Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
(Part I)
In our own time and only in recent years, one of the greatest cities the world has
ever known is seeing, for the first time since its decline and ultimately during the
Middle Ages, its near demise, an unprecedented resurrection. Alexandria was a
center of the ancient world known for its trade and intellectualism, but like the
dualism of Egypt itself, this grand metropolis became at one point one of the
worlds least cities, before making an unsteady climb back to its present status.
Prior to the Roman conquest of Egypt, Alexandria has been shown to have been
overwhelmingly Greek in nature. The greatest number of architectural elements
recovered in Alexandria follow Greek models, and even the tombs initially present
themselves as Hellenic, only slowly integrating overtly Egyptian motifs. In fact,
Alexandria was a Macedonian foundation established on the shores of Egypt.
It was in Egypt but it was not of Egypt and during antiquity it was called
Alexandria ad Aegyptum, meaning Alexandria by or near Egypt. Even
during Roman times, the prefect's title, "Prefect of Alexandria and Egypt",
continues to show this separation. Back in its heyday, Alexandria was visited by
the most prominent of world leaders, intellectuals and ancient travelers, but in the
modern era, it has, up until very recently, been almost completely avoided by
foreign tourists. This was mostly because almost nothing is left of the fabled
monuments so well known to us from its magnificent past. Hence, late eighteenth
and nineteenth century travelers who were obliged to travel by sea to Egypt
sojourned there as briefly as possible before traveling south to see the fabled Egypt
of the pharaohs. James Bruce, who came to Alexandria on June 20th, 1768 on his
way to seek the source of the Nile, tells us that: "Indeed, from afar Alexandria
promised a spectacle deserving of attention. The view of the ancient monuments,
among which one distinguishes the column of Pompey, with the high towers and
the bells constructed by the Moors, give hope of a great number of beautiful
buildings or superb ruins. But at the moment that one enters the port, the illusion
vanishes and one perceives no more than a very small number of these monuments
of colossal grandeur and majesty which are distinguished and which are found
embroiled with buildings as poorly designed as they are constructed that have been
raised by the conquerors who possessed Alexandria in the last centuries. ...and now
we can say of it, as of Carthage, periere ruinae. Even its ruins have disappeared."
More recently, as air travel came into its own, Alexandria could be, and was
ignored altogether as most tourists to Egypt now arrive in Cairo. For many of the
same reasons, even archaeologists, save for a few specialists, avoided Alexandria
for the richer fields associated with the earlier pharaonic era. During the early
years of Egyptology, even the Egyptian government ignored the city's
archaeological potential. As Dr Tassos D. Neroutos, a resident of the city and a
father of modern archaeological scholarship on Alexandria wrote in 1875:
"Whereas Egyptian archaeology enjoys the eminent protection of His Highness the
Khedive in all that regards pharaonic monuments, and while the Museum at
Boulaq is enriched every day by veritable treasures drawn from excavations
undertaken under the auspices of the Government, the city of Alexandria and of the
Ptolemies, on the contrary, is not the object of the same solicitude; and no thought
is given at all to the few monuments that remain still standing, nor to the
undertaking of excavations in order to discover other remains of antiquity that
perhaps still lie interred beneath the earth, nor that the modern city, with its new
construction, is going to bury them forever." In reality, this may have been a
blessing. The early explorers of Egypt were little more than treasure hunters who
applied none of the science of modern archaeology to their explorations.
While they devastated many ancient ruins in Egypt, they mostly
avoided Alexandria, leaving many of its ruins for their more articulate, modern
followers. This is not to say that there has not been, for many years, excavations
and scholarly work undertaken in Alexandria, but we can pinpoint almost precisely
Alexandria's renewed interest to the underwater excavations during the 1990s
(which continue today). Beneath the sea on Alexandria's coast lies an impressive
array of antiquities, some perhaps tossed there to block the waters from attack, but
probably most toppled into the sea by massive earthquakes that plagued the area
for many hundreds of years. Here are the remains of famous palaces and many
other structures, including the Pharos Lighthouse. Whether these ruins spurred
the revival of the Ancient Library of Alexandria by the Egyptian Government is
unknown to us, but its recreation in Alexandria has likewise helped spawn a
renewed interest in the city, creating a certain momentum in its rediscovery. On
land, by far the most numerous archaeological sites are below ground, and mostly
consist of tombs. Many of these have, more or less quietly, been excavated over
many years and in fact numerous of them were done so prior to World War II. The
greatest advance in the knowledge of the material remains of
ancient Alexandria actually took place under the direction of Achille Adriani
between 1932 and 1940 and again between 1948 and 1952. Yet, until the finds of
the harbor and the building of the library, there was little interest outside of
specific circles in this work, and while there has been considerable public and
scholarly interest in the underwater excavations, the tombs are just now earning
some expanded interest. Perhaps one reason for this lack of interest in the tombs is
that there are no royal tombs left, save for one known as the Alabaster Tomb. Even
that is uncertain, but it has all of the attributes of a royal tomb, and it has even been
suggested and argued that it was in fact a tomb where Alexander himself was
interred. If so, it would have been his second resting place. Uncovered in 1907, it is
constructed in an area that might very well have been in the Sema, the cemetery
associated with Alexandria's royalty.
It is notable for its formal divergence from other Alexandrian tombs. Unlike other
tombs in Alexandria, it seems to follow a Macedonian architectural model as well,
and is constructed of monolithic slabs of alabaster. However, not much remains of
this tomb and its actual ownership may never be known. Later private tombs
in Alexandria draw more upon elements from Greece and Egypt, with the Egyptian
style growing over time. The earliest known tombs were modest, with multiple
burials cut into soft limestone to the east of the city. They soon evolved into multi-
chambered complexes conceived as collective burial places centered on spaces for
enactment of the funeral cult drama (ritual ceremony), as tombs spread to the west
of the city along the Mediterranean coast. Architecturally, the monumental private
tombs of Alexandria have no identifiable forerunners in the Hellenic world, despite
the fact that the city was so very Greek. Like Egyptian tombs, those at Alexandria
are rock cut, but they are also unlike Egyptian tombs outside of Alexandria. In
1919, Rudolf Pagenstecher categorized two types of Alexandrian monumental
tombs as Oirkos, with rooms distributed on a linear axis, and peristyle, having
rooms distributed around a peristyle or psuedo-peristyle court. However, in her
book, Monumental Tombs of Ancient Alexandria, Marjorie Susan Venit tells us
that: "... although the terms are useful as descriptors and although this division has
remained the basis of the discussion of Alexandrian tomb architecture, the
differentiation does not seem conceptually, ethnically, or chronologically
significant - and in a recent article, Wiktor Daszewski has argued that it is not
descriptively valid either. Yet Pagenstecher's divisions pervade scholarly literature,
and his terms, at least, are still worth applying when they are appropriate."
Irregardless, Alexandrian monumental tombs do share common elements no matter
what date. Ptolemaic Period tombs are similar at the beginning and at the end of
the period and even Roman period tombs are grounded in their Ptolemaic
prototypes, though there are a number of important differences between those of
the two politically distinct period. These private tombs all differ from
theMacedonian modelMacedonian model.
They are cut vertically into the rock and are accessed by a covered rock-cut
staircase. They are centered on a court open to the sky, which was probably
surrounded by a parapet, though none are preserved in Alexandria itself. About this
court was a series of rooms with their main focus on a burial chamber furnished
with a rock-cut kline on which the body of the deceased must have been laid out.
In addition, there were other burial rooms containing loculi (long, narrow shelves
or niches) cut into the walls when needed to serve as burial slots and closed with
loculus slabs. Though Alexandria had a diverse population from many
nationalities, even cultural distinctions seem to have collapsed in these tombs. In
the Roman Period tombs, the arrangement was similar, though they did away with
the kline chamber and broadened the range of elements to incorporate the specific
needs of the Roman Funerary ritual. For the disposition of the great majority of the
dead, Roman Period tombs retian loculi, although these were normally precut in
contrast to their ad hoc opening in the Ptolemaic period. For the those of means, a
freestanding limestone sarcophagi or rock-cut sarcophagi set into trabeated or
arctuated niches (arcosolia) were used.
These tombs could also incorporate a funerary building on the surface and
triclinium dining rooms for memorial feasts. Despite some differences in Roman
tombs, three elements consisting of the loculi, klinai and sarcophagus niches are
characteristic of Alexandrian tombs. While the Klinai was utilized almost
exclusively in Ptolemaic tombs and sarcophagus niches are strictly of the Roman
period, loculi, the long, narrow, often gabled or vaulted depositories for the dead
continue throughout the history of Alexandrian tombs. A number of scholars have
suggested that the loculi were borrowed from other cultures such as the
Phoenicians, but in fact pre-Ptolemaic Egypt has plenty of examples from which
these may have more likely been modeled. They are a feature of Late
Period necropolises of deified animals at Saqqara and the necropolis of Memphis.
In Alexandria, these loculi niches were not necessarily limited to a single burial,
nor were they subject to a specific type of internment. Loculi even held cremations,
and as many as a dozen interred bodies. While the loculi were rarely painted on the
inside, they were sealed over by a slab which was decorated by paint usually in
the Ptolemaic Period and inscribed during the Roman Period. By far, the large
majority of these were, during the Greek Period, painted to portray a Doric portal,
or door. However, it should be noted that these doors probably had nothing in
common with the symbolism of false doors of the earlier pharaonic periods which
were incorporated into tombs. The Klinai, which were couches, were present in
most all early and middle Hellenistic Alexandrian tombs. These were used during
life for resting upon, and likewise to ret the dead during death. While Loculi could
very well be modeled on earlier Egyptian examples, the Kline probably originated
in Anatolia, where funerary beds especially fabricated to furnish tombs are known
as early as the sixth century BC. By far the most common type found in
Alexandrian tombs is a single kline carved from the long back wall of small
chamber filling the room. Two types of funerary klinai are known from Egypt. One
functioned as a sarcophagus, while the more common type did not. Of these, the
sarcophagus style kline was probably the earliest form. Both actually look similar
and were cut from the rock, projecting out from the wall as would a real couch. Of
course, there are some exceptions to these rules, as well as later reuses of many
tombs which altered some of their elements.
by Jimmy Dunn
Resources:
Reference
Title Author Date Publisher
Number
ISBN 0-7432-
Alexandria, City of the Western Mind Vrettos, Theodore 2001 Free Press, The
0569-3
Baines, John;
Atlas of Ancient Egypt 1980 Les Livres De France None Stated
Malek, Jaromir
Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Redford, Donald B. American University in ISBN 977 424
2001
The (Editor) Cairo Press, The 581 4
Monumental Tombs of Alexandria, Part II
Another tomb at Hadra, dated to the third century, adds two more elements that
became characteristic of monumental Alexandria hypogea. These included a court
open to the sky and a funerary couch painted to simulate alabaster or marble set on
the short wall of the funerary chamber opposite the entrance doorway. In this tomb,
the entrance consisted of a stairway with two flights, the upper level of which led
to a small landing, while the lower level turned in a ninety degree angle before
leading to the corner of the square court. At the far end of the court, a doorway
opened into a rectangular funerary chamber in which a funerary bench occupied
the entire far wall. Loculi were cut into the lateral walls and even behind the
funerary bed.
These tombs therefore grew into the simplest form of monumental tombs.
However, compared with later Alexandrian monumental tombs, they are small in
both vision and scale, and at most, moderately decorated. They were apparently
intended to accommodate a single family in most instances.