Egypt – Day Five
22 February 2016
Weather: Cloudy, sprinkle of rain, sunny, 17
It was nice to sleep right through to 7:30 and even better to find the hotel had an omelet chef and hot croissants. We were off by nine and Abdul introduced us to Abdul, our police escort for the day. He wore plain clothes but there was a sub-machine gun under his right arm. You can see it sticking out here with another escort we had later in the tour.
The drive to the other side of the bay in Alexandria was much faster this morning.
Alexandria is not really an Egyptian city in terms of monuments. The city was influenced more by the Greeks and Romans than the Egyptians and the few Egyptian monuments here were transplanted from the south.
The city was founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BCE and it went on to become the second most powerful city in the ancient world after Rome. It is the second largest city in Egypt and a major shipping port.
Our first stop were the catacombs which is a Greek word for underground burial. (We weren’t allowed to take in our regular cameras, so the interior photos are from a tourmate’s ipad).
No one knew they were there until a man was trying to climb a hill with his donkey and cart. The donkey was making a lot of effort to pull the cart but instead of going up, he went down. The donkey survived but the hole revealed several layers of catacombs.
There are some Egyptian monuments on the grounds like this lion that had their heads removed so that the Greeks could install their own heads.
A granite fountain.
And a head of Alexander was found in the Mediterranean but the nose was removed. This was likely done by a Muslim extremist who, like the guy that de-nosed the Sphinx, felt removing the nose meant he had defeated the pagan figure. I likened it to stealing the nose of a child where you touch the nose, say ‘got your nose’ and show a fist to the child with the thumb stuck between the index and middle finger. Oddly enough, the Americans on the tour had never heard of this.
Must be a Canadian thing.
From here we descended into the catacombs down a long spiral staircase that had a shaft going down the middle of it. They used to lower the bodies down through the shaft and pass them through the openings where they could be buried.
Each crypt had a cover with the person’s picture and information but the covers were stolen as they were often made of marble, granite and other valuable materials.
Near the bottom of the staircase was a room called Caracalla Hall with a U shaped stone benches. There used to be a table in the middle and relatives of the dead would come down with the deceased’s favorite food and pottery. Then they’d eat until full and regurgitate everything into the pottery. They did this for all the family members buried there. When they were done, they returned to the surface with the pottery and threw them on the ground where they shattered.
This is why, before the catacombs were found, the area was known as the Hill of Broken Pottery.
Enough time had passed so that it didn’t get the name Hill of Vomit.
The tradition still exists in some cultures where they visit graves and have a picnic. They just don’t throw the food back up.
In another room, a lot of bones were discovered but it was found that they belonged to horses. They were apparently the winners of a local race.
We walked through the tunnels towards the exit.
On the surface, we reboarded the bus and drove a short distance to Pompey’s Pillar.
This is, believe it or not, a granite pillar.
Built sometime between 297 and 305 CE, it is one of the largest monolithic pillars in the world and the largest outside of Rome or Istanbul. Unlike other pillars, this one is not made of sections. It’s one piece of granite.
Imagine the weight! It is almost twenty-seven metres high and weighs over two hundred and eighty five tonnes. That would be a challenge to move intact with today’s technology. Can’t imagine how they managed it almost two thousand years ago.
We walked into the temple that surrounds the pillar called the Serapeum.
I got distracted, which isn’t hard in Egypt. Cats are everywhere.
Abdul showed us the sculpture of a scarab beetle and said they used to burrow under the farmer’s fields but when the Nile began to flood, their burrows would fill with water and the beetles would be forced to the surface. So, when the farmer saw the beetles in the fields, he knew the flood was coming.
Below the Pillar is a Nile Meter where the holy men could measure the height of the flood and adjust the taxes accordingly. If it were too low or too high, then the farmers could not produce, so taxes were lowered. When the Nile flooded in the median range, the farmers could do well and so taxes went up.
The stairs were where the holy men would go down to measure the Nile.
Behind the pillar was the piscina, a swimming pool that used to be tiled and was used like a Roman bath.
The pillar is named for Pompey because the Crusaders believed the Senator’s ashes were located under the pillar. In reality, Diocletian was honoured with the pillar. He had besieged the city during a revolt and after it was over, the city suffered a famine. Diocletian ordered that part of the food shipment bound for Rome be redirected to Alexandria. As well, the people of the city were exempted from paying taxes until they recovered.
Two Sphinxes sit in front of the pillar with, if I heard correctly, Cleopatra’s face.
Below the pillar on the other side is a branch library of the Alexandria Library which became a main library when the Library of Alexandria was destroyed sometime after 30 CE. The branch library was destroyed in 391 CE.
This underground hallway contained its originals shelves which held scrolls.
They were as deep as my arm.
Nearby was another tunnel called the Hall of the Holies where various figures representing various gods were placed in alcoves along the tunnel.
This way, a visitor could find the god they worshipped at home.
At the end of the corridor was Apis, the son of Hathor.
After we had our fill of photos, we headed for the location of the Alexandria Lighthouse.
The Lighthouse was built between 280 and 247 BCE and at a hundred and thirty seven metres, it was the largest structure in the world for centuries.
However, between 956 and 1323, it was gradually destroyed by a series of earthquakes and tsunamis. The blocks remained and in 1477, they were used to construct Fort Quaitbay.
The fort was used to protect the city from the Ottoman but they bypassed Alexandria and went straight to Cairo.
The fort was manned and contained barracks, kitchen and mosque.
Today, it has been restored and the darker blocks are original while the lighter ones are new.
We had time to explore the interior of the castle.
Abdul showed us the hole through which they could pour hot oil on those coming through the front gate.
The top of the castle had a view of Alexandria.
When I went back down, a group of Egyptian boys were taking pictures with others from our group.
They caught up to me when I walked around the castle. Guess I’m on Facebook somewhere now.
Like that guy.
He’s thinking, “photograph me like your French guys.”
When we were done, we headed to lunch at a nearby spot called Grill Tikka which is known for its chicken, but I loved the fried flat bread.
We had a nice view of the bay from our seats. And of the cats on the wharf.
After lunch, we headed for the Alexandria Library.
The original library was established in the 3rd century BCE and was one of the largest libraries of the ancient world. It was built by Ptolemy I, the successor to Alexander the Great in Egypt. Ptolemy was the general Alexander put in charge of Egypt, so after Alexander died, Ptolemy claimed the country for himself once the empire started to fracture. The string of kings and queens that followed were always called Ptolemy and Cleopatra.
That was the beginning of the Ptolemy period in Egypt which lasted from 305 BCE to 30 CE. During this time, all the kings were named Ptolemy and all the ruling queens were named Cleopatra.
In total, there were seven queens named Cleopatra. The seventh is the one we know and Mark Anthony loved.
She was also the last Ptolemaic leader.
The original library is believed to have contained between forty thousand and four hundred thousand papyrus scrolls.
The library was destroyed by fire sometime after 30 CE and all its contents lost. No one is sure of the date of its destruction, the cause of the fire or even where the library was located. They only know that it did exist.
The new Alexandria Library is beautiful. It was opened in 2002 in honour of the original library.
The outside façade is engraved with words and symbols from a hundred and twenty languages.
Inside is a massive library covering over twenty-two thousand square metres. It has enough shelf space to hold eight million books. It currently has just over a million books but continues to receive material from around the world. In 2010, France donated a half million books, making the library the sixth largest Francophone library in the world.
The library relies on private donations of funds and books and it is estimated that it would take up to eighty years to fill its shelves. I’m happy my visit was able to contribute and we also dropped a few pounds in a donation box before we left.
I like the idea of a fine for ringing phones.
We visited the Sadat Museum in the lower level.
They included numerous items including papers he had written, medals he had been awarded and his office was recreated in a corner.
They also had the uniform he was wearing the day he was assassinated in 1981.
We finished up and headed back to the hotel. The traffic was already heavy but we were closer to the hotel than we were the day before. We pulled in just after four and had a couple hours before dinner. I tried to hook up to the hotel internet but didn’t have any luck.
At six, we walked to a local restaurant called Gad for dinner. Since we only wanted something light, Abdul ordered several plates of food that we could pick and choose from. The falafel was pretty good.
We walked back to the hotel for 7:30 and I tried again to connect to the internet with no success.
But that’s okay. We have mobile internet on the bus that Abdul said is good in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
We’ll find out tomorrow.
Go to Day Six
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