The Ancient Landmarks of Alexandria.
4 - Pharos (The Lighthouse of Ancient Alexandria).
Photograph shows a model of how it is thought the ancient lighthouse of Alexandria may have looked. Courtesy of Tour Egypt at http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/alexandriatombs.htm
On the eastern tip of the Island of Pharos, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world once stood. It was a colossal lighthouse, which carried the name of the island, and 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 Alexander’s army, and after the conflict on succession had been settled, he took control of Egypt.
The work on this project took 15 years, and it was completed after the death of Soter by his son Ptolemy II Philadelphus who inaugurated the lighthouse around 285 B.C.
Sostratus was the architect, but the detailed calculations for the structure and its accessories were carried out at the Alexandria Library and Mouseion.
The monument was dedicated to Savior Gods, Ptolemy Soter (Lit.Savior) and his wife Berenice. This was written in the dedicatory inscription that was carved into the wall of the lighthouse:-
‘Sostratus, The son of Dexiphanes, The Cnidian, dedicated this to the Savior Gods, on behalf of those who sail the seas ‘.
*Description:
The lighthouse was a tower (135 m/600 feet High), rising in three levels with a square base:-
1- The first floor was rectangular with a height of 60 m and width of 30 m. It contained 2 internal floors with 300 chambers, fifty rooms were for the workers and the other rooms were used as warehouses.
Access to the entrance was up a long vaulted ramp. From there, 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.
*The internal core itself was occupied by a shaft to lift the fuel that was need for the fire.
2 - The second floor was octagonal in shape, with a height of 30 m.
3 - The third floor was cylindrical with a height of 9 m.
At the top, there was a mirror that could reflect the light tens of kilometres away. Its reflection could be seen more than 50 km (35 miles) off-shore. Legend says the mirror was also used to detect and burn enemy ships before they could reach the shore.
Furthermore, ancient texts regularly mention a statue that stood on the top of the tower, but if this was placed above a perpetually burning fire it would surely crack.
Indeed, there is still a debate about who this statue represented. For a long time it was supposed to be of ‘Poseidon’, God of the seas.
The ancient estimate of the cost of building the lighthouse was 800 Talents (around £2500 at the present time), as very expensive and high quality building materials were used in the construction process:-
*GRANITE was brought from Aswan and was used for the columns.
*Floors and ceilings were decorated with MARBLE and ALABASTER slabs which were imported from Europe.
*BRONZE was earmarked for the sculptures and ornamentations.
*The Destruction of Lighthouse:
For seventeen centuries, this lighthouse stood to serve as a guide to seafarers approaching the coast of Egypt. The fact that it survived for all these years surely suggests that it was a building of exceptional quality.
The lighthouse’s destruction is thought to have been caused by a series of earthquakes from the 4th to 14th centuries of our era, as there were many of them over the centuries.
In 956 A.D. an earthquake shook the city of Alexandria, and caused some damage to the lighthouse. Cracks began to appear in the walls and the tower lost some twenty-two metres of its height.
The lighthouse had to be restored frequently after it was damaged. There were several recorded instances of repairs that were being undertaken, particularly during the Arab rule as the lighthouse became an object of their admiration and care. For example, in 1272 A.D., The Sultan Salah El Din (Saladin) ordered certain restoration work to be carried out.
In 1261 A.D. another earthquake struck the city and more masonry fell.
In 1303 A.D., a violent earthquake shook the eastern Mediterranean basin. Alexandria was particularly badly hit with damage being inflicted upon schools, mosques and even the lighthouse. When the famous Moroccan traveller, Ibn Battuta, passed through Alexandria in 1326 A.D. for the first time, he recorded that he climbed the ramp leading to the tower entrance . On his return to the city in 1349 A.D. this was no longer possible, he couldn't enter the ruinous monument or even climb to its doorway.
Due to a destructive earthquake in the mid 14th century, the entire Octagonal storey collapsed and nothing remained of the lighthouse except for the rectangular section (first floor).
The 14th century earthquake was the final chapter of the lighthouse’s destruction. It caused extensive damage and the lighthouse was in ruins.
It remained thus for just over a century, until 1480 A.D., when the Egyptian Mameluke Sultan ‘Al Ashraf Qaitby’ decided to fortify Alexandria’s defences against Turkish threat.
A medieval fort was constructed on the foundations of the ruined lighthouse, using the fallen stones and marble. It is this fort which stands today, known as Qaitby Fort.
But we could ask how the archaeologists know about the structure of Pharos. The answer, in brief, is that there are reliefs on the Greek lamps and Roman coins which illustrate the building of the ancient lighthouse .These coins are presently exhibited in the National museum of Alexandria.
Furthermore, there is the description of the structure which was given by the Arab traveller, Abou –Haggag Al-Andaloussi, who visited the lighthouse in 1166 A.D.. It has helped modern archaeologists in reconstructing the monument.
He documented a wealth of information:-
‘It was composed of three stages: The lowest square is 55.9 m (183.4 ft) high with a cylindrical core; the middle octagonal with a side length of 18.30 m (60 ft) and a height of 27.45 m (90 ft);and the third circular 7.30 m (24 ft). The total height of the building including the foundation base was about 117 m (384 ft), equivalent to a 40-storey modern building. At the top stage, the mirror reflected sunlight during the day while fire was used during the night. In ancient times, a statue of Poseidon adorned the summit of the building.
The graphic reconstruction that has remained the accepted popular view of the lighthouse to this day was elaborated on by Herman Thiersch, a German who wrote a large work entitled Pharos that has served as a standard reference since it was published in 1909. Thiersch studied images from coins, terracotta pottery, and Roman mosaics in Libya and Jordan. He also had recourse to a wall mosaic in Saint Mark’s chapel at Venice which carries an image of the lighthouse.
The lighthouse of Alexandria did not survive to the present day, but from an architectural standpoint it has left an impressive influence on the architecture along the Mediterranean, particularly the Egyptian type of minarets that Herman Thiersch affirms are the direct descendants of the Pharos. Also from a linguistic standpoint, it gave its name ‘pharos’ to all the lighthouses in the world.
*Underwater Excavations:-
In October 1994 Prof Jean-Yves Empereur, Director of the Centre D’etudes Alexandrines (CEA), responded to a call from the Egyptian Organization of Antiquities (EOA) and began a preliminary examination of a stretch of sea just outside Alexandria’s eastern harbour.
His immediate mission was to evaluate the importance of a little known archaeological site lying in less than six to eight metres of water. This was then being threatened by the construction of a modern concrete breakwater intended to protect the Mameluke fort of Sultan Al Ashraf Qaiteby, built around 1480 A.D.
The expedition of autumn 1994 established an initial map charting some 30 important architectural fragments.
*The first findings:
During the year of 1995, a French Multi-media company agreed jointly to finance the mission with US $350,000.
An expanded team of French and Egyptian divers, topographers, Egyptologists and photographers started charting, illustrating and analyzing approximately 1000 archaeological fragments lying at the bottom of sea.
Their findings were exciting, including hundreds of columns, capitals (both pharaonic papyri form and Hellenistic), sphinxes, sections of obelisks, parts of colossal statuary and inscribed blocks.
It soon became evident from inscriptions that many of the pharaonic elements originally came from Heliopolis near Cairo. Their presence in Alexandria can be explained as the Ptolemies were known for their habit of transporting ancient monuments to decorate their new capital, but just how they then ended up in the sea is not quite so obvious.
It’s known however that after the Cypriot king ‘Pierre I de Lusignan’ sacked Alexandria over two days in 1365 A.D. the Mameluke ruler of Egypt attempted to block the entry to the eastern harbour using rubble from the crumbling ancient city. This fact might provide a partial explanation for the wealth of remains lying in this patch of sea but it is not sufficient to account for the presence of certain massive blocks, weighing between 50 and 75 tonnes.
Further documentation-photographic, video and Topographic surfing was required along with the preparation of certain blocks for lifting onto dry land.Some thirty elements (sphinxes, columns, capitals, fragments of inscribed obelisks and two massive segments of the seventh wonder of the ancient world Pharos) were removed from the sea to be restored under the watchful eye of the EOA in co-operation with the Institute Francais D’archaeologie Orientale (IFAO).
These pieces have since been exhibited in an open-air museum by the Roman amphitheatre at Kom El Dikka in central Alexandria.
The blocks had to be protected in a special way once they came out of the water .This special treatment was needed because there was still a lot of salt inside the epidermis of these blocks, and it had to be removed by putting the blocks into water tanks with the same percentage of sodium until the blocks released all the salt that they contained. Once there was no more salt released into freshwater, it meant that the process was finished. The process took six months to complete.
There are many stones and some statuary that belonged to the lighthouse, still lying in the water off Pharos Island. The Egyptian government plans to turn the area into an underwater park to allow divers (tourists) to see the remains of the ancient Lighthouse.
My thanks must go to my dear friend, Neri, for all of her research and help in writing the pages about Alexandria.Without her help and knowledge these pages would probably not have materialized. She has a wonderful website of her own, Egyptian Home, which I encourage you to visit at: http://www.geocities.com/egyptianhome/
All
content on this page unless otherwise specified is copyright of Diane Day 2001-2006
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