The Catacombs and Ruins of Alexandria

This is Kite Bay Citadel, built in the 15th century over the footprint of the lighthouse of Alexandria. The main castle recycled some of the lighthouse's stone. These massive chunks of granite that frame the main door, for example, are almost certainly ancient. All of these blocks are concrete, the ones here on the surface. But beneath them, just submerged, are large chunks of granite that almost certainly fell from the lighthouse. Ancient Alexandria is buried beneath the modern metropolis, and only a few traces of the Greco- Roman city are still visible. The only place where it's possible to walk the ancient streets is here, at Qom el-Diqa. The name means Mound of Rubble, and that's all that was visible here until the 1960s, when a Polish archaeological team began to uncover an entire district of late-antique Alexandria. The structures visible here date, for the most part, to the 4th century, and were built on top of a luxurious residential neighborhood that is no longer visible. This small theater likely had multiple functions. It was probably an odeon used for lectures and musical performances, though some think that it also served as a bulletarian, or meeting place, of the city council. Like many late-antique buildings, it's made of reused stone. You can see that the columns on the top are unmatched. A clue to the theater's functions may be provided by these rooms, which are believed to have served as auditoria, lecture halls, where students listened to professors. There are at least 20 of these rooms, each with space for 20 or 30 students. It seems likely that these belonged to the famous University of Alexandria, where Hypatia taught. Ancient centers of higher learning were not as organized as their modern counterparts. We should imagine a loose association of teachers, each attracting his or her own students. Next to the auditoria is a large bath complex. Built like everything else here in the 4th century, it was reconstructed twice after earthquakes, but seems to have remained in use until the Arab conquest. It had the classic Roman layout, with a sequence of cold, warm, and hot rooms heated by furnaces. Here we have the remains of the bath's subterranean service corridors. And, over on this side, we have the large above-ground cistern that supplied the baths. It was divided into several chambers, and was fed by an aqueduct. Around the baths was a dense network of houses and shops, all with limestone walls, and drained by efficient sewers. This seems to have been a working-class area, inhabited mostly by the merchants and craftsmen who ran the local shops. Beneath it are a few traces of the wealthier, early Roman houses that this neighborhood replaced. The best-preserved early Roman dwelling, the so-called Villa of the Birds, was named after this colorful mosaic pavement. Before the rise of Christianity, the most prominent sanctuary in Alexandria was the Temple of Serapis, built on the highest point of the ancient city. As reconstructed in the Roman era, it consisted of a towering temple at the center of a large courtyard ringed by colonnades. The temple was destroyed by a Christian mob at the end of the fourth century, and almost nothing survives above ground. The rock-cut galleries beneath the temple, however, have been excavated. These spaces were likely used for mysteries of the god. The most impressive remnant of the Serapium, however, is the colossal monument known as Pompey's Pillar. Almost 90 feet tall, it consists of the largest monolithic column in Roman history, cut from the quarries at Aswan. The column, which weighs more than 300 tons, is larger than many obelisks. It was set up during the reign of Diocletian and originally crowned by a porphyry statue of that emperor. The statue is long gone, but the sheer bulk of the column has ensured its preservation, and made it the only fragment of Alexandria to have always remained visible. Alexandria was ringed by catacombs, almost all of which are now inaccessible. One, however, can still be visited, Qom el-Shukfa. The name means mound of shards, and refers to the heaps of broken pottery left by dishes used in funerary banquets. Discovered in 1900, when a hapless donkey plunged down the hidden access shaft, this catacomb seems to have been excavated in the second and third centuries. It consists of two contiguous complexes, known as the Great Catacomb and the Hall of Karakala. The Great Catacomb had three levels, the lowest of which was flooded until recently. After coming down a spiral staircase, we enter the antechamber of the tomb, which had a central dome. On one side was a triclinium used for ritual banquets. Diners would lie upon these stone shelves, and there'd be tables in the center for food and drink. This would be used both during funerals and on days of remembrance. We now approach the entrance of the Great Tomb. The basic plan of the façade is that of a classical temple, with those columns out front. Here, as throughout the complex, there is extensive use made of Egyptian iconography, fused in fascinating ways with Greek and Roman traditions. On the capitals of the columns, we see Egyptian lotus and papyrus, fused with Greek acanthus. On either side of the door, an apotropaic gorgon head, in the Greek tradition, is combined with an agathodimon, a guardian spirit in the form of a serpent with an Egyptian crown. Above the door is the solar disk of Amun-Ra, flanked by Horus falcons. A male and female statue stand on either side of the entrance. This, of course, is the female. Though they have the stiff hieratic pose characteristic of Egyptian art, their heads are sculpted in a naturalistic classical style. We don't know whom these statues represent, but they're probably the wealthy couple that initially commissioned this tomb. Inside the burial chamber, guarded by this relief of Anubis, dressed as a Roman soldier, are three sarcophagi with fixed lids. The sarcophagi are decorated in the typical classical manner, with garlands and eucrania. The walls above, however, feature reliefs of Egyptian deities. In the central panel, Anubis stands over a mummy. Note the canopic jars below. A passageway runs around the central burial chamber, its walls pockmarked with dozens of locribi for additional tombs. If, as most archaeologists believe, this tomb was originally constructed for a single wealthy family, it's unclear why or when this section was added. Here we have a nice mausoleum-like space, likely carved for a single family. From the antechamber of the Great Catacomb, we enter the so-called Hall of Tarakala. Let the space speak for itself. When archaeologists entered this room, they found the bones of both humans and horses, and speculated that these had been dumped here after Emperor Tarakala massacred thousands of Alexandrians in 215. That case ahead of us holds some horse bones. This is very unlikely, but we don't know why horse bones ended up down here. One suggestion is that they belonged to prominent racehorses. There's an altar in the center, and niches for sarcophagi along the walls. This niche was decorated with frescoes. In the upper register, Anubis presides over a mummification. In the lower register, Hades abducts Persephone, a nice epitome of the fusion of Greek and Egyptian in this catacomb, and throughout the ancient metropolis of Alexandria.