Alexandria

Bibliotheca Alexandrina

The pride and joy of city of Alexandria was its ancient library, once the intellectual
hub and cultural center of the ancient world. Today, Bibliotheca Alexandrina
(covering a surface area of 36.770 square meters and is truncated cylinder with a
diameter of 160 meters and a maximum height of 33 metres) is with no doubt, one of
Egypt's most important contemporary landmarks and the cultural heart of the city. A
great revival of the city's ancient library, destroyed in mysterious circumstances.
Historically, the idea of creating a building to house all the writings in the ancient
world, is probably attributed to Ptolemy I, Who entrusted this task to one Demetrius
Phalerus, as "head of the Royal Library" at the exact beginning of the third century
BC. Having had unlimited financial and human resources at his disposal, managed to
found and establish a great library, in a very short time. It contained some 50000
papyrus scrolls, representing virtually all the known knowledge then. By the reign of
his successor Ptolemy II, it became the intellectual hub and the cultural center that
gained prestigious initiatives, among such was the translation of the Old Testament
into Greek. Translating the Old Testament was not the principal target in itself, but the
target was to translate into Greek all of the Major works, known then.
The location of the ancient library was confined to the royal district, and later was
added to it a new research center known as the Museon. When the Number of works
became larger and larger it was therefore decided that an annex should be built in the
Serapeum , where the Pompey's pillar stands today. According to some historian, the
ancient library was first damaged by a fire during the Alexandria War between Julius
Cesar and Ptolemy XIII (Younger brother of Cleopatra VII), then the second time by
the seventh century AD when the city was conquered by the Arabs. Among the
famous persons worked or were related to the library: (Cllimachus " a poet and critic",
Eratosthenes of Cyrene " who measured the circumference of the earth, with a slight
error"). But the world had to wait centuries and centuries, to see the rebirth of the
Great library, when the idea of rebuilding a new library at the Campus (where most of
faculties of Alexandria University exist) was born in 1986, it took less than 7 years for
The Egyptian Government, UNESCO and UNDP, after a series of conferences and
meetings, to act accordingly, more than 500 architects took part in an international
competition for the design and construction of the building, which was won by a
Norwegian company in 1988 and the project completed in 2000, It contains one of
the modern world's most ambitious libraries and a host of museums exploring not
only Alexandria's but Egypt's history and heritage.

Qait-bey Fort
The fortress of the Burgi-Mameluk Sulatn Qait-bey is now an iconic-symbol of
Alexandria, Built on the exact location of the Pharos (ancient lighthouse) which was
one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

Once upon a time
The Pharos

The Pharos (ancient Alexandria's Lighthouse, was regarded as one of the wonders
of the ancient world, named after the place where it was built, the Island of Pharos.
The work of the Greek architect Sostratos, began around 297 BC. It was built of
exquisite white marble and fine quality limestone to a height of 135 meteres and
consisted of three stories, on the last of which stood the gigantic cylindrical lantern
which was said to project its light for some 50 kilometers. Above the lantern was a
dome which in turn was surmounted by a large statue that perhaps represented Zeus
Soter, as the ancient Greek poet Pasidippos of Pella said, or Poseidon, the Greek-
god of the sea. The lighthouse continued to shine for over 15 centuries , till it began
to deteriorate in the tenth century AD, because of subsidence and earthquakes,

including the one in 1303, which proved to be fatal.

In October 1996, some amazing new discoveries were made in the waters of
Alexandria Bay. In order to protect the 15 th century fortress of Qait-Bey, a
breakwater was being built by placing huge concrete blocks on the sea floor.
Fearing other ancient ruins maybe damaged, a team of skillful archaeological divers
was sent to investigate and discovered more than 2000 superb ancient artifacts
dating from 2000 BC, some to the Greco-Roman, and Byzantine periods. Some of
these were raised by means of balloons which were inflated underwater, tied to the
objects and floated to the surface. Aside from the diversity of the these objects,
however the most exciting discovery, was a number of massive granite blocks
which formed once, the first lighthouse known in history.

The fort which was built in 1477 AD, was intended to provide more efficient defense
of the port entrance and of Alexandria itself from Turkish (Ottoman) attacks. The
building material used consisted of blocks left behind the damaged Pharos,
completely collapsed in 1303. However, the present day fort we actually see today, is
the result of building ordered by Mohamed Ali Pascha during the first half of the 19 th
century. Being bombarded in 1882 by the British in venue to occupy Egypt, the then
Egyptian antiquities organization, carried out successful restoration work in 1984,
under the supervision of late Mr. Ahmed Kadry (president of the organization at that
time).
The main body of the structure is square, with four massive towers, at the four
corners, while the internal main feature is a middle-age small mosque, built according
to the period' style of Madrasa – Mosque. On the northern side of the outer wall
enclosing the structure one can see the batteries that defended access to the port.

The fort is now home of the Naval Museum, which has many finds from the remains
of the French fleet destroyed in 1798 at the battle of Abu-Qier. Next to the entrance is
the small Marin Biology Istitute Museum, with the exibit of fauna from the
Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea and the river Nile.

Museum of Graeco-Roman Art

The impressive Museum of Greco-Roman art, boasts the most important collections
of finds related to Alexandrian civilization (Greco-Roman period). Its neo-classical
building dates back to 1892, founded by the Italian Archaeologist "Giuseppi Botti". It
has been renovated and an attractive sculpture garden added. The museum has 27
rooms and an elegant garden in which many finds are exhibited; sarcophagi, statues,
stelae, and a small second-century BC temple dedicated to the crocodile-god "Sobek"
from the ancient city of "Theodelphia in the "Fayoum". In fact all the collections
consist of artifacts from the Greco-Roman period (331 BC-to-7 th century AD) AND
COMPLEMENTS Cairo's Egyptian Museum whose antiquities are from earlier
civilizations, and the Coptic and Islamic Museums whose collections are from later
periods. Among the many treasures housed in the Museum are masterpieces of
Hellenistic Sculpture, the mosaic of Queen "Berenice" and the terracotta Tanagra
figurines. Also the museum houses many busts and statues of "Serapis- a Greco-
Egyptian god founded by King Ptolemy I around the end of the 4 th century BC". Of
the collections also, a famous basalt statue of the sacred bull "Apis" and a collection
of funerary urns known as (hydriae, most of which come from "Hadra Necropolis".
Of the most fascinating objects, is a splendid bust, supposedly of the Roman Emperor
"Hadrian", that dates back to the second century AD.

The Serapium (Alexandria's Acropolis) and Pompey's Pillar

Once, the site housed the elegant temple of "Serapis" (an abbreviated form of
Osirapis), the actual cult-center of that Greco-Egyptian god from which nothing
remained except for some scattered objects an statues. This complex lay on a hill in
the southwestern section of the city, where the Egyptian quarter of "Rakotis" , and
housed the necropolis of the sacred bulls of "Apis". The discovery of a subterranean
chamber in the Serapium, inside which archaeologists found a large statue of the
"Apis" bull (now in the Museum of Greco-Roman Art). Today the Serapium complex
which was sacked and destroyed by Christians in 391 (in revenge of what the pagans
did in the first century AD, culminated in the persecution and death of St. Mark) is
occupied by a large garden-are with many archaeological finds, but above all, the
most important of which is the famous "Pompey's Pillar", 30 meteres high and with a

circumference of nine meters. The column is carved out of a single block of red
granite, was erected in 298 AD, by the prefect of Egypt then, in honor of the Roman
Emperor "Diocletian", as can be seen in the inscription (of Greek) on the western side
of the column-base. In fact there's no historical foundation whatsoever for its being
named after the Roman-General Pompey, local traditions attributed that, his head,
after being killed by the men of Ptolemy XIII, was raised and put in an urn and buried
high above the column' capital.

The Roman-Odeum

This elegan Odeum, previously and erroneously called the Amphitheatre, dates back
to the 4 th century AD, and originally had a roof. Its tiers could accommodate up to 600
spectators.
The Odeum was brought to light from 1960 through 1965, by the Polish
Archaeoloical mission of Warsaw University, working then in a nearby site. It's the
only existing example in Egypt of this type of building, despite historians relate that it
used to be some 400 of them. The word Odeum, comes from the word "Odea" which
are a special kind of roofed theatre used for music and poetry competition, in addition
of philosophical learning (and later for political debates).
Architecturally, it's semicircular with extended wings; has a diameter of 33 meters
and consists of 14 tiers made of white marble, in the uppermost section is a portico
with red-granite columns, some of which still stand to present day. North of the
theatre, opposite which is a modern cavea used for spectacles in summertime.

The Villa of the Birds

To the East of the Odeum, more diggings revealed a Roman Villa, dating from the
reign of "Hadrian" / the second century AD, that archaeologists have named the Villa
of Birds, because of the splendid mosaic-floor in the main room, depicting many
magnificent birds using the opus sectile technique, which calls for slabs of marble or
other material cut into pieces of various shapes to follow the outline of the images.
The Villa of the Birds is the most beautiful example of a private Roman house in
Alexandria.

The Catacombs of Kom-IL-Shokafa

Perhaps, visiting this unique subterranean complex, worth a visit to Alexandria, it
dates back to the second century AD, and its decoration is the result of the fusion of
Greco and Pharaonic elements so typical of Alexandrian art and culture.
The Catacombs of "Kom IL Shokafa/ meaning in Arabic the "hill of shards" were
discovered by a naked chance in 1900. In rock0hewn ground under the city, these
catacombs (the only existing example in Egypt) are laid out on three levels / stories,
the access to which is via a spiral – stairway winding around a central-deep shaft,
(which was used both for transporting the dead to their graves and for ensuring
ventilation to the whole subterranean complex' chambers. Via a vestibule with a
rotunda, the central shaft is communicated, with the complex, which is there opened
to a triclinium (used for the funerary banquets in the honor of the deceased- that-took
place in particular days). To the West of the rotunda and the triclinium is a complex
of galleries, run all the direction, on the walls of which are the loculi (where the
corpses were placed), to the East of the rotunda is a tomb that is independent from the
rest of the complex; here is found the so-called (Hall of Caracalla), so named,
because, according to tradition, the remains of the young Alexandrian who were
massacred by the Emperor's order in 215, supposedly interred here. The historical
basis of that tradition lay on the finding of bones, proved to be of horses. Again back
to the rotunda, from which a flight of steps leads to the main tomb, which is without
doubt, the most beautiful part in the catacombs. This private tomb, is believed to date
back to the reign of Emperors " Dometian" and "Trajan" (81-138 AD), decorated with
statues and bas-reliefs in which the funerary motifs of pharaonic Egypt are blended
with Greco-Roman ones. In like manner the symbolism used combines typically
Egyptian elements (such as the winged sun-disk) with Greek symbols (such as the
thyrsus- / a pine cone-tipped staff) connected to god-Dionysus, (or the "caduceus/ a
staff with entwined snakes and a pair of wings at the top) connected with the cult of
god-Hermes. Stepping forwards after the steps we face two columns whose capitals
are decorated with the Egyptian Lotus and Papyrus flowers, above which is the
winged sun-disk, flanked by two falcons representing the ancient Egyptian-god
"Horus". Facing the door of the tomb-chamber, we find on either sides, a bas-relifs of
two Cobras, crowned with the double crown of upper and lower Egypt, each
surmounted by the Medusa shield.
On the side walls of the antechamber are two niches with statues (having no
inscriptions) of a man and a woman, who may represent the owners of this private
tomb. The burial chamber has three sarcophagi, the middle one, probably belongs to a
woman, and two other side sarcophagi; all three are decorated with floral garlands and
above them, are reliefs that reveal the mixture of Egyptian and Greco-Roman
elements.

The Montaza Palace and Parks

The impressive Park, which is situated some 20 kms- from the city center, directly at
the far eastern section of the city, contains one of the most luxurious palaces from
Royal-Egypt, a magnificent Neo-Gothic style. "The Montaza Palace". The story of its
foundation with its superb gardens dates back to 1922, during the reign of king
"Fouad I- Father of king Farouk" when he chose the area (previously taken in 1892,
by Khedive Abbas II who built, in there, a small palace, came to be known as AL-
Salamlek) as the site of a vast Neo-Gothic palace (to be the summer palace)
surrounded by gardens planted in exotic and rare plants, a stunning park of 365 acres.
Later, within 10 years the palace was built and completed, and came to be known as
the "Haramlek". After the death of king "Fouad I" his son "Farouk" had a huge bridge
built to grant the access to an islet with an elegant pavilion where the king himself
preferred to stay.