20250313 Thursday, March 13, 2025 Alexandria Tour- Catacombs, Roman Amphitheater, Citadel, Mosque and Church
Puppies outside the Catacombs
In the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, the Library of Alexandria was one of the greatest intellectual collections and centers of the world. Part of it was set ablaze accidentally by Julius Caesar. Ultimately it fell victim to anti-intellectual political movements. But Alexandria has been working resurrecting a great library and intellectual center since the mid 1970’s when planning of a new great library began. Construction began in the 1990’s, and the new Alexandria Library was opened in 2002. It is quite a structure with a 220,000 sq ft main reading room tiered on multiple levels under an enormous glass sky. We just drove around the building as our tour bus made a U-Turn.
Breakfast at the Four Seasons was what you would expect of a 4 star business class hotel with sit down a la carte menu ordering as well as the usual buffet items.
Our first stop was the Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa. These catacombs were originally a private burial site dating to the 2nd Century CE. It was carved out of solid limestone bedrock and used as a burial facility from the 2nd to the 4th century before being forgotten. It was discovered in 1900 when a donkey accidentally fell into the access shaft. This was ultimately found to be a circular staircase around a central shaft 10m deep with several levels of burial chambers.
Fellow Viking Travelers on an independent tour
All carved in situ through solid limestone
Burial chamber with Egyptian and Greek motifs
Hall of Caracalla
Main entry shaft
The main burial chamber contains 3 stone sarcophagi carved into the monolithic structure with an antechamber with 4 bench like tables where families feasted to honor their loved ones. After these feasts, the dishes and pottery containers used to carry food into the tombs were smashed and thrown in heaps as they left the tombs, so as not to bring home any bad spirits from this place of death. Kom El Shoqafa means place of the broken shards.
In addition to it being a marvel of monolithic construction, that is entirely carved out of the stone in situ, it’s creation during a crossroads in cultural evolution between Ancient Egyptian, Greek and Roman times are on display in the tombs. In the main burial chamber, there are 3 sarcophagi decorated with carvings of Ancient Egyptian gods Isis, Anubis, Horus and Apis, while below are images of Medusa and another scary looking male Greek god to scare off potential grave robbers. Anubis is wearing Roman soldier garb but is mummifying a body lying on a lion bed right out of the playbook of Pharaohs. Out in front of this chamber are carvings of Agathodaemon in the form of a snake topped with a shield showing a Medusa. There are statues that show the stiff hieratic pose typical of Ancient Egypt, but with more curvy Hellenistic bodies and Roman hairstyles.
Attached to this is a separate structure, the Hall of Caracalla, where emperor Caracalla from 215CE buried his horses. While these structures aren’t nearly as extensive as the Catacombs under Paris, we found them to be more interesting, even though the only bones to be found in them were horse bones in the Hall of Caracalla. Also of political note, the development of this as an anthropological historical site was funded by the USAID.
The second stop on our tour was a Roman amphitheater and surrounding complex which may have been like a university with many rooms for studying, living and a bath house complex which has some nice Roman tile work that has been discovered and preserved.
We had lunch at the historic Cecil Hotel, built in 1929. Cleopatra’s needles had been located in the square in front of this hotel until they scampered off to New York and London in the late 1800’s. To be fair, Muhammad Ali, then ruler of Egypt and Sudan the British theirs in 1819 as a commemorative gift for the British victories at the Battle of the Nile and Battle of Alexandria, but with one string attached- you have to come and get it. It took until 1877 to come up with the funds and organization to excavate it from the sands where it was partially buried, and transport it to London. While the British were transporting it, a storm came up, nearly sinking the specially built tubular barge made to transport the 224 ton obelisk and the ship towing it. Six sailors died and the captain cut the needle loose to save his ship. They assumed the needle sank and was lost, but it was spotted a few days later by Spanish trawlers, and it managed to get to London.
New York got its Cleopatra needle in 1877 for remaining a friendly neutral as France and Britain maneuvered for control of the Egypt at the time. William Henry Vanderbilt covered most of the cost of moving it to New York City.
Lunch was fancy, but we had ordered lamb chops and beef tenderloins, both of which appeared nearly identical. Neither really tasted like lamb, and both were pretty tough. The French Onion Soup starter and Date Tart desserts with ice cream really saved the meal.
After lunch, we drove to the Qaitbay Citadel for a photo op. We were not able to get inside the outside surrounding fortification walls to really get a good look at the central medieval fortress, but the main point was to see the historical location of the Pharos Lighthouse or Lighthouse of Alexandria, which was one of the original 7 Wonders of the Ancient World. It was toppled by earthquakes in 956 and 1303. It had stood 100 meters tall, and for centuries was the tallest man made structure in the world. The present fortress was constructed from much of the masonry from the original light house.
The next stop was the Mosque of Abul Abbas al-Mursi, one of the four master saints of Egypt. This began as a simple shrine in the 13th century and became a mosque in the 14th century. It is a source of inspiration for the much larger Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi. We did have to take our shoes off and Janet had to don a head scarf to go inside. It is an impressive place of worship, but Mosques in general are much more modest architectural affairs than Christian places of worship.
Our last stop was the Coptic Church of St. Mark’s, which is the oldest Christian Church on the African continent, and initial point of spread of Christianity in Africa. There was a service going on when we stepped in. There was a lot of chanting and responses cued by large flat screen displays all along the sides of the church. The iconography is unmistakably Christian, although architecturally, much less ornate or gaudy than the Cathedrals in Europe. It had been the site of a couple of terrible terrorist bombings, so security was very tight. We felt very privileged that they allowed our huge Viking tour coach park right next to the entrance in an otherwise closed off street with police guarding both ends of the block, which appeared to be in the middle of a high end garment district.
We said our farewells to Eman in the hotel lobby as Robert, our Viking hotel host informed us that he could only extend our hotel check out tomorrow to 2pm. We would have to have our bags out by 2pm and be checked out of our rooms, but he said we were welcome to continue to use the hotel’s facilities until our airport transport at 6:30pm occurred. Our flights outbound departure from Alexandria to Dubai at 10:55pm, so we will be spending a lot of time tomorrow sitting around. We plan on going to the Jewelry Museum in the morning after breakfast so we can be showered up and rested up for the long afternoon and evening wait.
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