Ancient Alexandria: The Crossroads of East and West | FULL DOCUMENTARY

Today, Alexandria has more than 5,200,000 inhabitants, making it the second-largest city in Egypt. Its port and its industries form the heart of its economy, but it's also a popular seaside resort for the people of Cairo. Its port, ever since its foundation in the 4th century BC, is the largest in Egypt. The remnants of its ancient magnificence are rare. For the most part, they were engulfed by the waves because of erosion and earthquakes. But this megalopolis, so incomparably brilliant in ancient days, calls at us to lift the veil of her mystery. So how did it all begin? In the 4th century BC, when Alexander the Great first discovers the site to build a splendid capital, it is a poor place indeed. It is located more than 200 kilometers northwest of Cairo, just a simple fishing village surrounded by stinking marshes. And stranded on a lagoon between a lake and the sea. So why build the city of your dreams here? Alexandria is born on the 29th of January, 331 BC. The spit of land on which the city is to be built has been carefully chosen by Alexander. Its proximity to the sea has three advantages. The city can always be supplied, it can trade overseas, and it can provide refuge from any invasion. And then there's the island of Pharos, which fits perfectly into Greek military defensive strategy. An outlying island is an asset that the enemy has to attack before he can conquer the mainland. Alexandria lies between two bodies of water. To the north, the Mediterranean Sea, which gives the city its access to the sea. And to the south, Lake Mariotis, or Marriott, now dry, which was the gateway to Africa, Egypt, and the Nile Valley. I think he wanted to link North Africa much more closely to the network of trade in the Mediterranean. So let's watch the building of Alexandria and witness the birth of Alexander's greatest city, the most beautiful of them all. A gigantic vision conceived fully formed in the dreams of its founder. The architect started by drawing a cross. This is where two very important routes intersect, where the main east-west road from Canopus is crossed by the north-south route. The two of them will feed into a very orderly network of smaller perpendicular streets. The megacity is divided into different districts. With its neighborhoods and regular plots, it forms a rectangle 5 kilometers long by 1.2 kilometers wide that spreads out over a 20-kilometer perimeter. Alexander chose to build his city according to a checkerboard plan. This was the first time this plan was ever used in a city of such importance. In those respects, Alexandria does offer us a model of urban geography according to a pre-planned grid pattern. This map of Alexandria will serve as the model for the foundations of all new Hellenistic cities, as well as for the Roman era. It's an urban vision that's absolutely amazing for its time. The city is born from nothing and created in its entirety, immense, modern, and magnificent. It seems likely that all its elements were constructed at the same time. The road from Canopus is still there at the heart of Alexandria. This avenue is 2,300 years old. It has crossed the city from east to west ever since ancient times. It is one of the longest avenues in the world. It is 5 kilometers long. The Great Canopic Way cuts the city almost in two. In ancient times, its dimensions are extraordinary. 5 kilometers long and 30 meters wide. It links the city to the town of Canopus to the east, after which it is named, and leads from the gate of the moon to that of the sun. The length was interesting, but the most striking thing about it is its width, 30 meters, which is about twice the size of any other known street of that period. The Canopic Way was designed for chariots and horses to be able to pass each other easily. As the central street of the city, it will host all the most beautiful public buildings. It crosses almost at right angles the Great North-South Way, which is just as wide. These are the fast lanes, designed to make life easier for hundreds of thousands of city dwellers. Never before had anyone seen such huge and splendid roadways. The city will rise from the earth, but it also has an urgent need for fresh water. There is no spring, no river, just swamps. But there are several solutions. The first is to use wells and cisterns. The wells can reach a depth of 6 to 9 meters, but provide water to only a small number of inhabitants. The second solution is to take advantage of the quality of the rocky subsoil, a dune sandstone with the amazing properties of capturing water from the water table. The hard thing, however, is to get that water to the surface. So the engineers dig, in the soft rock, a network of gently sloping underground galleries known as hyponomes. These galleries fill with water naturally, and thanks to the wells going down to them, there will be water for all in abundance. The second phase in solving the problem of water is to build a canal that connects the city to the canopic mouth of the Nile, the westernmost arm of the Nile Delta some 27 kilometers away. It truly is the hand of man, the genius of the architects and the men who work there, that enables the full benefits of the site to be exploited. Alexandria the Great has to be an exceptionally modern city, one that fully exploits its maritime environment. It needs to get its priorities right. One of the first of them is to build a causeway that connects the Alexandrian shore to the island of Pharos. It is a complex challenge. They have to build a major edifice out over the water. The island of Pharos will soon be famous all over the world thanks to the lighthouse of Alexandria that will be built there and will take its name. These days, nothing is left of the ancient causeway. It has been covered by mud, sand, and earth and taken over by the modern city. For Alexandria's coastline has changed a lot now since ancient times. Sea levels have risen by 6 meters. Landslides have dragged most of the ancient remains into the sea. And the coastline has been completely altered. It is impossible to make out the dike today, but thanks to new technologies, we can relive the building of that grand construction. Constructing a dike that links the island of Pharos to the mainland is a perilous undertaking. There's nothing in Alexandria, no wood, no stone, no drinking water. Everything has to be brought in. Pharos is not completely separated from the mainland. It is connected by a natural sandbar and an accumulation of sediment brought in by the waves. So what will the engineers of Alexandria do? They will use that sandbar as a base, shore it up with embankments, and build their causeway on the open top of the emerging mound. Then they cover the surface of the now solid bridge with a stone pavement. They call the dike the Hepta Stadion because it is 1,244 meters long, the length of seven stadiums, a standard measure of the time. This building of the Hepta Stadion was a massive project. By building this causeway, you divide the vast harbor area into two, and you therefore create for yourself two different sorts of spaces. This Hepta Stadion will divide the natural harbor into two marine basins, each with its specialized port. The port of Alexandria looks different nowadays. The former ancient Great Port of Commerce now houses a fishing fleet. It remains one of the largest ports in the world, but it was also the largest trading port in the Mediterranean. It's always been a very lively place, but over the years it has changed, its ancient coastline engulfed by the waves. Alexandria is surrounded on all sides by water, and water has played a big role in its history. Its unique location between sea and lake has always been exploited. There are several ports, both facing the sea and looking inward towards the mainland. First of all, the Alexandria Maritime Basin is in two parts, separated in the middle by the Hepta Stadion, leading out to the island of Pharos. Two openings in the causeway allow passage from one half to the other. The larger western harbor, Port Eunestos, is home to a high-capacity military port. The island of Pharos will protect it from the violence of the north winds, but blow for two-thirds of the year. This military port will shelter hundreds of triremes. The smaller of the two harbors, known as the Great Port, is the civil and merchant port, which also welcomes royal ships of state. Although the approach to the coast is a difficult one, the tip of Cape Lokias and the eastern tip of Pharos Island make it an almost closed basin. The water of the Great Port is deeper, so it can accommodate the high-tonnage vessels of a commercial fleet. Thanks to its excellent maritime location, Alexandria will be able to communicate, exchange, and trade with all the Greek markets of the Mediterranean. By building, in particular, the commercial harbor, you attract traders from all around the Mediterranean. But the key thing about Alexandria is how cosmopolitan a city it was, a crossroads, as it were, of commerce, attracting people from as far west, indeed, as southern France, but also particularly all around the Mediterranean. You saw all kinds of people in the port district. There were Westerners, Romans, Gauls, Iberians, and then Orientals, Syrians, Persians, as well as Arabs. Alexandria was the largest souk of ancient times. The Greeks were traders par excellence. Trade was their true religion, not only the material market, but also the spiritual and intellectual markets. You exchanged foodstuffs, but also ideas, ideologies, religions. That's the basic concept of the market. It was a melting pot for the whole known world. Alexandria's got everything. But in the beginning, success came from elsewhere, from further inland. They've built a port to the west in the calm waters of the lake, and it will prove essential since the lake is linked to the Nile, the country's main communications route. The Nile serves all of Upper and Lower Egypt and allows trade not only with the hinterland, but also through its multiple channels with all the provinces of Egypt and the rest of Africa. The goods all pour into this lake port that is easily connected by a short channel to the seaports. It is speedy, dynamic, and by far the most lively of the ports. From Africa comes gold, ivory, ostrich feathers, and even wild beasts. From the Arabian Peninsula, there are scents of myrrh and incense. There are spices and herbs from India, and even silk from China. Thanks to its ports, the city is at the center of Mediterranean trade. At the crossroads of the east, the west, and Africa. This unique dominant position will place Alexandria between two seas, between two worlds, between east and west, and will cover it with riches. But a rich city in an open place can attract unwanted attention. If the city is to be defended, it has to have walls. From the very outset, this is a gigantic operation. There are to be almost 20 kilometers of walls. They are the longest ramparts in the Western world, and a new challenge for the architects of Alexandria. In this district, some fragments of the wall still remain. This Ottoman wall from the Middle Ages is constructed in the same way as in Alexander's time. Through a section of the wall, we can see different layers of stones. The exterior is covered with carved stones, whereas the center of the structure is made of bricks. This brick core was used as a shock absorber to withstand enemy impacts. We do not know much about the layout of these walls. Most were destroyed in the 9th century. But it's estimated that they must have been 16 to 20 kilometers long, and enclosed an area of 1,000 hectares. These walls were the admiration of the whole Mediterranean. The city wall of Alexandria was, by normal Greek standards, enormous. And it was mainly defensive. The idea was that it can resist battering rams, it can resist arrows. These were walls that were 10 meters high, but above all very thick, 7 to 8 meters thick. Of course, at that time, the first siege machines were already being used, especially catapults. They had to be able to resist the huge blocks that were thrown by these giant slingshots. The walls are punctuated at regular intervals with rectangular fortified towers, which offer two angles of attack on the enemy, and the choice of either raining arrows down on him or bombarding him. Thanks to its walls, Alexandria becomes a fortress. Protected by the sea to the north, and by Lake Mariotis to the south, the few accesses to the city are narrow and easy to defend. The city can choose to be either open or closed. The ancient writers all talk of Alexandria as a cosmopolitan city, the first cosmopolitan city in the history of mankind. In other words, it's not only a polis, a Greek city as Athens was, but truly a place where all the peoples of the known world meet. Alexander the Great only stays for a few months in Egypt before leaving on further conquests, not knowing that he will never see Alexandria again. He dies in Babylon in 323 B.C. It is one of his generals, the Greek general Ptolemy, who inherits Egypt. Ptolemy I will be both king for the Greeks and pharaoh for the Egyptians, and will found a dynasty. This is the beginning of the Ptolemy dynasty. Fifteen sovereigns, all of whom bear the name of Ptolemy, as well as some queens, including the famous Cleopatra. Alexander the Great's successor's reign will be filled with ostentatious power and the construction of legendary monuments. Ptolemy is a learned king, like Alexander the Great. He wants to create in Alexandria the temple of all the knowledge in the known world. Like all the powerful generals of Alexander the Great's army, Ptolemy really wanted to make his mark on history. He will create the largest and most famous library in the world, the Great Library of Alexandria. At a time when books did not yet exist, it will possess up to 700,000 papyrus scrolls and become the ancient world's very first research center. Today, a new great library, heir to the same spirit, has been built in Alexandria. Inaugurated in 2002 following a global competition involving 400 architects of 77 nationalities, it was the Norwegian project that won. It cost 220 million dollars to build. The state-of-the-art building can accommodate 8 million volumes. But let us go back to the creation of its Hellenistic forerunner. To this day, no one really knows the location of the Great Library of Alexandria. The density of the contemporary city makes it impossible to carry out archaeological excavations. This lends it an appealing air of mystery. No architectural or artistic representation exists of the Great Library. So how have we been able to reconstruct it? Research carried out by UNESCO provided an architectural basis for the monument. And since the Great Library of Alexandria was of Greek design, basing it on one of its contemporaries, the Library of Pergamon in Turkey, provides this unprecedented glimpse of the splendid building. In the 1st century B.C., the geographer and historian Strabon is able to visit the site. He passes down a few secrets to us. He situates the Great Library near the port in the district of the royal palaces. And they mainly rely on ships to collect all the encyclopedic knowledge that it will preserve. Its shelves are ready to welcome thousands of books from all over the world and to create a great hub of universal memory. There is no precedent for that. And the emperors, the Ptolemy kings, they had different ways of persuading people to donate. And sometimes it was almost by compulsion. All the vessels moored in the port were obliged to hand over any manuscripts they had in their holds. With the promise they would get them back once they'd been copied. But sometimes it was by purchase. Ptolemy III, for example, actually paid the Athenians a very large sum of money for copies of the plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides. And the story is, but it might be a hostile source, Ptolemy kept the originals and gave back only the copies to the Athenians. The library will grow rapidly. 200,000 scrolls to start with, a further 400,000 under Ptolemy II, and 700,000 more in Roman times. It is the place for learned men to go to pursue their research. From that moment on, researchers and translators came from all over the world to live and work at the Library of Alexandria. And so the library was the world's most important center of culture. There are unmixed scrolls, each of which contains an entire work, and mixed scrolls with only one book or volume of a work per scroll. They weren't made of paper, but of papyrus, a substance made from blades of reeds woven together and compressed. English word, and your French word papier, paper, comes from papyrus, ultimately. And so this is the Egyptians' great contribution to written civilization because it was on papyrus that documents going way back 3,000 B.C. in Egypt. Books at that time weren't like they are today with the binding and pages that you turn. They were volumes or rolls of papyrus that were wrapped around a wooden rod. You had to unroll them to read them. So inevitably, the text that was transcribed on these scrolls was quite limited. It corresponded to a chapter of one of today's works. In addition to the preservation and copying of scrolls, the role of the Great Library is to encourage the study, exchange, and comparison of great works on a variety of subjects, history, fiction, religion, science. It also serves as a conference venue. The Great Library is the extraordinary fruit of the royal will. It is one of a kind and is recognized as a true universal temple of knowledge and research. Its designers wanted it to be a universal project in the image of Alexander the Great. With the Alexandria Library, they sought, above all, to incarnate the principle of the unification of the world. Its immense fame has survived the centuries, but many people don't know that it was, in fact, part of an amazing architectural complex. Around the library were other buildings. For instance, a real research center called the Muséon. This scientific center is unique in the world. Ptolemy invites scholars and men of letters from all lands to Alexandria, all expenses paid and for an indefinite period. And the Muséon, which means Temple of the Muses, will be home to this learned elite. Never had so many thinkers and intellectuals been gathered together in one place. It was really a first. They taught medicine there, astronomy, chemistry, and mathematics, alongside philosophy, in all the sciences of antiquity. It really was the center of ancient knowledge as a whole. What's interesting from our point of view is that arts and sciences were not rigidly separated. In other words, you could be an expert in, for example, geometry, geography, but also be an expert literary critic. These great minds are received like kings, in well-equipped and spacious buildings. There's a research institute, an astronomical observatory, medical and anatomical experiments, and even a zoo. Members of the Muséon discuss and debate under the portico of its façade, or as they stroll through its leafy botanical gardens. They also gather in the large room used for lectures and seminars. The Muséon is an incredible cosmopolitan research center born 300 years before our era. The Muséon was a great project, a scientific research complex, a kind of NASA of libraries ahead of its time. The Library of Alexandria was a revolution in Egyptian civilization, and even in human civilization in general, because it introduced two very important elements into the concept of knowledge. The first was open access to knowledge. Don't forget that at the time, knowledge was the prerogative only of the priest and the clergy in Egyptian or Greek temples. The second element was that it was free. Anyone who had an idea or a theory and wanted to research them had the right to access previous knowledge and could carry out experiments to advance science. And what's more, it was a real revolution. The Muséon is home to the most remarkable scholars on Earth. The Muséon members exchange knowledge and they socialize. This will allow great institutions to all benefit from their knowledge. All this ushers in a cultural revolution, a desire to bring together all universal knowledge in a single place that will make Alexandria an incomparable megacity. And this cultural revolution spreads. The people, too, are swept up in it. They will have the right to their own library, a little sister of the Great One. Here, in this working-class district south of the Canopic Way, stood the most beautiful temple in the city, the Sarapion. It is one of the few places in ancient Alexandria that we can locate precisely. The Sarapion is an astonishing complex. It's not only a sacred place, it serves as a public space as well and brings together the working classes, the perfect place to install an annex to the Great Library. The Ptolemies also wanted to pursue a cultural policy aimed at the humble, the most modest, and that's quite a novel thing. They also created a public library, and this is truly unheard of in history. So there's a real will to share culture with the people. The papyrus scrolls were kept in alcoves dug right into the rock. This little annex of the Great Royal Library takes in its waste, the doubles or the lower-quality copies. Its great merit is to be for everyone, unlike the Great Library, which was exclusively reserved for the royal family and the learned elite. It reveals the great authors to the population through public readings. The Serapeion had more than 42,000 scrolls. People like this public library. They come here to learn at the same time as visiting the largest temple in the city. Eager to unite Greeks and Egyptians, the Greek rulers invent a new god, Serapis. This royal temple, the Serapeion, is dedicated to him. Miraculously, there are still traces of it left. Its remains are gathered in this open-air archaeological museum. The monumental temple was built on an artificial hill. It served as an outlying acropolis here in the most densely populated area of the city. Working-class Alexandrians would meet there 23 centuries ago. From ancient times, we still have these foundations and these two sphinxes that adorn the top of the hill. But also this column, 30 meters high, a true rarity. The Column of Pompeii is the only remnant of ancient Alexandria still standing. In the 4th and 3rd century BC, it didn't exist. This is where the sanctuary of the Serapeion stood. Initially, it's a simple altar dedicated to Serapis. From the 3rd century BC, it will make way for a temple, which will, during the Roman era, become a sumptuous monument praised for its exceptional beauty. The Serapeion occupies a sacred space of 142 meters by 55 in the form of a rectangular peristyle, a gallery of columns surrounding an inner courtyard in which stands a temple of 11 meters by 21. The century author describes the Serapeion with its golden and bronze roof as a monument of resplendent beauty. In the center of the courtyard, the square Greek-style temple is 185 meters long. It houses a colossal statue of Serapis. Even the walls are partially covered with gold, bronze, and silver plates. Serapis is seated. He is recognizable by his headdress, a container, symbol of abundance. A seated Cerberus, the dog with three heads, guardian of the underworld, keeps watch to his right. Dreamed up by the royal power, the cult of Serapis will be a great success. It is a link between the Greek and Egyptian religions. He resembles both Osiris, the Egyptian god of the dead, and Hades, the Greek god of the underworld. He's a composite god who promises rebirth after death. The Serapeion has other rooms, too, and adjacent temples. But the hill has other surprises as well. The cult of Serapis brought the Greeks and Egyptians together, although the Egyptians continued to honor their traditional god, Osiris. There were also sacrifices in the Greek fashion, perhaps in the upper part of the temple and under it. And in underground galleries, mysterious rites took place, probably in the pharaonic tradition. The inhabitants need food for the body as well as for the soul. The agriculture of Alexander's lands has to feed the ever-growing population of the city. And they invent water machines. The oldest water machine is the shadouf, a knotting machine used throughout the Nile Valley for 2,000 years and first seen in Mesopotamia 1,000 years earlier. It's used to draw water from a well or cistern. It is still used even today. Then there's the more sophisticated sakie, designed in the 3rd century BC. To a vertical wooden wheel is attached an endless chain, equipped with wide-necked terracotta water pots. A horizontal wheel operated by a donkey or an ox turns the vertical wheel. In the Ptolemy era, the fields are dotted with sakies. But the finest invention in nargation is undoubtedly the famous Archimedes' screw, invented in the 3rd century BC. The scientists from Syracuse corresponded with Eratosthenes, the director of the museum, and we think it was he who came up with this extraordinary invention based on the rotation of a propeller protected by a wooden cylinder. The propeller is tilted, and its lower part is immersed in the water. It rotates constantly on its axis, moving neither forward nor backward, hauling the water up through its spiral at high speed, then pouring it out of the opening at the top. What makes the Archimedes' screw so revolutionary is that it can draw water with such great speed. It means that the irrigated areas can be extended considerably beyond the flood basin of the Nile. By solving the challenge of pumping water, it's an invention that will increase fertility as well as the cereal harvests, which will lead to higher exports. After a century of its existence, there must have been between 400,000 and 500,000 inhabitants of Alexandria, maybe up to one million at the beginning of Roman times. Alexandria is really the most populated city of the Hellenistic period. It won't be surpassed until Rome in the 1st century AD. But in the 3rd century BC comes the much-awaited birth of the seventh wonder of the ancient world, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, a 135-meter-high fire tower that will operate day and night, seven days a week. It's the most legendary of Alexandria's monuments and will illuminate its port for nearly 17 centuries. The lighthouse collapsed permanently 600 years ago, but its location, unlike other ancient buildings, is beyond doubt. It was here, where now stands this 15th-century Ottoman citadel, Port Kitbe, that the splendid lighthouse was built. This citadel is a model of medieval defensive architecture. It was ideally situated, and the lighthouse, which had collapsed a century earlier after an earthquake, had fallen into the sea, leaving only a few stones behind. They were used to build the main tower at the center of the citadel. We will have to go back to the days of Ptolemy I and Ptolemy II to find out more. Access from the sea with its treacherous reefs is a dangerous business. The currents are very dangerous. There are rocks. Divers recently have estimated something like 40 wrecks immediately outside the harbor walls. So it was necessary. Building a fire tower to be seen from afar seems the best solution. But Ptolemy I and his successor will make it a monument fit for a king. At the time, the greatest monument in Egypt, indeed in the world, was the Pyramid of Chaos. So Ptolemy and Sostratus of Nidus decided to go one better than the pyramid. Unfortunately, we don't know the exact height of the lighthouse. But if we reckon on a minimum of 120 meters, that's already huge for ancient times. They choose the location for the tower in 297 BC. What Ptolemy II wanted was to help Alexandria keep its sailors safe and also to make the city a great center of commerce. From the start, construction of the lighthouse proves complex. The Tower of Fire must be immense for practical reasons, to serve as a reference point for navigators, but also for reasons of prestige, to be a symbol of the power of the city and shine out to the rest of the world. Ptolemy was obsessed with surpassing, without doing, his master, Alexander the Great. The tower is to stand on a rocky islet constantly battered by the waves at the eastern tip of the island of Pharos, which gives it its name. So begins 15 years of difficult work that will combine Greek construction techniques and decorations with Egyptian artistic traditions. Thus, at the foot of the lighthouse and in front of it, a gallery of standing royal statues, both male and female, will represent the new Ptolemaic pharaohs. The architecture of the lighthouse itself was Greek, but we found remains of six statues, probably representing the first Ptolemies in the form of traditional Egyptian pharaohs. Right, Ptolemy I established a dynasty, and one of the points of a monument like the Pharos was not just to be practical, but also to be symbolic. And so it symbolizes the power of the dynasty over, in a way, over nature, but also it's a call sign. The first level of the lighthouse is reached by a 183-meter-long ramp supported by 16 arches that leads to the high door. The complexity of the site must have been immense because of the difficulty of getting the materials the 7 kilometers from the mainland, and the really heavy lifting, in the literal sense, was done by slaves, and presumably, therefore, of Egyptian origin. The lighthouse is made principally of white stone, a local limestone from a quarry not far from the coast. Its particularity is that it hardens on contact with water. The Alexandrian winter is one of the most violent in the whole Mediterranean, very tough. The stones had to be resistant to terrible onslaughts from the winds. The lighthouse remained standing for almost 1,000 years, so it was very well built and well preserved. Nevertheless, the parts most at risk, such as the corners of the building and the door and window frames, are made of Aswan granite from Upper Egypt. The blocks were assembled using a groove technique in which molten lead was poured in as a damper between the stones. The joints were all so firm that they gave great solidity to the building, which would be beaten relentlessly by the waves on the north side. The base of the lighthouse is a slightly pyramidal square, measuring 70 meters high by 30 meters wide. In the center, a terrace, protected by a railing over 2 meters high, reveals the second, octagonal floor, which measures exactly half the previous floor. It is the same for the third, circular floor, which is 9 meters wide. It was there that a fire kept constantly burning in a huge brazier. This last floor was taught by a dome on which was placed the statue of a god, probably the great god Zeus. Completed under Ptolemy II, the building stands 135 meters high and is of such magnificence that, from its construction, it is considered the seventh wonder of the world. The speed with which it was built, just 15 years, shows the advanced techniques used as well as the wealth of its sponsor, the pharaoh Ptolemy I. This beautifully constructed fire tower will light up the world for 17 centuries. And its square octagonal and then cylindrical structure will become a model for the new lighthouses of the Mediterranean coastline. 15 years of titanic construction work result in a magnificent lighthouse. But then there's a new challenge, a logistical one this time. How to maintain, day and night, the huge open fire that sits at its summit? The huge quantities of wood required are brought up this ramp. It has been built wide enough for heavy carts, loaded with tree trunks, and pulled by oxen to get up to the building all the way to its first level, a remarkable achievement. The lighthouse is a place that's teeming with life. People live there. It has about 50 rooms to house the staff responsible for maintaining the building and storing the wood. All around this first level is an interior ramp that leads to the second floor. The lighthouse is pierced with windows to let daylight in to the stairs. Some of the loading had to be done by hand, but most likely, there was a lifting system in the center of the tower to reach the upper floors and keep the fire blazing. First, they had to find wood. There's no wood in Egypt. So they had to send out successive waves of ships to look for wood in Lebanon and Syria. And this wood fed the fire pit for 17 centuries without interruption. So we may well wonder how many forests were burned to feed not just the lighthouse, but also its myth. How was it possible to keep aflame? It was said to be perpetual. Obviously, wood is involved, but some people have suggested oil, which was, of course, the usual fuel if you're lighting your home and you have an oil lamp. The location of the lighthouse is not the result of chance. It is part of an original and unprecedented scientific theory. They wanted the lighthouse to be built on the meridian measured by Eratosthenes. Eratosthenes was one of the legendary directors of the Library of Alexandria. He had managed to measure the meridian of the world, and they wanted the lighthouse of Alexandria and the Colossus of Rhodes to be built on what was called the axis of the world, which would later become known as the Alexandria Meridian. The lighthouse of Alexandria, symbol of grandeur and magnificence, will illuminate the world of the Mediterranean until the 14th century before being laid low by a series of earthquakes. Alexandria the Great, built in the middle of rancid marshland, had become in less than a century the greatest city of the Mediterranean. Her story was that of the waters that surrounded her, an ideal position at the crossroads of East and West and one that brought her great riches. Huge, modern, gleaming white and cosmopolitan like no other in antiquity, it created its own identity. While the beauty of its planning, its great arteries, its temples and its ports would be equaled only by its openness to the rest of the world. And the monumental achievements of its sovereigns, still shrouded in mystery, will never cease to fire our imagination for millennia to come.