of the Turkish court, including two country maps - und Abriß der Fürnemsten Cities ", printed in Augsburg by Jacob Koppmayer in 1684. Later he published country descriptions of the Orient.

Historical Description

Cairo's significance really changed in the 19th century with the emergence of the Khedive Empire. Ismail Pasha, who ruled between 1863 and 1879, had numerous buildings erected in the city and took the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 as an opportunity to present Cairo to the European powers as a flourishing metropolis. However, most of the development was financed by foreign loans, which increased Britain's influence in particular. During the reign of Ismail Pasha, Cairo, which now became the capital again, expanded westwards across the Nile. European architects were commissioned to renovate the city, the residential districts of Zamalek and Muhandisin were built, but large parts of today's city center also date from this period. As Egypt's industrialization accelerated, the country's capital continued to grow. By the end of the 19th century, Egypt's foreign debt and the weakness of the Ottoman Empire resulted in growing European influence in Cairo. With the occupation of Egypt by British troops and the crushing of the Urabi movement (1881-1882), Great Britain took control of the country without ending its formal affiliation with the Ottoman Empire. The Khediv of Egypt remained formally a vassal of the Ottomans. The Urabi movement emerged in the fall of 1881 when, following the financial ruin of Egypt under Ismail Pasha, the country came under international financial control. The movement opposed this international control of financial and economic policy and the autocratic rule of the Muhammad Ali dynasty.