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The
Pharos
of
Alexandria
Plutarch wrote in his Life of Alexander how the conqueror had a
dream wherein he was visited by an old man who recited the following
words:
"Now there is an island in the much-dashing sea, In front of
Egypt; Pharos is what men call it."
Alexander recognised the words from Homer's Odyssey and made his
way to the small island of the Egyptian shore. He judged the site
perect and ordered a city to be build there.
It is thought Ptolemy Soter, one of Alexander's finest generals
and ruler of Egypt after Alexander died, started construction of
the Lighthouse. His son Ptolemy Philadelphus inaugurated it around
285BC.
The Lighthouse tower was said to be over 100 meters tall and stood
on the eastern tip of the island. Three stages, the first square,
the second octagonal, and the third round made up the tower. A ramp
let up to the entrance, from which stairs spiraled up to the top
floor where the fire burned. According to some sources large mirrors
or even giant lenses were used to concentrate the light and extend
the range of the Lighthouse's visibility. Several sources state
there was a statue on top of the Lighthouse of either Poseidon or
Zeus. Others suggest there were two statues of Castor and Pollux
based on an inscription referring to the Divine Saviours a phrase
normally used to refer to Zeus' twin sons.
The tower was probably the longest surviving World Wonder, with
the exception of the Great Pyramid, as it surviuved well into the
14th Century. In the near two thousand years of it's existance it
suffered through some 20 odd earthquakes, one of which, in 796AD
destroyed the top of the tower. A hundred years later sultan Ibn
Touloun built a mosque on the summit. The Arabs must have been proud
of the Lighthouse as frequent repairs were ordered, including those
ordered by Salah el Din (Saladin) in 1272.
In 1303 a serious earthquake struck the South East of the Mediterrenean
and severely damaged the Lighthouse. By 1349 the Lighthouse was
a ruin and was repalced by a fortress almost a century later.
Image
from Thiersch study.
Strabo one of the Ancient World's greatest travellers wrote the
following about the Lighthouse in the late 1st Century BC.
As for the lighthouse in Alexandria, many Egyptians and Alexandrians
believe it to have been built by Alexander son of Philip of Macedonia....
Others believe it was queen Dalukka who built it and made of it
an observatory to dispel whatever enemy approaches the country....
He who built it constructed it upon a glass base in the shape
of a crayfish submerged under the sea on the edge of the promontory
that extends from the sea to the shore. He placed on the top of
it statues made of brass and other materials. One of the statues
pointed with the index of its right hand constantly towards the
sun in its diurnal course. If [the sun] was in the middle of its
trajectory, the finger pointed out its position. If the sun was
sinking towards the horizon, the statue's hand was also lowered,
turning continuously with it.
Other sights in Alexandria
The Great Library
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