الفهرس 
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Abstract
Egyptian civilization dates back to the dawn of civilization and history. Predyntasic
artifacts along the Nile ate back about 10.000 to 12.000 years. Nubian, Ethiopian, and
Libyan populations fusing with semitic and West Asian immigrants formed and created
Egypt, the people and History (Durant, 1954). During the last 6000 years, Egypt showed a
unique and productive agriculture society forming the first government along the history
(Janick, 2002).
Gardens in ancient Egypt represent the earliest beginning of gardens, garden design as
well as horticulture. They originated on the edge of the desert where the natural vegetation
is sparse. There was no landscape to copy or even to modify except that of the oasis
(Janick, 2002). The first garden can be thought of as an artificial, protected oasis and such
gardens still exist in the Egyptian oasis. Later gardens surrounded by walls were often
terraced, containing enclosed pools to provide the “oasis” feelings and containing water
plants. The gardens were replete with statuary and ornamental columns (Wright, 1934;
Singer et al., 1954; Hyams, 1971 and Thacker, 1979).
Egyptian gardens are the forerunners of our present day formal gardens which use
plants as architectural elements. Because there was essentially no natural landscape except
oasis as mentioned earlier, the Egyptians created one based on straight lines and symmetry
(Janick, 2002). On the other hand, ancient Egyptian gardens were constructed with the
majority of the features known now from later gardens. But the designers of ancient Egypt
were motivated by religious considerations which dictated the form of the gardens and
what plants were used in them.
There are now over 2500 botanic gardens around the world, each botanical garden
naturally develops its own special fields of interests depending on its personnel, location,
extent, available funds, and the terms of its charter. It may include greenhouses, test
grounds, a herbarium, an arboretum, and other departments. It maintains a scientific as
well as a plant-growing staff, and publication is one of its major modes of expression
(Bailey and Bailey, 1978).
In 1989, “The Botanic Gardens Conversation Strategy” (IUCN - BGCS and WWF, 1989)
was published and this contained a list of characteristics defining a botanic garden:
- Adequate labelling of plants.
- An underlying scientific basis for the collections
- Communication of information to other gardens, institution, organizations. Exchange of
seeds or other materials with other botanic gardens, or research stations.
- Long term commitment to, and responsibility for, the maintenance of plant collections.
- Maintenance of research programmes in plant taxonomy in associated herbaria.
- Monitoring of the plants in the collection.
- Open to the public.
- Promoting conservation through extension and environmental education.
- Proper documentation of the collections, including wild origin.
- Undertaking scientific or technical research on plants in the collection.
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The BGCI now favour the following simple definition (Wyse Jackson, 1999):
“Botanic gardens are institutions holding documented collections of living plants for the
purposes of scientific research, conservation, displaying and education”.
History of Botanic Gardens in Egypt. Hill (1915) reported that the ancient Egyptians
had constructed well-made gardens since many thousands of years for economic use or
display, containing many plant species collected from different countries in addition to the
local group of plants trees and medicinal herbs. This kind of gardens might be considered
the nucleus of today botanic gardens.
Bailey (1958) pointed out also that botanic gardens have been found since ancient
times, and one of the earliest of these is the temple garden of Karnak; designed during the
reign of Thotmes III, about 1500 B.C. The number of recognized botanic gardens in Egypt
varies greatly according to different authorities (Ashraf, 2008). The Egyptian ministry of
agriculture recognizes only four botanic gardens: Zohria Trial garden, Orman Botanic
Garden, Aswan Botanic Garden and ElQubba Botanic Garden (Khalifa and Loutfy, 2006).
The First International Conference ”Strategy of Botanic Gardens” (FICSBG,2006)
recognized the presence of 16 botanic gardens in Egypt, four in Cairo, five in Giza; four in
Alexandria; two in Ismailia and one in Aswan. The FICSBG classification recognized Al-
Nozha Garden as the oldest allover Egypt (300 B.C), followed by Antoniadis Botanical
Garden (1860),then within about 13 years Azabkyia, Zohria and Orman Botanical Gardens
were established (1867, 1868 and 1873; respectively).
Al-Nozha Garden lies in the center of Alexandria, comprise several gardens of great
historic value such as Antoniadis Garden, the Rose Garden and the Zoo- logical Garden,
however, Al-Nozha garden might be considered as a public garden rather than a botanic
garden although it contains a treasure of plants and old trees. Thus, Antoniadis Gardens
should be then considered as the oldest botanic garden in Egypt according to the same
classification.
Antoniadis Gardens are located at the east of Alexandria; the gardens were a property
of Sir John. Antoniadis, a Greek rich business man in the middle of the 19th century and
then turned over to the Egyptian authorities in 1918 by dedication from his son Antony
(Ashraf, 2008). Antoniadis gardens were designed by the French architect Paul Richard to
be similar to Versailles gardens in Paris the gardens contain, however, some distinguished
unique architectural designs; French style, Italian style, Moorish style, natural style in
addition to a Greek – Roman features. Antoniadis Palace is located in the middle of the
gardens. Moreover, the gardens include the original royal glasshouse, some plastic houses,
an open area for propagation and breeding different plants (Megalli, 1953; FICSBG, 2006
and Ashraf, 2008).
Although Antoniadis garden has a deep history as the oldest botanical garden in
Egypt (1860), and in spite of the deeper history of the whole area of Al-Nozha complex of
gardens (300 B.C.). The garden didn’t achieve the international recognition as a botanical
garden on the world map. The bad situation of the garden which took place after many
decades of extremely bad maintenance resulted in worse situation over time.
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