The Reconstruction of Cleopatra VII’s Alexandria, Egypt

Gabriellebirchak/ July 9, 2019/ Ancient History, Classical Antiquity, Post Classical

Over the last three years, I have com­mit­ted over 700 days work­ing on a project about Alexan­dria, Egypt, the his­to­ry of Alexan­dria, the works of the intel­lec­tu­als, and of course Hypa­tia, who was an absolute aca­d­e­m­ic STEM hero in every pos­si­ble way.

Work­ing through this project, I found myself immersed in this idea about what it would be like to com­plete­ly aban­don dis­be­lief and walk through the streets of Alexan­dria in 400 CE. Bet­ter yet, I won­dered what it would be like to walk through the evolv­ing streets of Alexan­dria from 300 BCE to 400 CE.

I have watched numer­ous Assassin’s Creed videos over the last year, watched trav­el videos, delved into research sites, and have pur­chased and read pos­si­bly every sin­gle book on the sub­ject of Alexan­dria. One of my favorite books about the struc­ture and evo­lu­tion of Alexan­dria is Judith McKenzie’s The Archi­tec­ture of Alexan­dria and Egypt 300 B.C. — A.D. 700, which pro­vides prob­a­bly one of the most in-depth and thor­ough analy­ses of Alexandria.

Then there is Franck God­dio’s under­wa­ter exca­va­tion in the east­ern har­bor of Alexan­dria. The numer­ous videos and arti­cles writ­ten about his under­wa­ter exca­va­tions are beyond fas­ci­nat­ing. He and his under­wa­ter exca­va­tion team found ruins that date back to Cleopa­tra VII’s time as well as ruins that date even fur­ther back when Alexan­dria was known as Rhako­tis. So many ancient his­to­ri­ans refer to Alexan­dria as just a small fish­ing town until Alexan­der the Great came along. How­ev­er, the ruins that God­dio has found also imply that Rhako­tis could have been a rather large, pro­gres­sive city. I high­ly rec­om­mend both of these resources for any­body doing any research on Ancient Alexandria.

For the last two years, I have spent numer­ous hours going through any­thing writ­ten about Alexan­dria and Hypa­tia and vet­ting the sources. One of the most impres­sive pieces that I found, which made this whole research process an immer­sive one, is a recon­struc­tion of the world of Cleopa­tra VII by Michael Bengtsson.

Bengts­son has a paper that shows his recon­struc­tion of the Ptole­ma­ic Palaces and the East­ern har­bor, and it is superbly impres­sive, to say the least. Using the out­line of the ancient coast­line dis­cov­ered by God­dio, Bengts­son recon­struct­ed an aer­i­al view of the struc­tures on the Promon­to­ry of Lochias, the inner palaces in the Bru­chion, the muse­um, the library, the port of Posei­don, and the third port called Herodotus, which held the Tem­ple of Isis.

His recon­struc­tion of Alexan­dria is mar­velous because he includes his­tor­i­cal notes about the sites, as well as quotes by Stra­bo, Poly­bius, Plutarch, and oth­er ancient his­to­ri­ans. Pro­vid­ing accu­rate mea­sure­ments and details pro­vid­ed by God­dio and his team, Bengts­son ref­er­ences oth­er con­struc­tions that date back to that time to cre­ate one of the most accu­rate rep­re­sen­ta­tions of what the con­struc­tions of Cleopatra’s world would have looked like. For me, it removes the ancient rub­ble in my imag­i­na­tion and makes ancient Alexan­dria a beau­ti­ful, tan­gi­ble expe­ri­ence. You can find the recon­struc­tion here: https://www.academia.edu/4662183/Reconstruction_of_the_palace_area_in_Alexandria

In addi­tion to this lay­out of Alexan­dria, Bengts­son cre­at­ed phe­nom­e­nal recon­struc­tions of oth­er shrines, the Ser­apeum, the four phas­es of Domus Augus­tana in Italy, as well as the Hel­lenis­tic palaces of Alexan­dria, Mace­do­nia, Perg­a­mon, the Seleu­cid King­dom, Judaea, and Hero­di­an Pales­tine. If you are inter­est­ed in Bengtsson’s work on Academia.edu, you can find him at https://independent.academia.edu/MichaelBengtsson.

If you are inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about Bengts­son, you can also find him at http://michaelbengtsson.com/. There, you will find that he has worked with tal­ent­ed greats such as Ellen DeGeneres, Sofia Ver­gara, Lady Gaga, Phar­rell Williams, Bey­once, and Katy Per­ry. Now I under­stand why his recon­struc­tions are so impres­sive and immer­sive. It’s because his com­mer­cial work is equal­ly phenomenal!