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Pharos is an oblong island, is very close to the mainland.... The [eastern] extremity of the isle is a rock, which is washed all round by the sea and has upon it a tower constructed of white marble with many stories and bears the same name as the island. This was an offering made by Sostratus of Cnidus, a friend of the kings, for the safety of mariners, as the inscription says: for since the coast was harbourless and low on either side, and also had reefs and shallows, those who were sailing from the open sea thither needed some lofty and conspicuous sign to enable them to direct their course aright to the entrance of the harbour. Strabo, Geography, 17. 1. 6, late first century BC.

As for the lighthouse in Alexandria, many Egyptians and Alexandrians believe it to have been built by Alexander son of Philip of Macedonia.... Others believe it was queen Dalukka who built it and made of it an observatory to dispel whatever enemy approaches the country.... He who built it constructed it upon a glass base in the shape of a crayfish submerged under the sea on the edge of the promontory that extends from the sea to the shore. He placed on the top of it statues made of brass and other materials. One of the statues pointed with the index of its right hand constantly towards the sun in its diurnal course. If [the sun] was in the middle of its trajectory, the finger pointed out its position. If the sun was sinking towards the horizon, the statue's hand was also lowered, turning continuously with it. El MassÕoudi (d. 956 AD), vol. I, Muruj el Dahab (Pastures of Gold).

One of the most magnificent of what we have seen of Alexandria's wonders is the lighthouse which God the Mighty and Sublime has led his servants to construct as a wonder to the beholder and a guide to the voyager, without which he would never reach the shores of Alexandria. [At the sea] you can see it from a distance of seventy miles from the city.... From within, it is very spacious with many corridors, entrances and rooms to the extent that one can easily lose one's way inside it.... Atop it ius a mosque said to be blessed where people pray to obtain benediction.... We prayed in the aforementioned blessed mosque and saw the wonders of its construction to which no description can do justice. Ibn Jubair, Rihlat Ibn Jubair fi Misr wa Bilad el Arab wa el Iraq wa el Sham wa Saqaliyya 'Asr el Haroub el Salibiyya (The Travels of Ibn Jubair in Egypt, the Arab countries, Iraq, the Levant and Sicily in the time of the Crusades).

At length we reached Alexandria [on April 5, 1326].... I went to see the lighthouse on this occasion and found one of its faces in ruins. It is a very high square building and its door is above the level of the earth. Opposite the door, and of the same height, is a building from which there is a plank bridge to the door; if this is removed there is no means of entrance.... It is situated on a high mound and lies three miles from the city on a long tongue of land which juts out into the sea from close by the city wall, so that the lighthouse cannot be reached by land except from the city. On my return to the West in the year 750 [1349] I visited the lighthouse again, and found that it had fallen into so ruinous a condition that it was not possible to enter it. Al-Malik an-Nasir had started to build a similar lighthouse alongside it but was prevented by death from completing the work. Ibn Battuta, Travels in Asia and Africa.