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Aristide
Malnati
When
visitors go to Egypt, they are so intrigued by Giza and Saqqarah’s millenary
beauties and by the mystery of the major pharaohs’ tombs, that they unlikely
try to discover other places to visit. Yet, the country of the Nile offers
a wide range of sites rich of history, where the different stages of an
endless civilisation stratified and left an unforgettable sign.
Alexandria is one of such
places, an extremely charming and active city where the traces of an ancient
life emerge among the concrete of a wild urbanization that would stifle
everything. four, maybe five million people live on this strip of buildings
and asphalt whose coast, joining Ed Dikeila to Abukir, is more than 20
km long. These people have different origins and belong to different ethnic
groups, as one can see by observing the still tangible presence of colonies
of Greeks, Italians, French, Armenians, Turks, Lebanese and also Jews,
who settled here over the centuries. Alexandria was a Levantine city, anchored
to the Mediterranean culture since its origins and in particular after
the arrival of the Arabs in Egypt (A.D. 641). Founded by Alexander the
Great and devised to become the political and cultural centre of the world
in the cosmopolitan and endless kingdom that the Macedonian created, Alexandria
kept this role for at least three centuries, and became the capital of
the Ptolemaic state, the most important Hellenistic kingdom. It immediately
became the seat of philosophers and poets and the theatre of superb and
sumptuous buildings. The most imposing works are attributed to Ptolemy
II Philadelphus: the Pharos lighthouse, erected on the island that bears
the same name, a giant tower devised and built by the famous architect
Sostratus of Cnidus (was completed in 280 B.C.); the Museum, centre of
culture and letters. Demetrius Phalereus subsequently set up the Library
near the Museum in which the king intended to gather all human knowledge.
Centuries elapsed and Alexandria
generously welcomed the most different civilisations and the most diverse
people: Julius Caesar and Antonius began Rome’s rule which continued with
all the most famous emperors; St. Mark (A.D. 48) brought Christ’s Word
to convince the Jews that the Nazarene was the Messiah they had so long
been waiting for; then Islam came when (A.D. 642) Amr Ibn Al-As, the General
of Caliph Omar, conquered it by taking it away from the Byzantines; after
a millennium in which the city had played a minor role, Alexander the Great’s
city reawoke: in English Egypt, after Napoleon, Mohammed Ali became the
governor and promoted the commercial and military renaissance of the Levantine
city. Some time later (around 1870), Ismail Pasha gave a new value to one
of its most vital elements: the port. Little by little new districts, belle
époque buildings, theatres, elegant cafés, refined circles,
old Europe-style pastry-shops: Alexandria became a little jewel, one of
the most exclusive places for the wealthy Europeans attracted by the country
of the pyramids to spend the winter. With Nasser’s nationalisation (1952),
and especially following the demographic boom, even Alexandria’s physiognomy
changed, raped by a wild urbanisation and by the drastic reduction of foreign
colonies.
What is the future outlook
of this ancient centre of the world culture? Foreign (and Egyptian) scholars
have been showing interest again in this city’s historical wealth that
is so majestic and well preserved. This rebirth is linked to a man and
to his research centre: I am referring to Jean-Yves Empereur, archaeologist
of the French CNRS, Hellenist, creator and founder of the excellent Centre
d’Etudes Alexandrines.
The first major Empereur
and his team’s undertaking was the recovery of some blocks of the Pharos
which fell in the anchorage of Alexandria’s port following the 1341 earthquake
(as that time’s chroniclers handed down): some time later the Fort Qait
Bey that strikes the casual tourist with its majestic size was erected
on the ruins of the Pharos.
When the lighthouse blocks
fell down (weighting 60/70 tons each!), they sank and formed a line at
the bottom of the sea; on such assumption Empereur’s divers dived in order
to survey the remains of the precious tower.
Since the first campaign
their eyes saw a wonderful sight: statues of sphinxes, busts of kings and
queens, capitals, column-drums, small obelisks that the sea had protected
for centuries; all the material recovered belonged to the Hellenistic period.
The undertaking became almost epic when Empereur and his divers took out
and lifted up one of the heavy lighthouse blocks with an air-balloon. The
whole operation, carried out in front of ministers and ambassadors and
under the lights of CNN and France 2, was completely successful despite
a force-8 sea! As far as the mission presently being carried out is concerned,
the group is involved, achieving some encouraging results, in the study
of some wrecks which sank down in the bay over the centuries.
As from the last season,
however, besides the diving research, land excavations have begun in the
district of Gabbari. Alexandria’s administration was building a bridge
for an overpass when researchers recovered some bones and found some burial
niches in the building site.
Within a few months of intense
activity, the French archaeologists realised that they had come across
one of the largest Alexandria’s necropolises and maybe even one of the
largest Graeco-Roman necropolises ever.
Although it already was
the theatre of illegal excavations and was mostly buried under the earth,
Nekropolis (as the place was called) immediately proved to be generous
with the French experts: baked clay water canalizations and two cisterns;
funeral fittings, lamps, vases, mass-cruets, in other words objects linked
to the cult of the dead.
What about the Italians?
It is with great pleasure that we can report that the local authorities
have given us the permits for the excavation on Nelson’s island to be carried
out by the University of Pisa and the Archeoclub “Mare Nostrum”. Mr. Paolo
Gallo, one of the major Italian Egyptologists, who will superintend the
excavations, is the guarantee of a flawless work because he has an almost
twenty-year experience in the Pharaohs’ country. He also is one of the
few Italians whose works are so masterly that they can equal the French
standards.
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| The Roman
Amphitheatre of Kom-ed dik |
| Sphinx (Hellenistic
period) |
Capitel
found in the sea
(Hellenistic period) |
| A lively
market in Alessandria |
Head
of a man
(Maybe a Ptolemaic Sovereign) |
Sculpture
found in the sea and located in a desalting tank
(Hellenistic Period) |
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