Overview
Pompey's Column is a Roman Column of Honor in Alexandria, Egypt. The free-standing column is the largest ever erected outside the capitals of Rome and Constantinople. The columns, including the base and the Corinthian capital, are 26.85 meters high. A monolithic column column made of Aswan red granite has a height of 20.46 meters, and a diameter of 2.71 meters at the base. The weight of the column is estimated at 285 tons, which makes it one of the largest monoliths of antiquity and the largest monolithic columns in the world.It is located in the southern part of the city, between Lake Mariout and the Mediterranean Sea, near the catacombs and the Arab cemetery - an area now called the Pillar of the Knights ("the Knight's Column") because the Arabs raised it. Suspected equestrian statue of the column. The Column of Pompeii rises on the ruins of an ancient wall, a hill covered in architectural fragments and ruins, over the ruins of the famous Serapeum.
The column is named after Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (106-48 BC), who is said to have been erected above his tomb; Appian and Cassius Dio provide information that Caesar had buried the severed head of his enemy in Alexandria. After Plutarch, the ashes of the head were sent to Cornelia Mytila, who was able to bury it in Albanian bricks.
Another tomb of Pompeii was found in Belogen, where the cremated remains of his body were buried, during Emperor Hadrian's Egyptian Expedition (1/130 AD) alongside offerings, votive statues, Pompey's followers and his former companions. Set up there. Pompey the Great shares the fate of finding the final resting place in an unknown tomb - today - in Alexandria, with another great man in world history, with someone who appears to resemble Pompey who has often been compared to him during his lifetime: with Alexander the Great.
As the only largely valid evidence of Greco-Roman antiquity of Alexandria at the site, a visit to Pompey's Column has been a "must-have" for every traveler to Egypt since the eighteenth century and notes that the spine (backbone) of a whale piled up by a crane is reminiscent of Pompey's column. In 1803, British Captain John Shortland had a rope ladder attached to the column and the shaft climbed several times.
Serapeum of Alexandria
The Serapeum of Alexandria was dedicated as a temple to the new Hellenistic Egyptian god Serapis and was considered the most famous of the Serapeum in ancient times.
Ptolemy I in the years 287 to 286 BC was the first modest temple building built by Ptolemy III. Euergetes has been expanded. Most of the Serapeum did not develop until the Roman Empire in the first centuries after Christ. After the temple was destroyed during the reign of Trajan during the Jewish uprising in AD 116, his successor Hadrian rebuilt it and expanded into an impressive building. The Serapeum later rose to become the most important sanctuary in Alexandria, as Serapis was also the highest deity of the city in Alexandria.
The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (330-395) describes what the temple looked like in the fourth century shortly before its destruction in his work Res Gestae:
`` In addition, there are very high temples in Alexandria, among them the Serapeum, which, as far as you lose by a scanty description, I notice at least being surrounded by a large atrium surrounded by columns, statues, speaking and other works of art so exquisitely decorated and abundant that after a building The Capitol, as the revered Rome challenges eternity, nothing more wonderful can be seen in the vast world. "
Serapeum is located in the southwest of the city, where its main walls can still be seen today. In the actual temple was the statue of Serapis of Priaxis, which was one of the most famous statues of antiquity.
The temple courtyard was surrounded on all sides by porticos, which could be accessed by a staircase from the eastern side. There were other cult buildings, water systems, artworks, and votive displays in the yard. As evidenced by a venerable inscription, the so-called "Pompey Column" 27 meters high was built in AD 297 in honor of Emperor Diocletian. And erected around it many Egyptian statues that were transported from Heliopolis.
In addition to the actual temple area, the Serapeum also houses a subsidiary library of the Great Library of Alexandria, which is supposed to contain 20,000 manuscripts.
Other famous temples of Serapis are in Memphis and Saqqara.
Visiting dates: -
From nine o'clock in the morning until five o'clock in the evening.
Ticket price:-
Entrance ticket price for Egyptians: -
The price of the entry ticket for Egyptians is 20 Egyptian pounds, on different days.
Ticket price for Egyptian students: -
The ticket price for students is only 15 pounds, provided that the university card for the current academic year is shown.
Ticket price for foreigners: -
And the price of entrance ticket for foreigners only 10 dollars.
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