Damietta

Damietta (Arabic: دمياط Dumyāṭ [domˈjɑːtˤ]; Coptic: ⲧⲁⲙⲓⲁϯ, romanized: Tamiati) is a port city and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt. It is located at the Damietta branch, an eastern distributary of the Nile Delta, 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) from the Mediterranean Sea, and about 200 kilometres (120 mi) north of Cairo. It was a Catholic bishopric and is a multiple titular see. It is also a member of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities. Mentioned by the 6th-century geographer Stephanus Byzantius,[4] the city was called Tamíathis (Greek: Ταμίαθις) in the Hellenistic period.[5] Under Caliph Omar (579–644), the Arabs took the city and successfully resisted the attempts by the Byzantine Empire to recover it, especially in 739, 821, 921 and 968.[4] The Abbasids used Alexandria, Damietta, Aden and Siraf as entry ports to India and the Tang Empire of China.[6] 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.