Off to a fairly early start this morning for a tour of Alexandria. Alexandria is about a two and half hour ride from Cairo. Evidently there are two roads between Cairo and Alexandria: the agricultural road and the desert road. We took the desert road, but that's probably a bit of a misnomer since it's appears to be flanked with farms along most of the way (yea irrigation). On our way out of town our tour guide shared some venerable Egyptian tax dodges with us. Near the Nile it’s common to see a certain kind of concrete/brick apartment house with the top unfinished. Usually they have vertical support beams on top of the last floor that terminate in an array of rebarb poles. He said that these were "farmer houses." Evidently it's a story of the unintended consequences of incentives. After the revolution in the 1950's the government gave farmers 5 acres of premium farm along the Nile, to you know, farm. This land was in a prime location, and as they say in real estate, location is everything. So the farmers started to build on their land instead of farm it. He said that each building housed a family. The parents got the first floor. An additional floor was build for each son. The unfinished top floor serves two purposes. First off, if you end up with another son you can just add another floor. Second, the tax rate for unfinished buildings is different than finished structures... so there is actually an incentive to not complete your building. Another bit of tax related information he told us is that as we drive between Cairo and Alexandria we're going to occasionally see mosques in the middle of nowhere. What purpose could those possible serve? It turns out that land with a mosque on it doesn't pay taxes... so it's common for people to build mosques on large tracks of land in the middle of no where to avoid taxes. Clever. Our tour guide didn't seem to appreciate the wealthy so adeptly avoiding their tax burden. I guess "job creators" aren't as highly prized in Egypt.
Two and half hours is how long it takes if your tour guide's van doesn't break down along the side of the road in the middle of the desert. Which ours did. Fortunately it wasn't too long of a delay. I think we blew a fuse and our driver managed to hard-wire the circuit with a bit of spare copper wire along the side of the road. The fix seemed to work well enough to get us to Alexandria.
Along the way we kept seeing these odd towers near just about every building on the road to Alexandria. Our tour guide explained that they were pigeon towers. Evidently eating pigeon is pretty common in Egypt. People build these big bird houses so there is a ready supply of our feather friends.
My first impression of Alexandria was not very positive. We were driving down narrow streets chocked full of people, horses, and donkeys. The center of the streets were one long continuous pothole and the edges were strewn with garbage. Our goal was the Catacombs of Kom El-Shuqafa. Alexandria isn't known for Pharaonic archaeology sites like Giza or Luxor. Alexandria is known for Greco-Roman sites, which kind of makes sense being it was named after Alexander the Great and all. The Catacombs of Kom El-Shuqafa are Greek/Roman catacombs from 2nd through 4th century AD that were lost and then rediscovered in 1900 when a donkey fell into the access shaft. A translations of Kom El-Shuqafa means "mound of shards." Our tour guide told us that when the catacombs were active visiting your dead relatives was an all day affair. The catacombs had a dining room for eating, but eating with the dead has always been a grim prospect, and it was considered bad luck to reuse the plates and service-ware. The solution was to provide disposable service-ware in the form of cheap clay plates. When you were done eating the tradition was to smash the plate. The clay shards were collected and thrown outside the entrance to the catacombs. Do that for a couple of generations and a sizable mount of clay shards forms.
Alexandria has always been a melting pot where Egypt mingled with it's European neighbors. This is another site that forbid cameras, which was a real shame because the cool thing about the catacombs is it does a good job of capturing how the Egyptian death traditions were mixed with the Greek and Roman traditions. The paintings in the tombs mix both Egyptian and Greek elements. There are Egyptian-style statues wearing Roman clothing. There are carvings of Roman/Greek soldiers wearing Egyptian headdresses. There were Greek style columns with Egyptian agricultural elements (papyrus and lotus) worked into the column's capitol. This is the kind of place where Romans were mummified and Egyptians cremated and stored in urns. Our tour guide said the tradition of Egyptians living together with Greeks and Italians had carried on until the 1950's (after the revolution) when things became difficult for foreigners living in Egypt. The tour guide then added that the mixed European and Egyptians generations were gorgeous and until this day you are very lucky if you can date an Alexandrian girlfriend.
Next up was Pompey's Pillar, which actually has nothing to do with Pompey. It's was erected some 200 years after as a 99 ft high red granite shout out to the Roman emperor Diocletian as a thank you for being cool with a failed rebellion. The emperor quelled the rebellion in Alexandria, but instead of responding by slaughtering 20,000 people as punishment (which is what happened last time Alexandria had rebelled against Rome), Diocletian sent them food and supplies and decided to patch things up. The site also included an underground shrine to Serapis, the bull god of Alexandria. Another interesting mix-match of Roman and Egyptian culture. Romans preferred to worship gods in human forms, the Egyptians preferred animal formed gods. So Serapis accommodated everyone by having two forms, both man and bull and donned whichever form was appropriated for the situation. We had seen his two forms in some of the tombs at the catacombs earlier in the days. Actually, those catacombs supposedly contained some of the remains of slaughtered victims from the previous rebellion, but our tour guide told us when they examined the bones they realized that they were mostly horse bones, so the newer theory is that was where really respected race horses got to be interred.
Next we visited a site I was pretty excited about, the site of the former Lighthouse of Alexandria. Two wonders of the ancient world in two days! The lighthouse isn't standing any more. Built in 300 BC, it was damaged by an earthquake in the 900's and two more in the 1300s AD. It was pretty much the tallest man-made structure on earth for centuries, but after the earthquakes it had lost its tower and only the base remained. During the 1400's the base was converted into a fort. That fort still remains today, although today it's just a tourist attraction along the Mediterranean. Located in a very pretty part of Alexandria it was cool to see this ancient landmark.
Speaking of ancient landmarks, our next stop was the new Library of Alexandria. I didn't know anything about this project before the tour, I just knew that the original library burnt down long ago. The library was commissioned by Ptolemy I and finished by Ptolemy II, just like the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Those Ptolemy's were not shy of ambitious projects. At one time its mandate was to collect all the knowledge in the world. In 2002 they decided to build a new Library of Alexandria on the same site as the ancient one. Instead of some cheesy looking imitation of the original they had a design contest and a Swedish firm won with a very modern design (also the original library was huge, they would have had to confiscate and level a bunch of buildings to get the footprint right). The new smaller library makes an striking architectural statement and has provided an interesting public space that the hip citizen of Alexandria seem to enjoy and flock to (the tour guide said it was a good place to go on a date). Unfortunately we didn't get to go inside. Apparently after the revolution last year government services have been pretty flaky and the library hours are now erratic. It was closed when we got there. I was kind of disappointed because the tour guide said that they had an Espresso book printing machine there and I was curious to see one in person.
Two and half hours is how long it takes if your tour guide's van doesn't break down along the side of the road in the middle of the desert. Which ours did. Fortunately it wasn't too long of a delay. I think we blew a fuse and our driver managed to hard-wire the circuit with a bit of spare copper wire along the side of the road. The fix seemed to work well enough to get us to Alexandria.
Along the way we kept seeing these odd towers near just about every building on the road to Alexandria. Our tour guide explained that they were pigeon towers. Evidently eating pigeon is pretty common in Egypt. People build these big bird houses so there is a ready supply of our feather friends.
My first impression of Alexandria was not very positive. We were driving down narrow streets chocked full of people, horses, and donkeys. The center of the streets were one long continuous pothole and the edges were strewn with garbage. Our goal was the Catacombs of Kom El-Shuqafa. Alexandria isn't known for Pharaonic archaeology sites like Giza or Luxor. Alexandria is known for Greco-Roman sites, which kind of makes sense being it was named after Alexander the Great and all. The Catacombs of Kom El-Shuqafa are Greek/Roman catacombs from 2nd through 4th century AD that were lost and then rediscovered in 1900 when a donkey fell into the access shaft. A translations of Kom El-Shuqafa means "mound of shards." Our tour guide told us that when the catacombs were active visiting your dead relatives was an all day affair. The catacombs had a dining room for eating, but eating with the dead has always been a grim prospect, and it was considered bad luck to reuse the plates and service-ware. The solution was to provide disposable service-ware in the form of cheap clay plates. When you were done eating the tradition was to smash the plate. The clay shards were collected and thrown outside the entrance to the catacombs. Do that for a couple of generations and a sizable mount of clay shards forms.
Alexandria has always been a melting pot where Egypt mingled with it's European neighbors. This is another site that forbid cameras, which was a real shame because the cool thing about the catacombs is it does a good job of capturing how the Egyptian death traditions were mixed with the Greek and Roman traditions. The paintings in the tombs mix both Egyptian and Greek elements. There are Egyptian-style statues wearing Roman clothing. There are carvings of Roman/Greek soldiers wearing Egyptian headdresses. There were Greek style columns with Egyptian agricultural elements (papyrus and lotus) worked into the column's capitol. This is the kind of place where Romans were mummified and Egyptians cremated and stored in urns. Our tour guide said the tradition of Egyptians living together with Greeks and Italians had carried on until the 1950's (after the revolution) when things became difficult for foreigners living in Egypt. The tour guide then added that the mixed European and Egyptians generations were gorgeous and until this day you are very lucky if you can date an Alexandrian girlfriend.
Next up was Pompey's Pillar, which actually has nothing to do with Pompey. It's was erected some 200 years after as a 99 ft high red granite shout out to the Roman emperor Diocletian as a thank you for being cool with a failed rebellion. The emperor quelled the rebellion in Alexandria, but instead of responding by slaughtering 20,000 people as punishment (which is what happened last time Alexandria had rebelled against Rome), Diocletian sent them food and supplies and decided to patch things up. The site also included an underground shrine to Serapis, the bull god of Alexandria. Another interesting mix-match of Roman and Egyptian culture. Romans preferred to worship gods in human forms, the Egyptians preferred animal formed gods. So Serapis accommodated everyone by having two forms, both man and bull and donned whichever form was appropriated for the situation. We had seen his two forms in some of the tombs at the catacombs earlier in the days. Actually, those catacombs supposedly contained some of the remains of slaughtered victims from the previous rebellion, but our tour guide told us when they examined the bones they realized that they were mostly horse bones, so the newer theory is that was where really respected race horses got to be interred.
Next we visited a site I was pretty excited about, the site of the former Lighthouse of Alexandria. Two wonders of the ancient world in two days! The lighthouse isn't standing any more. Built in 300 BC, it was damaged by an earthquake in the 900's and two more in the 1300s AD. It was pretty much the tallest man-made structure on earth for centuries, but after the earthquakes it had lost its tower and only the base remained. During the 1400's the base was converted into a fort. That fort still remains today, although today it's just a tourist attraction along the Mediterranean. Located in a very pretty part of Alexandria it was cool to see this ancient landmark.
Speaking of ancient landmarks, our next stop was the new Library of Alexandria. I didn't know anything about this project before the tour, I just knew that the original library burnt down long ago. The library was commissioned by Ptolemy I and finished by Ptolemy II, just like the Lighthouse of Alexandria. Those Ptolemy's were not shy of ambitious projects. At one time its mandate was to collect all the knowledge in the world. In 2002 they decided to build a new Library of Alexandria on the same site as the ancient one. Instead of some cheesy looking imitation of the original they had a design contest and a Swedish firm won with a very modern design (also the original library was huge, they would have had to confiscate and level a bunch of buildings to get the footprint right). The new smaller library makes an striking architectural statement and has provided an interesting public space that the hip citizen of Alexandria seem to enjoy and flock to (the tour guide said it was a good place to go on a date). Unfortunately we didn't get to go inside. Apparently after the revolution last year government services have been pretty flaky and the library hours are now erratic. It was closed when we got there. I was kind of disappointed because the tour guide said that they had an Espresso book printing machine there and I was curious to see one in person.
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