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The Pharos of = Alexandria

The Pharos of Alexandria= like the Great Pyramid at Giza was Egyptian and one of= the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World" but unlike the Pyramids, which are s= till in evidence today, the Pharos has long since disappeared. With the exceptio= n of the Pyramids all these monuments have become the victims of time, however the Pharos was the last to disappear, lasting until the 14th century AD. The Pharos was of course a lighthouse and was the source of great wonderment to all who saw her. For sailors, it provided a guiding light for= a safe return to port, for architects, it was the tallest manmade building in= the then known world and for scientists, it was a mysterious mirror which refle= cted light up to 50km from the shore.

The city of = Alexandria was founded by the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great in 332 BC. Alexander built many cities named Alexandria at different locations in his vast empire but most of them disappeared. Alexandria in Egypt however, thrived for centuri= es and continues even today. He is said to have chosen the location of his new city carefull= y. Instead of building it on the Nile delta= , he selected a site some twenty miles to the west, so that the silt and mud car= ried by the river would not block the city harbor. A canal was constructed linki= ng the Nile with the new city, thus Alexandria became accustomed to both river traffic o= n the Nile and sea traffic from the Mediterranean. Alexander did not live long enough to see his city reach its great potentia= l so it was up to his successor Ptolemy Soter to con= tinue this work. The work on the lighthouse began in 290 BC, taking 20 years to complete. This new monument now reflected the wealth and progress made duri= ng this time.

The actual designer was Sostrates of Knidos, who was so proud of his work that he wanted to have his name carved into the foundation. Ptolemy II, the son who ruled Egypt after his father, refused this request wanting his own name to = be the only one on the building. Sostrates, determ= ined to get his own way, had his own inscription applied, covering it over with plaster bearing Ptolemy's name. As time went by, this eroded away exposing = the original underneath, leaving the designer with the last say. The name "Pharos" comes from its location on the island of Pharos, where the lighthouse was built.

It is generally thought that the Lighthouse was a tower of over 100 meters tall standing on the eastern tip of Pharos island and that it was constructed in three stages: the first was square, the seco= nd octagonal and the last circular. Access to the entrance was up a long vault= ed 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 level where the fire burned on the summit.

Due to the fact that this structure survived to the 14th century is a testament to its structure and design. Not that it survived unscathed down through the centuries as there is many accounts of earthquak= es taking their toll and rebuilding work being carried out. In 796, the Lighth= ouse lost its upper elevation and 100 years later the sultan, Ibn Touloun (868-884), built a domed mosque on the = summit. Between 950 and 956, cracks began to appear in the walls and the tower lost some twenty-two meters in height. In all there are 22 accounts of earthquak= es and storms noted by arab writers. The earthquake in 1303 which affected the entire region, had a lasting effect on the lighthouse and spelt its demise. Later the Mameluke sultan, Qaitbey,= decided to construct a fort on the foundations and it is this fort which stands tod= ay.

In its day the lighthouse was apparently a great tourist attraction. Food was sold to visitors at the observation platform at the to= p of the first level. A smaller balcony provided a view from the top of the eight-sided tower for those that wanted to make the additional climb. The v= iew from there must have been very impressive as it was probably 300 feet above= the sea. There were few places in the ancient world where a person could ascend= a man-made tower to get such a perspective.

There are a number of questions, which are difficult to answer though, and its important that we raise t= hem here. If we assume that the light from this lighthouse came from the contin= uous burning of wood, where did all this wood come from, as this part of Egypt i= s very sparse in producing trees. Another question relates to the statue or statue= s, which we are told, adorned its summit. Would the constant heat from the fire below not damage or destroy these statues. Maybe there are answers to these questions but maybe it is fitting that there should still be some mystery surrounding this great monument.

In 1994 a team of archaeological scuba divers entered the waters off of Alexandria, Egypt. Working beneath the su= rface they searched the bottom of the sea for artifacts. Large underwater blocks = of stone were marked with floating masts so that an Electronic Distance Measurement station on shore could obtain their exact positions. Global positioning satellites were used to further fix the locations. The informat= ion was then fed into computers to create a detailed database of the sea floor.= Did the divers actually find the remains of Pharos in the bottom of the harbor? Some of the larger blocks of stone found certainly seem to have come from a large building. Statues were located that may have stood at the base of the Pharos. Interestingly enough, much of the material found seems to be from earlier eras than the lighthouse. Scientists speculate that they may have b= een recycled in the construction of the Pharos from even older buildings. There= are plans to turn this site into an archaeological park with a lighthouse museu= m. In a few years visitors maybe able to get into their wet suit= s and dive in the bay among the remains of the great Pharos lighthouse.

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