The Lighthouse at Alexandria
At the northernmost tip of the Nile delta, adjoining the Mediterranean Sea was once one of the great cities of the ancient world. It was the site of the greatest library in the world, became the intellectual centre for early Christianity, and was the location for one of The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Lighthouse. It is again in the news, as a team of experts from the United Nations Cultural and Educational organization, plan in conjunction with the Egyptian Government, the world’s first underwater museum. Tourists will be able to dive and explore the remarkable underwater archaeological remains.
The colossal lighthouse on the Island of Pharos helped to ensure the safe return for ships and sailors to the great harbour. In 297 B.C. the construction of the lighthouse was commissioned by Ptolemy I Soter, who was a general in the Greek conqueror Alexander The Great’s army. The work took 15 years and it was lit in 285 B.C. Sostratus, the architect, did all his calculations at the Alexandria Library.
The lighthouse was a massive tower (135 m/600 feet High), rising in three levels with a square base which contained 2 internal floors with 300 chambers, fifty rooms were for the workers and the other rooms used as warehouses. A spiral staircase led up to the many chambers and it was perhaps used by beasts of burden to carry fuel to the third storey where the fire burned on the summit. At the top, there was a mirror that could reflect the light more than 50 km (35 miles) off-shore. On top was a statue of ‘Poseidon’, God of the seas.
During a series of earthquakes over the following thousand years, the structure sustained damage and eventually collapsed into the sea. Year ago when I was studying archaeology the remains were unknown. Some scholars said drawings of it were imaginary and that such a massive structure never did exist. But over the last ten years a team of French and Egyptian divers, topographers, Egyptologists and photographers started charting, illustrating and analyzing approximately 1000 archaeological fragments lying at the bottom of the sea in the Harbour.
Their findings included hundreds of columns, capitals (both pharaonic form and Hellenistic), sphinxes, sections of obelisks, parts of colossal statuary and inscribed blocks weighing between 50 and 75 tonnes. Thirty pieces (sphinxes, columns, capitals, fragments of inscribed obelisks and two massive segments) came from the Lighthouse.
There are many stones and some statuary that belonged to the lighthouse, still lying in the water. The Egyptian government plans to turn the area into an underwater park to allow divers (tourists) to see the remains of the ancient Lighthouse. It is amazing that we are the first generation in a thousand years to see the remains of what was one of the Seven Wonders of the World 2,300 years ago.
Rev The Hon. Dr Gordon Moyes, A.C., M.L.C..