The name, Mataria, is thought to come from the Latin word :wikt:mater#Latin|Mater which means 'mother', and is from the presence of the 'tree of the Virgin Mary' in this district.
History
Mataria, with the nearby Ain Shams district, had a notable history during Egypt's Pharaonic period as a part of ancient Heliopolis. The district has archaeological sites of the period, some only recently discovered, beneath its current structures. In ancient Roman times Heliopolis belonged to the Augustamnica province. Legend tells of the Christian Holy Family sheltering under a tree in Heliopolis, presently known as 'the tree of the Virgin Mary', now with the Chapel of the Virgin in Mataria. The French naturalist Pierre Belon du Mans mentions visiting Mataria in his 1547 journey to Egypt. Mataria once had the villas of prominent people. The famous Egyptian poet Ahmed Shawqi lived in a villa he named ‘Karmet Ibn Hani’ or Ibn Hani’s Vineyard كرمة ابن هانىء here, near the palace of the Khedive Abbas II at Saray El-Qobba, until his exile from Egypt at World War I.
Historic elements
The El Masalla area of the district contains the ancient Masalla Obelisk, or Misalla , one of the Pharaonic era obelisks that still remain in Egypt. It is the only surviving element of Heliopolis standing in its original position, and of the great Temple of Re—Atum constructed by Pharaoh Senusret I of the Twelfth Dynasty. The tall red granite obelisk weighs 120 tons—. A pink granite megalithic colossus statue, with features resembling those of the Pharaoh Ramesses II, was found in El Matareya in 2006, weighing five tons—. It was at the ruins of a sun temple dating back to the reign of Ramses II, at the site of later Souk El-Khamis. The underground tombs of High Priests of Re of the Sixth Dynasty were found in the southeast corner of the Re-Atum Temple archaeological site in El Matareya. The Necropolis of Heliopolis, east of the Masalla obelisk in El Matareya, dates from the Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom. A domed tomb made for a priest during the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, was discovered under a construction site in 2004. Many funereal small figure statues were found inside, and hieroglyphic writing was on the tomb's walls from the 7th century BCE. In the incoherent district of El-Mataria, in Cairo, there stands an old sycamore tree that has been attracting thousands of pilgrims each Christmas, it's called the "Virgin's Tree". There are many sacred trees in Egypt, trees that have offered shelter for the Holy Family during their stay here, but the one in Mataria holds the highest regard of all.
