Corroded pieces of metal, stamped lumps of copper, broken bits of glass with partial inscriptions, fragments of textiles, tiny beads -- these were the raw material found at al-Fustat, the site of the first Muslim settlement in Egypt in the seventh century and the heart of Cairo for many centuries following. From the 1950s Dr. Henri Amin Awad accepted from the poor in this area objects that had no obvious market value in return for medical services rendered. Over the years he built up an extraordinary and important collection of artifacts. Carefully cleaned, sorted, and then analyzed by specialists, this material illuminates many areas of the archaeological record neglected or missing from other studies.

The ten studies in this volume -- covering beads, bone, coins, glass weights and vessel stamps, medical instruments, medical prescriptions, metal objects, and textiles -- demonstrate the wide range of archaeological material once found in al-Fustat, a site no longer accessible since most of it has been buried under urban development or lost to a rising water table.

Contributors: Ibrahim Abd al-Rahman, Abd al-Rahman Abd al-Tawwab, Henri Amin Awad, Jere L. Bacharach, Michael L. Bates, Lidia Domaszewicz, Katharina Eldada, Peter Francis, Jr., Sami K. Hamarneh, Nancy Arthur Hoskins, Peter Mentzel, Norman D. Nicol, Elizabeth Rodenbeck, W. Luke Treadwell