Lighthouse Alexandria

(autotranslated, could have mistakes)

one of the 7 wonders of the world, was built in the 3rd century BC. e. in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, so that ships could safely pass the reefs on the way to the Alexandria Bay. At night they were helped in this by the reflection of flames, and during the day by a column of smoke. It was the world's first lighthouse and stood for almost a thousand years, but in 796 AD. e. was severely damaged by the earthquake. Subsequently, the Arabs who came to Egypt tried to restore it, and by the 14th century. the height of the lighthouse was about 30 m. At the end of the 15th century. Sultan Qait Bey erected a fortress on the site of the lighthouse, which still stands today.

Year started: approximately 283 BC.

Coordinates: 31°12′51″ n. w. 29°53′06″

Buy at OZON.ru - DVD | Discovery: Seven Wonders of the World. Alexandria Lighthouse. Mausoleum in Halicarnassus | The Seven Wonders Of The World | PAL | DVD: 164

• Model (photo and video)

• Model of the Alexandria (Pharos) lighthouse

• Alexandria (Faros) lighthouse, see in the program “I want to believe![

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• About the lighthouse in the Ukrainian program

During the time of the first Ptolemies, a lighthouse was built on the island of Pharos. According to ancient and medieval authors, it was taller than the tallest pyramid. But at the time Strabo visited it, the lighthouse was no longer very different from other structures. It was half destroyed. Its highest part had collapsed, and its remains lay near the tower, which had been covered with a temporary wooden roof, "and lived in it several watchmen."

The construction of lighthouses began in ancient times and was connected, first of all, with the development of navigation. At first these were just fires located on high banks. Then there are artificial structures. The Alexandria Lighthouse was built in 283 BC. e., the construction of this gigantic, for those times, structure lasted only 5 years. But before we begin to describe this wonder of the world, we should learn a little about the geography and history of the area where it was built.

Alexandria

Alexandria, founded in 332 BC, is located in the Nile Delta, on the site of the Egyptian town of Rakotis. It was one of the first cities of the Hellenistic era, built according to a single plan. In Alexandria there was a sarcophagus of Alexander the Great, there was also a museum - the abode of muses, a center of arts and science. So, an etymological thread is laid from the muses to the modern word “museum”. Museyon is at once an academy of sciences, a dormitory for scientists, a technical center, a school, and the world’s greatest library, which contained up to half a million scrolls. A passionate scribe and a vain man, King Ptolemy II suffered because the library did not have some unique manuscripts of Greek playwrights. He sent an embassy to Athens so that the Athenians would borrow the scrolls for a while to copy. Arrogant Athens demanded a fabulous deposit - 15 talents, almost half a ton of silver. Ptolemy accepted the challenge. The silver was delivered to Athens, and the agreement had to be reluctantly fulfilled. But Ptolemy did not forgive such distrust of his bibliophilic inclinations and his word of honor. He left the deposit to the Athenians and the manuscripts to himself. But that's not the point...

The harbor of Alexandria, perhaps the busiest and busiest in the whole world, was uncomfortable. The port in this harbor was founded by Alexander the Great during his visit to Egypt in 332 BC. e. The city flourished due to maritime trade. But by the 12th century AD. e. Alexandria Bay became so filled with silt that ships could no longer use it. From then on, the period of decline of Alexandria began, about which very little is known today...

Present-day Alexandria has more than 2 million inhabitants; it stretches for 25 kilometers along a sand spit that once cut the sea bay, forming a large salt lake. But modern Alexandria has completely different outlines. In the north-west, where there is now an elongated peninsula with a densely populated Arab quarter and the magnificent Abu al-Abbas Mosque, in ancient times there was a sea, or rather, two sea piers - the Grand Pier and the Pier of Happy Return. From the sea side they were covered by the rocky island of Pharos, which served as a natural pier.

History of the building

The Nile carries a lot of silt; very skillful pilots were required in the shallow water among the rocks and shoals. To ensure the safety of navigation, it was decided to build a lighthouse on the island of Pharos, on the approach to Alexandria. In 285 BC, the island was connected to the mainland by a dam, and the architect Sostratus of Knidos began work. Construction took only five years: Alexandria was an advanced technical center and the richest city of the then world, the builders had a huge fleet, quarries and the achievements of Museyon academicians at their disposal.

This structure, just like the pyramids, arose from the sweat and labor of slaves, and during construction the whips of the overseers also whistled. But it had two fundamental differences: firstly, the lighthouse on the island of Foros brought “public benefit”, and secondly, at the time when this last miracle of the ancient world was created, technology had reached considerable heights. The Archimedes screw and pulley, lifting devices, and various construction tools were already known. The main building materials for the lighthouse were limestone, marble, and granite. The construction was led by the famous Greek architect Sostratus of Knidos. At the end of the work, he carved the inscription on the stone of the structure: “Son of Dexiphanes Sostratus - to the guardian gods, for the benefit of those who swim.” Sostratus covered this inscription with cement and on top indicated the name of Ptolemy Soter, who was ruling at that time. Sostratus did not hope to live until the time when the plaster crumbled, and it was not in his interests to find out the ruler’s reaction to this act. After all, having done this, he risked violating the decrees of the Ptolemies. However, soon the cement crumbled, and everyone saw the first inscription. Possidip, a contemporary of Sostratus, sang it in verses that survived the lighthouse until

carried the name of its creator to us.

And this name was widely known in the ancient world. Modern scientists have established that there were several structures similar to the “hanging gardens” of Babylon, and one of them was the “hanging promenade” on the island of Knidos. Its architect and engineer was Sostratus. He is credited with another grandiose construction: during the battles for Memphis, he allegedly diverted the waters of the Nile to capture the city.

Description of the lighthouse

The lighthouse turned out to be in the form of a three-story tower 120 meters high (the first and most dangerous “rival” of the Egyptian pyramids). At its base it was a square with a side of thirty meters, the first sixty-meter floor of the tower was made of stone slabs and supported a forty-meter octagonal tower, lined with white marble. On the third floor, in a round tower surrounded by columns, a huge fire was always burning, reflected by a complex system of mirrors. Firewood for the fire was delivered up a spiral staircase, so flat and wide that carts drawn by donkeys could drive along it to a hundred-meter height. The tower contained many ingenious technical devices: weather vanes, astronomical instruments, clocks. However, it is impossible to perceive this description, conveyed to us by one of the ancient inhabitants of Alexandria, as the only true one: each of those whose descriptions have reached us still tried to somehow embellish what they saw, since the Alexandria Lighthouse was truly a grandiose structure for the world of that time.

Among other descriptions we find the following: “The Faros lighthouse consisted of three marble towers standing on a base of massive stone blocks. The first tower was rectangular and contained rooms in which workers and soldiers lived. Above this tower was a smaller, octagonal tower with a spiral ramp leading to the upper tower." The common features of these two descriptions are visible. As a result, today the following description can be accepted as the most accurate and truthful.

The lighthouse had a height of 180 meters from base to top. This calculation was made based on the testimony of the historian Josephus. According to other descriptions, its height was only 120 meters. Ibn al-Sayha (11th century) gives the figure 130-140 meters. According to modern experts, from a purely practical point of view, such a height was unnecessary, even if we take into account that ancient lighthouses should have been higher due to the weakness of their fire. The greatest European lighthouse at the mouth of the Garonne near Bordeaux has a height of 59 meters above sea level. It was built by the Romans, taking the lighthouse on the island of Foros as a model. It remained in its original form until the 16th century, then it was rebuilt. The lighthouse on Cape Hatteras is 58 meters high, the lighthouse on the coral reefs off Florida is 48 meters high. None of the modern lighthouses reaches the height of Alexandria.

The Ptolemies built this fantastic skyscraper on a rock not only for practical purposes. First of all, the lighthouse was a symbol of the power of their empire, a symbol of wealth and greatness, like a light in the darkness. This structure had a base in the shape of a square with sides of 180-190 meters (other sources give other figures). On this foundation stood a palace with four towers at the corners. From its center rose a massive quadrangular tower 70-80 meters high, which gradually narrowed, ending in battlements. On this tower stood another, narrower, but also quite high, which ended in a stone platform. On this site there were columns in a circle supporting a cone-shaped tower, which was crowned by an 8-meter-high statue of the patron of the seas, Poseidon. According to some reports, at the top of the tower there was a statue of Zeus the Savior, and not his brother Poseidon.

At the top of the third tower, a fire was lit in a voluminous bronze bowl, the reflection of which, using a complex system of mirrors, was visible 100 miles away. A shaft ran through the entire lighthouse, around which a ramp and stairs rose. Carts drawn by donkeys drove along a wide and sloping ramp to the top of the lighthouse. Fuel for the lighthouse was delivered through the mine.

The tall lighthouse also served as an observation post. A complex system of reflectors was also used to view the sea, making it possible to detect enemy ships long before they appeared off the coast.

Death of the lighthouse

The inscription of Sostratus was seen by Roman travelers. At that time the lighthouse was still functioning. With the fall of the Roman Empire, it stopped shining, the upper tower, dilapidated over the centuries, collapsed, but the walls of the lower floor still stood for a long time.

The Alexandria lighthouse stood for 1,500 years, helping the Mediterranean “cybernetos” (as the ancient Greeks called helmsmen) navigate. The lighthouse suffered from earthquakes and weathering of the stone, but during the times of the emperors Claudius and Nero it was restored. Its fire was extinguished forever during an earthquake in the 4th century. During Arab rule in the mid-7th century, it served only as a daylight. During the time of the first Mamluk sultans (mid-13th century), the mainland moved so close to the island that the piers were covered with sand and it was no longer needed as a daylight lighthouse. At the very beginning of the 14th century, it was dismantled into stones, and a medieval Turkish fortress was erected on the ruins of the lighthouse. The bronze plates that served as mirrors were probably melted down into coins. This fortress was subsequently rebuilt more than once and still stands on the site of the world's first lighthouse.

In the 1960s, while exploring coastal waters, an unknown Italian diver, descending to a shallow depth near the Sultan's fortress, found two marble columns. During further work, a statue of the goddess Isis of Pharos, which once stood in a nearby temple, was raised from the bottom. In 1980, a group of archaeologists discovered the remains of the Faros lighthouse on the seabed. At the same time, at a depth of 8 meters, the ruins of the palace of the legendary Queen Cleopatra were discovered...