While the Nile Valley's place in ancient Egypt remains writ large in extraordinary monuments, the Nile Delta 's role has largely been effaced by time and other factors. Although several pharaonic dynasties arose and ruled from this region - Lower Egypt - little of their twenty provincial capitals remains beyond mounds of debris known as tell or kom. The pharaohs themselves set the precedent of plundering older sites of their sculptures and masonry - hard stone had to be brought to the Delta from distant quarries, so it was easier to recycle existing stocks - and nature performed the rest. With a yearly rainfall of nearly 20cm (the highest in Egypt, most of it during winter) and an annual inundation by the Nile that coated the land in silt, mud-brick structures were soon eroded or swept away. More recently, farmers have furthered the cycle of destruction by digging the mounds for a nitrate-enriched soil called sebakh, used for fertilizer; several sites catalogued by nineteenth-century archeologists have all but vanished since then.

 

Of the Delta's show of ancient monuments, the ruins of Tanis , Avaris and Bubastis are certainly worth knowing about, if not visiting. As for Islamic architecture, there's a sprinkling of "Delta Style" mansions and medieval mosques in the coastal towns of Rosetta and Damietta .

Practically everywhere else on the map is an industrialized beehive or a teeming village, only worth visiting for moulids or popular festivals, of which the region has dozens. Combining piety, fun and commerce, the largest events draw crowds of over a million, with companies of mawladiya (moulid people) running stalls and rides, while the Sufi tariqas perform their zikrs. People camp outdoors and music blares into the small hours. Smaller, rural moulids tend to be heavier on the practical devotion, with people bringing their children or livestock for blessing, or the sick to be cured.

The great Moulid of Saiyid el-Bedawi , held at Tanta just after the cotton harvest in October, starts a cycle of Muslim festivals lasting well into November. At one- to two-week intervals, pilgrims and revellers congregate for week-long bashes at Basyouni , Dasuq , Mahmudiya , Fuwa and Rosetta . The Muslim month of Shawwal (following Ramadan) also occasions moulids at Bilbeis and Zagazig . During May, the remote Monastery of St Damyanah witnesses one of Egypt's largest Christian moulids and, come August, another event transpires at the village of Mit Damsis . In January a unique Jewish moulid takes place at Damanhur .

The Delta's other possible attraction is its flat, intensely green landscape , riven by waterways where feluccas glide past mud-brick villages and wallowing buffalo. The northern lakes are a wintering ground for herons, storks, great crested grebes and other water birds, while doves and pigeons - reared for human consumption in cotes shaped like Khmer temples - join other birdlife pecking around the cotton-, rice- and cornfields. In ancient times, wealthy Egyptians enjoyed going fowling in the reeds, using throwing sticks and hunting cats; their modern-day counterparts employ shotguns. The Delta is also still a habitat for wildcats and pygmy white-toothed shrews, but boars have been driven out and the last hippopotamus was shot in 1815.

More sombrely for the ecology, the Delta is one of the world regions most vulnerable to the effects of global warming . Oceanographers predict that a one-metre rise in the sea level would swamp Alexandria and submerge the Delta as far inland as Damanhur, destroying six percent of Egypt's cultivable land and displacing 3.3 million people. The freshwater Delta lagoons, which provide much of the nation's fish catch, would also be ruined. A more immediate threat is erosion by the Mediterranean. Now that the Delta is no longer renewed by silt from the Nile, its coastline is being worn away.