Because of the proverbial phrase in , researchers believe that Bolbitine was celebrated for its manufactory of
chariots in antiquity. The city was near the mouth of a branch of the Nile that was called the Bolbitine mouth (τὸ Βολβίτινον στόμα).
Herodotus wrote that the Bolbitine mouth was not a natural but an excavated channel. Iban Haqal mentioned it and said that it is a city on the Nile, close to the salt sea from a crater known as Ashtum (). What is now known today as Rosetta was an
Umayyad stronghold in 749, when it was sacked during the
Bashmuric Revolt. In the 850s, the
Abbasid caliph
Al-Mutawakkil ordered a fort to be built on the site of the Ptolemaic city of
Bolbitine, and the medieval city grew around this fort. In the era of the Ayyubid state, neighboring Alexandria witnessed extensive commercial activity as a result of the concessions granted by the Ayyubids to Italian merchants, and before the Bay of Alexandria was re-cleared in 1013 in the Fatimid era by order of
Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, which contributed to linking Alexandria to the city of
Fuwwah, south of Rashid and overlooking the Nile. And from it to Cairo and the rest of the cities of Egypt, and this led to the flourishing of the commercial activity of
Fuwwah, which affected the movement of trade Rashid, so that in the era of the Mamluks Fuwwah became the base of the trade networks in the region. During the
Seventh Crusade,
Louis IX of France briefly occupied the town in 1249. Following the destruction of Damietta during the crusade,
Al-Zahir Baybars built it again in 1250. However, due to the huge costs of protecting it with strong walls and an impenetrable castle, he built a fortress in 1262 to monitor any possible upcoming invasion. During the reign of
Al-Nasir Muhammad, the Gulf of Alexandria was re-excavated, so the commercial movement flourished more in Alexandria and was uttered so much that it became the mouth of Egypt's most important commercial city after Cairo. This had a more negative impact on Rashid, to the point that
Abu al-Fidaa noted in the thirteenth century that the city was smaller than his mouth. Rashid contributed to the launching of the naval campaigns during Sultan
Barbsay reign to invade the island of
Cyprus and bring it under Egyptian control in 1426. Rashid also suffered from the attacks of the Christian knights who lived on the island of
Rhodes during the reign of the sultan
Sayf ad-Din Jaqmaq. Sultan Jaqamq sent a large garrison to protect Rashid's beach. and ordered its reinforcement in the following years. Then the throne came to
Qaitbay and renewed the Rashid Towers in 1479 and renewed the castle, which was named after him so far, and built a wall to protect the city from raids. Generally, Rashid had a defensive role with a little commercial role. Under the
Mamluks, the city became an important commercial center, and remained so throughout
Ottoman rule, until the eventual resurgence of the importance of
Alexandria following the construction of the
Mahmoudiyah canal in 1820. Rosetta witnessed the defeat of the British
Fraser campaign, on 19 September 1807. ==Geography==