The Pharos at Alexandria

Abstract

AbstractThe Pharos was a beacon, later a lighthouse, built to guide boats into the new harbour of Alexandria along this low and treacherous coast, and was, from the start, a symbol of the power of the Ptolemy dynasty and its successor regimes. The rapid growth of Alexander the Great’s city was partly a result of its topography: the ridge that made Pharos Island protected the harbour from storms and ridges further inland gave a dry place to construct the city. These ridges formed in response to large-scale events during the last million years: glacial climate cycles and tectonic earth movements. The Pharos changed many times during its 1,500-year life: the initial wonder may have had a single story resembling the monumental gateways of Egyptian temples; by Roman times the wonder had two stories and the Islamic structure, most commonly used for reconstructions, had three levels topped by a mosque. The Pharos was damaged many times by storms and earthquakes, their effect compounded by local land subsidence, which ultimately led to undermining of the foundations and collapse of the monument in the 14th century. Because of the plague pandemic that swept through the Mediterranean region at that time, it was never rebuilt.