Le Centre d'Etudes Alexandrines
The Pharos Excavations | Other Activities | Land excavations | Conclusion | Jean-Yves Empereur
The Centre d'Etudes Alexandrines (The Centre for Alexandrian Studies) was established in 1990 by Dr Jean-Yves Empereur as a centre for research into the diverse aspects of Alexandrian history.
For the first two years of its existence visiting scholars based their studies on the collections of the Graeco-Roman Museum and began work on the topography of the ancient and medieval town.
Since 1992 the Centre has been requested by the Egyptian antiquities service to undertake a number of salvage excavations both within the centre of the city and waters of the bay.
Institutional funding is provided by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the French Archaeological Schools of Athens and Rome, the French Ministre des Affaires Etrangeres and the Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale at Cairo, which also donates important technical support. The Centre has received considerable financial support for the Pharos excavations from the Elf Foundation, Electricite de France, Gaz de France and the multi-media company Gedeon.
The preliminary examination
In October 1994, Dr Jean-Yves Empereur, director of the Centre d'Etudes Alexandrines (CEA) responded to a call from the Egyptian Organisation of Antiquities (EOA) and began a preliminary examination of a stretch of sea just outside Alexandria's eastern harbour. His immediate mission was to evaluate the importance of a little known archaeological site lying under six to eight metres of water that was then being threatened by the construction of a modern concrete breakwater intended to protect the Mameluke fort of Sultan Ashraf Qaitbay, built around 1477. The campaign of autumn 1994 established an initial map charting some 30 important architectural fragments but the documentation gathered was not sufficient for a detailed interpretation of this veritable field of ruins. At first sight, there was a seemingly random and, in some areas, dense scattering of blocks over 2.25 hectares but with no clue as to their provenance nor how they came to be deposited in the sea. What was required was a better equipped and longer campaign to chart and illustrate all the architectural elements discovered.
From the outset, this project promised to be more than the average dig. Writers of antiquity, with Strabo to the fore, tell us that Alexandria's celebrated Lighthouse, constructed around 280 BC, stood more than 100 metres high on the eastern tip of the Island of Pharos. Its destruction is reckoned to have been caused by a series of earthquakes from the 4th to 14th centuries of the Christian era and it has long been supposed that Qaitbay fort occupies the site and perhaps the foundations of this Wonder of the World.
The first findings
During the winter of 1994-1995, Dr Empereur was approached by the Elf Foundation and Gedeon, a French multi-media company, who agreed jointly to finance the mission to the tune of US$350,000. Thus, in May and June of 1995, phase two began. An expanded team of divers, topographers, egyptologists and photographers set about the detailed marking, charting, illustration and analysis of approximately 1000 archaeological fragments lying on the sea bed. Their findings were exciting: amongst the hundreds of columns, both Pharaonic papyriform and Hellenistic, there lay capitals, sphinxes, sections of obelisks, parts of colossal statuary and inscribed blocks.
It soon became evident from inscriptions that many of the Pharaonic elements came originally from Heliopolis near modern Cairo. Their presence in Alexandria can be explained by the Ptolemies known habit of transporting ancient monuments to decorate their new capital, but just how they then ended up in the sea is not quite so obvious. It is, however, known that, after the Cypriot king, Pierre I de Lusignan, sacked Alexandria over two days in 1365, the Mameluke rulers of Egypt attempted to block the entry to the eastern harbour by jettisoning rubble from the crumbling ancient city. This fact might have provided a partial explanation for the wealth of remains lying in this patch of sea but it was not sufficient to account for the presence of certain massive blocks weighing between 50 and 75 tonnes. Any hypothesis as to their original provenance had to await the completion of painstaking computer-aided topographic work and the establishing of typologies.
By the end of June 1995 an intricate map of the site had been plotted and a certain pattern had emerged. Further study proved revelatory. There appeared to be two concentrations of blocks: one to the immediate north-eastern tip of Qaitbay fort; another more distant, in the eastern sector of the site. This latter zone held a rather heterogeneous collection of blocks, columns and other elements, generally small in size, mostly under two tonnes. The former zone, however, was characterised by huge, worked architectural blocks, many over five tonnes and some, as mentioned above, between 50 and 75 tonnes. It seems quite unlikely that the Mamelukes would have gone to the immense effort required to shift such weighty masonry from the centre of town in order to dump it in the sea. Moreover, the fact that some of these blocks are cracked in two, even three, adjacent fragments makes it even less likely that they were cast into the water from a vessel. Furthermore, the disposition of the largest blocks, running in a north-easterly line from the foot of the fort, firmly suggested a monument of considerable size and height falling in to the sea below. While Dr Empereur was initially wary of jumping to conclusions, he became convinced that he and his team had uncovered part of the remains of Alexandria's Pharos.
This third phase of the campaign (September/October 1995) involved a polishing of what had gone before. As the expedition has always been essentially a salvage operation, further documentation - photographic, sketching, video and topographic - was required along with the preparation of certain blocks for lifting onto dry land. Some thirty elements - sphinxes, columns, capitals, colossi, fragments of inscribed obelisks and two massive segments of the Seventh Wonder of the World - were removed from the sea to be desalinated and restored under the watchful eye of the EOA in co-operation with the Institut Francais d'Archeologie Orientale (IFAO). These pieces have since been exhibited in an open-air museum by the Roman amphitheatre at Kom el Dikka in central Alexandria and were much admired by President Jacques Chirac during his state visit to Egypt in April, 1996.
The work goes on
The progress and results of the work of 1995 excited a great media and scientific interest that was capped by the screening in France of an hour long documentary film of the project in spring of 1996. An English language version of this film was shown in Great Britain by the BBC in September of that year and screened by PBS Nova in the United States in November 1997. It is, perhaps, not too surprising that such an excavation, dealing as it does with a wonder of the world, should have captured the public imagination, however, after the show is over the work goes on.
Throughout 1996 and 1997 the CEA continued to dive on the site and to process the mass of documentation gathered. To date there are some 2250 blocks plotted and registered and it would appear that there are still around 500 to be added to the files. A specialist has begun a preliminary architectural analysis of the data and has refined the block identification sheets allowing for a better definition of the type of blocks discovered and the development of a descriptive terminology. In architecture, terminology is linked to the function of a block in the construction but here we are dealing with an essentially unknown construction or constructions and the majority of elements are lying out of context. The new terminology that is being established must be free of the idea of function and is built on four criteria: form, dimension, volume and decoration. Obviously, this very activity brings blocks together into identifiable groups and is the first step on the road to interpretation.
What is already becoming evident is that the site is primarily composed of granite pieces, many of them re-utilised elements and materials pillaged, in the time-honoured Egyptian fashion, from pre-existing structures in the Delta and at Heliopolis. There are clear signs of the application of Graeco-Macedonian technological savoir-faire to thoroughly Egyptian architectural forms and this, in itself, will throw light upon the style and method of construction of the Pharos. In turn, this information could well be extrapolated to be applied to the general study of Alexandria's architectural forms. In addition, the significant amount of statuary discovered and the growing evidence of other structures underwater could lead to a new notion of the Pharos as part of a greater complex and excite interpretations as to its civic and or religious function.
It must, of course, be stated that the architectural analysis of the Pharos site is greatly complicated by the its long occupation. Before any such activity can be definitively broached, the long, pain-staking, and at times tedious accumulation of data must be completed. At the same time, there is a need to polish and fine tune the established data base. However, the aim of the game remains eventually to produce hand-drawn and computer-generated reconstitutions of architectural ensembles that now lie in pieces on the bed of the Mediterranean Sea. Given the time and, frankly, the money, this is entirely possible.
It is to be hoped that the question of the modern breakwater of concrete blocks which runs through the site will be resolved in the near future It is imperative that a serious study is undertaken as regards the dismantling and repositioning of this wall. Given the location of the parts of colossal statuary found during the diving, it seems almost certain that those pieces still missing will be discovered underneath the concrete. It is also highly likely that further massive elements of the Pharos itself would be revealed. A recent (September 1997) visit by a delegation from UNESCO to look at this very problem might lead to the presentation of a feasible plan, elaborated by competent engineers, which would encourage the local authorities into direct action, and the wall will be removed.
It should be remembered that, although the Pharos excavation is greater in terms of logistics and finance than any other single archaeological intervention at Alexandria, it is still one among other salvage operations conducted by the CEA.
At the moment, Alexandria is going through a new phase in its development. Certain types of building are no longer considered viable given the pressure on space, and, little by little, old cinemas, billiard halls, warehouses and garages in the centre of town are being destroyed to make way for office and apartment blocks. This situation provides an opportunity for the archaeologist to slip between the phases of destruction and reconstruction to check on the nature of those ruins that might be found under the town. On every occasion there are a good ten metres and two millennia of history to be discovered and the information gleaned from one site is complementary to that from another. These interventions are at the request of the Egyptian authorities and it happens that a shortage of funds can lead to the unwilling inability to tackle certain plots. In such cases it is, unfortunately, the bulldozer that too often replaces the archaeologist and the deep foundations of a modern high-rise can destroy any ancient vestiges.
Within the premises of the Centre there is a permanent team working on the topography of the city and developing a Geographical Information System. This system provides a computerised data base of all the archaeological excavations of the 19th and 20th centuries as well as modern interventions and locates them on a digitised map of present-day Alexandria. This allows the archaeologists to view the excavations within the larger scale of the city and not just as individual sites. The base map, upon which can be superimposed all the 19th century and earlier maps, also permits a general reading of the urban growth of Alexandria with an opportunity to spot anomalies and particularities that may suggest promising new areas for exploration.
In all its fields of work the Centre is committed to collaboration with the Egyptian authorities and Egyptian scholars. Apart from regularly involving local archaeologists and EAO inspectors in the CEA directed digs, the Centre is training four Egyptians in topographic and related information technology, six in ceramic restoration techniques and is providing a number of university students with important experience in archaeological research and a unique opportunity to develop scuba-diving skills and underwater excavation methods.
Two of the Centre's three land excavations are presently drawing to a close and the plots will be taken over by the constructors. Both of these sites have revealed important and well preserved remains of 2nd century BC domestic architecture complete with an elaborate system of underground water supply. A considerable period of study will be required to draw up the final reports of these digs. The third site, which will remain in the Centre's hands for the time being, has already provided long term work in the mosaics that have been unearthed. Some 100m2 of Roman era floor mosaics of quite remarkable quality have been lifted from the site and are being restored by a specialist member of the team.
The Centre is also looking ahead to tackling a further two sites in the heart of town which promise to be equally if not more important. One of these is on present-day Sultan Hussein Street, in an area believed to be near the location of the Ptolemaic Gymnasium. If local memory is correct, this site has never been built on and thus could provide a wealth of undisturbed archaeological information. The other is on Horreya Street which follows the line of the Canopic Way, one of the principal axes of the ancient city and known to have been bordered by a double colonnade. In modern times, the site has held only one construction - a recently demolished 19th century villa - and so also promises valuable scientific rewards.
A novel and exciting archaeological intervention was undertaken in the spring of 1997. This involved a geophysical survey of the peninsula that lies between Alexandria's two harbours in search for traces of the Heptastadion, the causeway that was built at the very foundation of the city in order to link the continent with the island of Pharos. By checking electrostatic resistance, seismic and electro-magnetic conduction in the subsoil of the streets that traverse the peninsula, the aim was to plot the exact line of the Heptastadion without the necessity of major disruption in a heavily populated area. A preliminary report has already been compiled though further study is continuing. Should the team be successful in locating the Heptastadion it would be of great significance in understanding the orientation of ancient Alexandria's road network.
Other underground features of Alexandria, the fresh water cisterns, are also the object of a long term study. Without a direct supply of drinking water, the city, from its foundation until the 19th century, had to rely upon a canal from the Nile which fed water into domestic and public cisterns. During the French expedition under Bonaparte in 1798, engineers wrote of some 400 cisterns. Today only ten are known of directly, though a further 30 have been provisionally located. Using documentation from the turn of the century, a team of architect-archaeologists are endeavouring to find the missing cisterns and plot them on a map, thus providing an overview of the water system of the town. Already, it has become apparent that during the Islamic period, a number of large cisterns were constructed outside the city walls, suggesting that there was still a flourishing agricultural belt around Alexandria; further evidence of the city's continued prosperity after the Arab conquest.
At the present moment the CEA is heavily involved with the Egyptian antiquities service in a salvage dig within the district of Gabbari, to the west of Alexandria. During the construction of an elevated highway, designed to connect the Cairo Desert Road with the western harbour, the diggers pierced a large Hellenistic tomb complex. Certain individual tombs from this cemetery to the west of the city have been discovered and excavated over the years but never before has such a sizable segment been accessible to the archaeologist. The word "necropolis" was coined by Strabo at the end of the 1st century BC to refer to this very area and it should be taken in its literal sense of "city of the dead". Here there were gardens and embalming workshops set amongst innumerable tombs. The extent of the necropolis was striking even to the ancients and it must have been truly immense, reflecting the size of Alexandria itself. Work so far has cleared some fifteen chambers all pitted with loculi, some holding rock-cut sarcophagi and funerary urns. Preliminary study of artefacts would suggest that the tombs date from the early Hellenistic period but there are traces of occupation into the Christian era and while the complex has been well pillaged over the centuries by grave robbers it is hoped that the lower levels, still inaccessible due to ground water, may hold some undisturbed burials.
In the eight years of its existence the Centre d'Etudes Alexandrines has firmly inserted itself into the scientific and social life of the city. By responding to the requests of the Egyptian antiquities service and collaborating with its personnel, the Centre has helped to bring a new impetus to the local study of Alexandria's rich heritage and has provided a valuable framework for the training of young archaeologists in modern methodology. Visits to schools, and conferences given to social and business institutions have also helped in exposing the value and wonder of the city's past, while the success of the underwater exploration of the Pharos ruins has attracted international interest.
Alexandria, once the greatest city of the Hellenistic world and the only centre to rival Rome, is now a sprawling town of some 4 million inhabitants with all the concomitant problems of the modern conurbation in a developing country. As such, there is inevitably a delicate balance to be made between providing for the everyday material needs of the citizens and preserving what is seen as valuable from the past. The Centre is well aware of this dilemma and the pratice and refinement of salvage excavation techniques are an attempt to respond to the problem. The city must develop and regenerate and yet it should not lose its memory. There is, indeed, much to be done. Modern Alexandria is built directly on top of its ancient self, hence the poverty of exposed archaeological remains. Although ancient written sources on the city are plentiful, physical evidence to stand in corroboration is still slight. Over the coming years the Centre hopes to be at the heart of a renewed interest in and exploration of the city of the Mouseion and the Library, of Euclid and Eratosthenes, of the Septuagint and the Fathers of the Christian Church, not forgetting, of course, Antony and Cleopatra.
Dr. Empereur, who is a director of research at the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, holds a doctorate in classical literature and archaeology. Over a period of 12 years he participated in excavations in Greece, first as a fellow and then as Secretary General of the French Archaeological School of Athens. As a specialist in Hellenistic commerce, he has directed underwater excavations in Greece and Cyprus and also takes part in the ongoing dig at an ancient Greek potters' village in Turkey. In 1990, Dr. Empereur established the Centre d'Etudes Alexandrines which is intended for the study of the antiquities and history of Alexandria, especially through the operation of salvage excavations both within the centre of the city and underwater as exemplified by the intervention at Qaitbay fort of 1994-98.
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