Alexandria’s hubristic tagline, ‘gem of the Hellenistic world,’ is more justified by history than by ruins, which are noticeably short in a city running off the sea breeze and an imagination of its busy, layered past.
It is still a meeting point of religions (ancient Egypt meets ancient Greece and Rome; Coptic Christianity and Islam) whose ancient monuments are a scattered shred of a city whose history includes Alexander the Great and Cleopatra.
Most of ancient, Rome-rivaling Alexandria is under layers of sediment and building, or underwater. The Roman catacombs of Kom Ash-Shuqqafa, discovered in 1900 when the ground gave through for a passing donkey, are most interesting for their Roman-Egyptian wall art – think Anubis in a tunic.
Read the rest of my bit at the Daily Star Egypt.
