The Lighthouse of Alexandria was considered the last of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and served as a guide for sailors for nearly seventeen centuries (from the 3rd century BC to the 14th century). The construction of the lighthouse would have started around -297 (the exact date is unknown) and lasted about fifteen years. The work was initiated by Ptolemy I, but he died before the end of the project, which was completed under the reign of his son Ptolemy II.
The location of the lighthouse of Alexandria
The site chosen for the construction of the lighthouse is the tip of the island of Pharos on the site of the current Fort Qaitbay which dates from the end of the 15th century and which is also partly built with ancient blocks which belonged , among others, at the lighthouse. The many earthquakes that took place in the region between the 4th century and the 14th century gradually damaged the lighthouse which was almost completely destroyed in 1303. In 1349, Ibn Battûta, the famous Muslim traveler, says:
“Having gone to the Lighthouse [...] I found that its state of disrepair was such that it was no longer possible to enter it or reach the door giving access to it. »
The lighthouse must have remained in this state until the end of the 15th century when Sultan Al-Ashraf Sayf ad-Din Qait Bay, one of the last Mamluk rulers of Egypt, ordered the construction of a citadel there for the purpose to protect the city against the threat of the Ottoman Empire.
It was long thought that the construction was directed by the architect Sostratos of Cnidus whose name is given by the Greek geographer Strabo. He quotes a lead inscription inserted in a wall of the Lighthouse thus worded:
"Σοστρατος Δεξιφανου κνιδιος θεοις σωτερσιν υπερ των πλωιζομενων
(sôstratos son of dexiphanès de Cnide dedicated this monument to the Salt Salviers" <
Literal translation:Sostratos of Dexiphanes Cnidian to the savior gods for navigators
There has been controversy over the identity of the dedicatees of Sostratos' epigram. It was initially thought that the savior gods were in fact the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, protectors of sailors. Finally, it would seem that the dedication is addressed to Ptolemy I who was known as Ptolemy Soter (which means savior in Greek). Jean-Yves Empereur, meanwhile, is based on an epigram of the poet of the third century BC. J.-C. Posidippos to support his hypothesis according to which Sôstratos would have in fact dedicated the statue which surmounted the lighthouse and not the lighthouse itself.
Role of the lighthouse
The lighthouse was built to protect the sailors of the coast of Alexandria of course, but also, according to Jean-Yves Empereur, as a work of propaganda. The whole city was overbuilt and the lighthouse was to be its symbol. The result was such that, since then, the word lighthouse (from the island of Pharos, from the Latin pharus) has been used to commonly designate this type of building. Moreover, although there were other buildings in Alexandria just as famous as the lighthouse (the Great Library, the tomb of Alexander), it will become emblematic of the city and still is today. The lighthouse dominated the coast and allowed sailors to have a point of reference, the coast being relatively flat.
We can read in Strabo that the lighthouse was built in white stone which would in fact be a local limestone (white stone from Mex) which has the particularity of hardening on contact with water. It is also believed that the most critical parts of the lighthouse were made from Aswan granite. Moreover, Fort Qaitbay, built on the site of the lighthouse, was built using the same process.
Appearance and dimensions
Jean-Yves Empereur studied more or less faithful representations of the lighthouse (figurative documents, mosaics,...) but also written sources (Strabo, Plutarch, Abu Hamid Al-Andalusi, Ibn Battûta, etc.) and succeeded in come up with a fairly precise plan. In particular, he studied coins minted in Alexandria between the 1st century BC. AD and the 2nd century. He also relied on an ancient burial from the 2nd century BC. AD at Taposiris Magna (about 40 km from Alexandria), above which the owner had a reduced copy of the lighthouse made.
He deduced from his work that the lighthouse must have been a three-storey building:
* a slightly pyramidal square base,
* an octagonal column,
* a small distal round tower surmounted by a statue,
all for a height of about 135 meters.
It is believed that its radius of visibility extended for about 50 kilometers.
The base was to measure approximately 70 meters in height by 30 meters on a side and was accessed by an arcaded ramp. About fifty rooms used as accommodation for the personnel in charge of the maintenance of the lighthouse or for storing fuel were arranged around an interior ramp, which explains the asymmetrical windows which in fact followed the axis of the interior ramp. This ramp was wide enough to allow the passage of the cattle in charge of transporting the fuel. It gave access to a kind of terrace with a railing 2.30 meters high surrounded by four Tritons blowing horns, one at each corner of the terrace. The second floor was, as we have seen, octagonal in shape and measured 34 meters in height and 18.30 meters in width. It featured an internal staircase that led to the third floor. This one was round and measured only 9 meters in height. It also contained a staircase of 18 steps.
Lighthouse statue(s)
At the top of the lighthouse was a statue that has not yet been formally identified; indeed, it could be Zeus, Poseidon or Helios:
1. In his poem, Posidippos tells us that it is the statue of Zeus and this was probably the case during the first half of the 3rd century BC. Another source seems to point in the same direction:it is a glass intaglio from the 1st century which shows the lighthouse surmounted by Zeus who holds a spear in his left hand and a kind of cup in his right hand. In this representation, the lighthouse is surrounded by Isis Pharia and Poseidon, deities who each had a temple on the island of Pharos. The statue of Zeus would therefore have remained in place until the arrival of the Romans.
2. There is a glass goblet dating from the 2nd century BC. J.-C. and found in Bagram in Afghanistan which, on the other hand, shows the image of a god holding an oar in the left hand which would make him Poseidon. This same god is mentioned in a text from the 5th century BC. J.-C. speaking of a repair of the Lighthouse.
3. Finally, a mosaic dating from 539 shows the Lighthouse surmounted by Helios.
One would think that the three statues would have succeeded each other. We would have had first of all the statue of Zeus, who was venerated in the form of Ammon-Zeus and as being therefore the ancestor of the Ptolemies. It would therefore be logical that when they arrived, the Romans removed this statue which was too reminiscent of the Lagids. They would therefore have replaced it with a statue of Poseidon, whose function would fit perfectly with the role of the lighthouse, that is to say that of protecting navigators. He could then have been replaced by Helios, who at the end of Antiquity was a common deity. Unfortunately, there is an edict issued in 391 by Theodosius I, Roman Emperor who made Christianity the state religion, which goes against these assumptions. Indeed, this edict aimed to abolish the pagan cults on the Roman territory of which Egypt was a part. We know that it was followed in Alexandria quite conscientiously, insofar as it was following this edict that the temple of Sarapis was destroyed, for example. Moreover, it would seem more logical that after the Christianization of Rome, it is a statue of Saint Mark, patron of the city or more simply of Christ who crowned the lighthouse. On the other hand, what we are sure of is that in the 9th century, a mosque was installed at the top of the tower by Ahmad Ibn Touloun.
Two colossal statues were found submerged at the foot of Fort Qaitbay:the first is that of a Ptolemy as a pharaoh and the second, a statue of Isis. These statues had to be placed in front of the lighthouse to be seen by navigators entering the port. It is not known with certainty which Ptolemy is represented but it is assumed that it is Ptolemy II and that the statue of Isis is in fact his wife Arsinoe II whom the pharaoh had deified after his death.
Underwater explorations
Archaeological excavations at the site of Fort Qaitbay have only become systematic since the second half of the 20th century. Indeed, if the presence of underwater blocks had been known since the 18th century, these blocks were not studied before the 1960s and the more or less realistic image that we had of the lighthouse before this date was the more often based on ancient texts as much as on legends.
The first really serious study of the lighthouse (and not of the site) is that carried out by Hermann Thiersch at the beginning of the 20th century and which was supported by the Greco-Roman museum. He listed all the sources existing until then to arrive at a fairly faithful description of the lighthouse at different times. For Thiersch, the foundations of the lighthouse were still in the keep of Fort Qaitbay. Around 1916, a French engineer by the name of Jondet carried out surveys and confirmed this hypothesis. But the fort, which was a military construction, was forbidden to enter and it was necessary to wait for the start of underwater explorations to be able to really study the remains of the lighthouse.
These explorations began in the early 1960s thanks to an Alexandrian diver and amateur archaeologist, Kamel Abul Saadat, who was the first to explore the harbor entrance and draw attention to the boulders there. In 1962, he convinced the Egyptian navy to refloat a colossal statue of Isis and in 1968, Unesco sent the Scottish archaeologist Honor Frost to the site with whom Kamel Abul Saadat drew up the plan of the seabed. In 1975, she published the first scientific article on the ancient site in the International Journal of Nautical Archeology.
Following the unfortunate immersion of large concrete blocks at the foot of the lighthouse, the antiquities department called on the Center d'études Alexandrines (CEAlex), created by Jean-Yves Empereur, and his team of divers to study the funds surrounding the Fort Qaitbay. Since 1994, more than 3000 blocks, of which more than 2/3 are architectural blocks, have been identified. For this, dozens of blocks were brought to the surface using balloons, but it is difficult work and this explains the slowness of the work in the area. The CEAlex has nevertheless succeeded in completely mapping the site, and all that remains today is to study the blocks.
Many fragments of columns have been found but their bases and capitals are on the other hand rarer. Indeed, they were often reused in later constructions (mosques, cisterns). We also found half a dozen columns imported to Alexandria and bearing the cartouche of Ramses II, 28 sphinxes dated from different reigns (Sesostris II, Psammetichus II) and obelisks signed Seti I.
But it was obviously a question of proving that these blocks indeed came from the lighthouse. We found door frames, for example in Aswan granite, particularly massive:11.5 meters high and weighing more than 70 tons. It is therefore quite difficult to imagine that these blocks could have been moved. And they were found at the foot of Fort Qaitbay. When we compare these data with the ancient sources which indicate that the lighthouse was on the site of the fort and that it was destroyed by the earthquakes, we can assume that these door frames come from the lighthouse. In addition, a source from the 12th century reveals to us that the parts of the lighthouse were sealed together by molten lead and during the excavations blocks were found in which were fixed pins of lead, a metal which moreover is found in large amount in the area surrounding the fort. A CEAlex researcher, Mourad El Amoury, has carried out studies on the modes of assembly between the sealing cavities present on the architectural elements and the sealing lead found during the excavations, confirming this sealing technique used during the construction of the lighthouse.
The location of the lighthouse is however questioned by Jean Yoyotte who, in the comments of Strabo's Voyage en Egypte, finds this theory "debatable". For this, he relies on the stone blocks found at the foot of Fort Qaitbay, whose layout on the site does not correspond, according to him, to the order that should have been observed following a collapse. For Yoyotte, therefore, the hypothesis that these could in fact be artificial reefs built to protect the coast from enemy ships should not be overlooked.