DOI Artikel:
Hogarth, David G.: Egypt Exploration Fund, [4]: Report on prospects of Research in Alexandria
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.10057#0034
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Egypt Exploration Fund.
at any result at all; for the inference to bo drawn from the condition of
lower remains elsewhere in the town is not favourable to the chance of
any notable discovery being made at Kom el Dikk.
From such uniformly negative results, as these obtained south and
north of the Boulevard de Rosette, it is necessary to infer that there is
no sort of Eoman Pompeii beneath modern Alexandria; that things
earlier than Roman exist, if at all, for the most part under water; and
that the remains of the old city have been stripped of valuables, and
even cleared away in great part long before our time. In the face of
these facts it seemed idle to explore the open spaces which lie still
farther south and west, about Moharrem Bey and Pompey's Pillar. The
ground about the base of the latter was being examined by Signor Botti,
and, whatever his researches may determine as to the site of the
Serapeum, or the Agora, or the " Acropolis " of Aphthonius,1 so far as
they have gone they confirm to the letter my own conclusion as to the
ruinous state of ancient remains in Alexandria. To have to go down
five or six metres in order to find the rubble cores of walls, broken
potsherds of Roman epoch, and fragments of Roman granite entablature,
is a fate to which a foreign society need not expose itself. Neither
Roman columns, nor statues, nor waterworks, nor rifled Christian graves,
are worth spending much money to discover, and nothing better seems
to be promised by the open ground that lies between the Fosse and the
Canal. The most part of it is in private hands; it is cut up among tho
gardens and houses of a steadily spreading quarter; and, except for
the Serapeum, we have no reason to place within its limits any important
public building.
The Sana. Of the greater monuments, whose sites are placed usually south of the
Boulevard de Rosette (namely the Soma, or Soma," which commemorated
the great Founder, the Mausolea of the Ptolemies and their queens, tho
Museum where was the great library of Philadelphus, and the Serapeum,
including a library in Roman times) neither can the sites be fixed with
any precision, nor does it appear likely that any considerable remains
survive.
The Bruchium Quarter, in which all these monuments, except the
Serapeum, probably stood, was reduced to a howling wilderness in tho
1 Tlpoyvjivatrpara, § 12. Rket. Gr., vol. ii.
2 Ps. Callistli. iii. 31, and Stra"bo, p. 794. Zenobius and St. John Chrysostom
write Sema.
Egypt Exploration Fund.
at any result at all; for the inference to bo drawn from the condition of
lower remains elsewhere in the town is not favourable to the chance of
any notable discovery being made at Kom el Dikk.
From such uniformly negative results, as these obtained south and
north of the Boulevard de Rosette, it is necessary to infer that there is
no sort of Eoman Pompeii beneath modern Alexandria; that things
earlier than Roman exist, if at all, for the most part under water; and
that the remains of the old city have been stripped of valuables, and
even cleared away in great part long before our time. In the face of
these facts it seemed idle to explore the open spaces which lie still
farther south and west, about Moharrem Bey and Pompey's Pillar. The
ground about the base of the latter was being examined by Signor Botti,
and, whatever his researches may determine as to the site of the
Serapeum, or the Agora, or the " Acropolis " of Aphthonius,1 so far as
they have gone they confirm to the letter my own conclusion as to the
ruinous state of ancient remains in Alexandria. To have to go down
five or six metres in order to find the rubble cores of walls, broken
potsherds of Roman epoch, and fragments of Roman granite entablature,
is a fate to which a foreign society need not expose itself. Neither
Roman columns, nor statues, nor waterworks, nor rifled Christian graves,
are worth spending much money to discover, and nothing better seems
to be promised by the open ground that lies between the Fosse and the
Canal. The most part of it is in private hands; it is cut up among tho
gardens and houses of a steadily spreading quarter; and, except for
the Serapeum, we have no reason to place within its limits any important
public building.
The Sana. Of the greater monuments, whose sites are placed usually south of the
Boulevard de Rosette (namely the Soma, or Soma," which commemorated
the great Founder, the Mausolea of the Ptolemies and their queens, tho
Museum where was the great library of Philadelphus, and the Serapeum,
including a library in Roman times) neither can the sites be fixed with
any precision, nor does it appear likely that any considerable remains
survive.
The Bruchium Quarter, in which all these monuments, except the
Serapeum, probably stood, was reduced to a howling wilderness in tho
1 Tlpoyvjivatrpara, § 12. Rket. Gr., vol. ii.
2 Ps. Callistli. iii. 31, and Stra"bo, p. 794. Zenobius and St. John Chrysostom
write Sema.