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After entering Egypt, in January 331BC the Egyptians hailed Alexander the Great as their ruler, pharaoh and god. He sailed down the western branch of the Nile to inspect the Greek trading colony of Naucratis, but he saw no space for development there, so Alexander pressed on toward the coast to reach the Egyptian fort of Rhakotis referred to by both Herodotus and Thucydides, close to Lake Mareotis where a narrow ridge divides its waters from the sea. He had arrived on the coast at a site mentioned by Homer in the Odyssey: “Out of the sea where it breaks on the shores of Egypt rises an island from the waters: the name men give it is Pharos” (Odyssey IV.354-355). Alexander noticed the deep waters of its well-sheltered, natural harbor and saw opportunity. Alexandria was to be the capital of his new Egyptian dominion and a naval base from where he would control the Mediterranean.

In ancient times, Alexandria was one of the most famous cities in the world. Founded around a small pharaonic town it became and remained Egypt’s capital for nearly a thousand years, until the Muslim conquest of Egypt in 641 AD when a new capital was founded at Fustat (Fustat was later absorbed into Cairo).

During Alexandria’s heydays it was the leading cultural centre of the world, housing people of different religions and philosophical orientations. It was famous for the extensive library, which in the 3rd century BC was said to contain 500,000 volumes. Additionally, Alexandria was renowned for the lighthouse of Pharos, listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World as antiquity. Alexandria’s Mouseion was a centre of research, with laboratories and observatories. Alexandria was the very first centre for Biblical studies, and it was where the Old Testament was assembled in a form very similar to its present one. The Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, was produced there too plus it was also home to the largest Jewish community in the world, but most have now migrated to Israel. It was (and remains today) the seat of a patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Although Alexandria witnessed a 1,000 years of prosperity, it then fell into decline over a time span covering centuries, and when Napoleon landed, he found a sparsely populated fishing village. It wasn’t until in 1819 the city gradually regained importance, when the Mahmudiyah Canal to the Nile was completed by Muhammad Ali Pasha (the Ottoman Governor of Egypt), who developed Alexandria as a deepwater port and a naval station.

Very little of the ancient city has survived into the present day. Much of the royal and civic quarters sank beneath the harbor due to earthquake subsidence, and the rest has been built over in modern times.

Alexandria is the second largest city in Egypt, known as “The Pearl of the Mediterranean”, and it has an atmosphere that is more Mediterranean than Middle Eastern; its ambience and cultural heritage separate it from the rest of the country although it is actually only 225 km. from Cairo.

Through out its history Alexandria has been invaded by many a different culture. Starting with Julius Caesar in 47 BC and was under Roman influence for more than a hundred years. With the persecution of pagans by newly Christian Romans, in 391 Emperor Theodosius I ordered the destruction of all pagan temples in Alexandria. In 619, Alexandria fell to the Sassanid Persians but was recovered by the Byzantine Emperor Heracles in 629, and in 641 the Arabs under the general Amr ibn al-As, captured it after a siege that lasted fourteen months. Napoleon’s troops stormed the city on July 2, 1798 and it remained in their hands until in 1801 when the British expedition won a considerable victory over the French at the Battle of Alexandria, but after 6 months and a siege of the city it fell back to the French.

The city gradually regained some of its former glory after Mohammed Ali Pasha rebuilding the city around 1810. During the 17th century, the plague killed many of the cities inhabitants. Then again in July 1882 the city came under bombardment from British naval forces and was occupied. In July 1954, the city was a target of an Israeli bombing campaign that later became known as the Lavon Affair. Although during the 19th century many foreigners settled in Alexandria, and in 1907 they made up about 25% of the population. During World War II, as the chief Allied naval base in the Mediterranean, Alexandria was bombed by the Germans.

Today Alexandria remains one of the most beautiful cities in the country and popular summer destination for most Egyptians, attracted by its 32 km (20 mile) coast line.

About the Author:
Gawhara Hanem
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Egypt Tours

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In 1962, while searching for fish in the Alexandria harbor, a young diver discovered fragments of an immense statue on the seafloor. To verify the young man’s report Egyptian naval divers and experts from Alexandria’s Greco-Roman Museum were called to the area. The piece that the young diver found, measuring 6 meters (20 feet) in length was confirmed to be a mere fragment of the colossal statue of Poseidon (the lord of the waves).

But the area was off limits to scientific investigation because it was a military zone. It wasn’t until 1994 that a team of scuba diving archaeologists were sent in to actually explore the area. Littering the seafloor, over an area of 5.5 acres, were remains that included sphinxes, columns, capitals, colossi and fragments of inscribed obelisks. This made the site one of the largest archaeological sites in the Mediterranean.

Scientists believed that these fragments were in fact the remains of The Pharos, the great lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the Seven vanished Wonders of the Ancient World. The Pharos was the last to be built, and the last to disappear.

The Pharos Lighthouse stood on the eastern tip of the ancient island of Pharos in the harbor of Alexandria. The island was linked to the mainland by a man made wall called the Heptastadion, which was made of solid granite and extended the length of seven stadiums.

Although the Pharos was depicted on coins, terracotta, Roman mosaics and small models of it were also available, none is particularly precise and as the ancient writers left few detailed descriptions, the Pharos still remains somewhat of an enigma. Even at the time the structure was so famous and the connection of the name with the function became so strong that the word “pharos” means ‘lighthouse, beacon’ in English, becoming the etymological origin of the word in Greek, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Bulgarian and Swedish.

Construction of the Lighthouse was commissioned by Ptolemy Ι Soter, a general of Alexander the Great and his first successor to ruling Egypt. It was completed in the 3rd century BC, and was inaugurated during the reign of his son, Ptolemy ΙΙ Philadelphos around 285 BC. The Lighthouse’s designer was a Greek, Sostratus of Cnidus. Proud of his work, he wanted his name carved onto the building, but he was forbidden to do so by Ptolemy ΙΙ, who wanted his to be the only name on the building. Sostratus managed to get around this by having the dedication:

chiseled into the foundation, which was then covered with plaster, Ptolemy’s name was then carved into the plaster. Over time the plaster chipped away leaving only Sostratus’ dedication.

The monumental building was constructed in three stages: The lower was a square section with a central core, a middle octagonal section, and a top cylindrical section. The entrance was up a long vaulted ramp. A large spiral staircase led up to around 50 chambers and was probably used by beasts of burden to carry firewood up to the third tier where a fire, acting as the light source, burned on the summit.

In order for the Pharos to withstand the harsh pounding of the sea, the base tier rested on massive blocks of red granite. These granite blocks and the walls of the Lighthouse were strengthened not by using mortar to join them together but by molten lead to reinforce the structure. The edifice was probably so strong it survived for almost 2 millennia (until the mid-14th century AD), serving as a beacon to sailors approaching the coast of Egypt. The source of light was believed to be a mirror, which reflected the sunlight during the day and a fire which guided sailors at night.

Made of stone and covered in white marble, the building stood about 120m (400 ft) high, an equivalent to a 40-story modern building. This made it the first lighthouse in the world and the tallest man-made structure on Earth for centuries. In 1183 this is how it was described by an Arab traveler Ibn Jubayr: “Description of it falls short, the eyes fail to comprehend it, and words are inadequate, so vast is the spectacle.”

Supposedly a colossal statue of Poseidon surmounted the top of the Pharos but it disappeared over time. What was certain was that the statues found at the foot of the Lighthouse, were portraits of King Ptolemy ΙΙ. Roman coins depicting the Pharos, show a statue of a triton at each of the building’s four corners. But what actually makes for a mystery, is that the amount of complete statues discovered (some 26 sphinxes of different size, age and material), and that they were found to come from earlier eras than the lighthouse. This could lead to the speculation of a number of things. The statues used in the construction of the Pharos were recycles from older buildings, mostly coming from the Nile Delta and Heliopolis (which was destroyed at the time of the Greek Ptolemies). Some scientists also believe that the Pharos was part of a great complex, and that it may have had a more significant civic and religious function; that not all the statues surmounted the building, but may have stood on a lower level.

The Pharos was not built in a purely Greek style as so often portrayed, simply because the Greeks had no experience in building with granite plus they would have had to use local labor. 20 km (12 miles) east of Alexandria, in the town of Abu Qir, to this day stands a scaled-down replica of the Pharos at just 20 meters (66 ft) high. Known as Burg el-Arab, it too was constructed during the reign of Ptolemy ΙΙ (285-246 BC), although its mid-section was hexagonal (contrary to the octagonal mid-section of the Pharos). The architectural significance of the three-stage design of the Pharos is further reflected centuries later in the design of the minarets in many early Islamic mosques.

Apparently the Lighthouse was such a spectacle at the time it became a touristic attraction. Food was sold to visitors at the observation platform at the top of the first level. And for those who wanted to make the additional climb to a balcony at the top of the octagonal tower were rewarded with an impressive view, as it was probably 90m (300 ft) above the sea. There were few places in the ancient world where a person could ascend a man-made tower to get such a perspective.

Earthquakes finally got the better of the Pharos Lighthouse. Recorded by classic and Arab writers were twenty-two earthquakes of significant strength that shook Alexandria. Restorations undertaken by Arab rulers, the last to be ordered by the famous Sultan, Salah el-Din (Saladin) allowed the Lighthouse to survive into the 14th century. The Moroccan traveler, Ibn Battuta, visiting Alexandria in 1326, recorded that he was able to climb the ramp to the entrance of the Pharos, but on his return in 1349, this was impossible as the lighthouse was already in ruins.

On the 8th of August, 1303, a violent earthquake brought an end to what remained standing of the Seventh wonder of the ancient world. A century later the Mamluk Sultan Qait Bey built a fort on the site of the Pharos, which still stands there today. Some of the fallen masonry was incorporated in the building of the fort.

Aired on February 27, 2007 the Nova program chronicled the underwater discovery of the fabled Pharos lighthouse. There are plans to make this archeological site assessable to amateur divers to experience the beauty of these antiquities underwater. And until they do, this link will take you to a series of videos on the Nova site, to watch the extensive efforts undertaken to map the underwater site and recover some of its treasures out of the water. (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sunken/clips/)

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Story telling is as old as age! It was probably the first means of entertainment long before the media existed or even paper and books. But every culture has managed to chronicle and save some of its heritage by writing them down, or in some instances just painting or chiseling them on walls.

The Egyptians were one of the earliest civilizations to kept record in writing their everyday lives. However, the earliest preserved story written dates back from the Middle Kingdom, and because most of their literary tradition was oral or spoken, it was never written down, so the works that have actually survived are fewer than be expected.

From autobiographies and mythological tales to folk and fairy tales the ancient Egyptians made journals of it all, on papyrus paper, walls or even slabs of stone. My personal favorite is the Legend of Isis and Osiris. The story tells of the good and benevolent King Osiris
who was murdered by his wicked brother Seth due to jealousy and hatred. The corpse of Osiris was thrown into the Nile and his faithful wife Isis searched until she found him and hid him in the marshes of the Delta. Through magic, which she practiced and mastered, Isis became pregnant. Isis gave birth to their child Horus, who became the heir to his father’s throne and avenged his father Osiris. Horus became the king of the gods of the underworld.

There’s also the oldest Cinderella story, but in the ancient Egyptian version the glass slippers are “rose red slippers”. And from the Ptolemaic period there’s “The Seven Years of Famine” which was discovered on the rocks of the Island of Sahal in 1890 by Charles Wilbour. But the oldest and most popular tales of Egyptians was the story of Sinuhe. This story was preserved in six papyri and two dozen ostraca. This biography tells of Sinuhe who fled Egypt to Western Asia after the assassination of King Amenemhat Ι. After many years Sinuhe returned to his homeland when he was pardoned by King Senusert Ι and reinstated at the royal court.

The fairy tale of Setne Khamwas, a son of Ramesses ΙΙ tells of his fascination with the magic texts of the past brought him to an encounter with the ghost of a long dead magician in his tomb at Saqqara. In a story within a story, he learned of an episode of the magician’s life. On the golden shrine of Tutankhamun, was the story “The Book of the Cow of Heaven” (or “the Destruction of Mankind”) which tells of the sun god, Ra, who was confronted with a rebellion of mankind, so he sent his “eye,” Hathor, or in a later version, Sekhmet, down to earth in the form of a lioness, which proceeded to devour men. When Ra called her back she refused, so he had to trick her. One night he created a red colored beer that looked like human blood. Sekhmet drank it all and became intoxicated and so in this way Ra saved humankind.

“The Turquoise Amulet” was a story of a maiden who loses a hair clasp in the form of an amulet of turquoise. This is one of the stories that helped to give Snefru the title of The Good King, for it shows his good nature and his willingness to please others, something other pharaohs would not dream of doing. Another story that was written on the Harris Papyrus which is housed in the British Museum is “The Doomed Prince”. When it was first discovered the story was complete, but since then, the papyrus has been partly destroyed and the end of the story has been lost. This story may also be known by the title “The Crocodile, the Snake and the Dog” because it tells of a prince who was fated by the gods to die by the Snake, the Crocodile or the Dog.

The tales are many, and are all fascinating and captivating. During the course of the next few posts we’ll rediscover their charm, also getting an insight into a culture that built its civilization on stories of the gods.