The Helwan and Isnian cultures of the late epipaleolithic, and their Ouchata retouch methods for creating microlithic tools are help to have led to the development of the Harifian cultural assemblage of the Sinai, which may have introduced Proto-Semitic languages into the Middle East.
The Khedivial Astronomical Observatory was built here 1903-1904, and was used to observe Halley's comet.