During the Byzantine and Coptic periods the city gradually dwindled and finally dropped out of existence. It then became a quarry from which its stones were used to build new settlements nearby, including a new capital founded by the Arabs who took possession in the seventh century AD. The foundations of Fustat and later Cairo, both built farther north, were laid with stones of dismantled temples and ancient necropoleis of Memphis. In the thirteenth century, the Arab chronicler Abd-ul-Latif, upon visiting the site, described and gave testimony to the grandeur of the ruins.