BIBLE HISTORY DAILY

Alexandria Beyond Its Lighthouse

Excavations reveal bathrooms, mosaics, and more

Ancient circular public bathroom discovered in the Muharram Bek neighborhood in Alexandria. Courtesy Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

Rescue excavations in the Muharram Bek neighborhood of central Alexandria, Egypt, have uncovered a remarkable sequence of architectural remains spanning the Ptolemaic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. The discoveries, announced by Egypt’s Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities, shed new light on the urban development of one of the ancient world’s most celebrated cities, and helps fill a gap in our understanding of the city’s ancient plan.

The most prominent finds are two major architectural features. The first is a circular public bathroom known as a tholoi, dating to the late Ptolemaic period. The Ptolemies were the Greek-speaking dynasty that ruled Egypt from Alexander the Great’s death in 323 BCE until the Roman conquest of Cleopatra’s Egypt in about 30 BCE. The second architectural feature is a Roman residential villa with mosaic floors and an attached bathtub, connected to an integrated water system. Together, the public bathroom and villa represent successive phases of occupation, with the Roman villa apparently built over or alongside the circular bathroom complex.

Mosaic section found in the Roman villa in the Muharram Bek neighborhood in Alexandria. Courtesy Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

The mosaic floors were not average Roman mosaic floors, at least not as we have come to expect them. They involve the use of two distinct techniques: opus tessellatum, in which small uniform tesserae are laid in geometric or figured patterns, and opus sectile, in which larger pieces of stone or marble are cut into shapes and fitted together like a puzzle. The presence of both techniques at a single villa shows sophistication, and the skill of Alexandrian workshops during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods.

Beheaded statue found in the Muharram Bek neighborhood in Alexandria. Courtesy Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.

In addition to architecture, excavators recovered a collection of marble statues, including figures of Bacchus (the god of wine) and Asclepius (the god of medicine), as well as a beheaded statue tentatively identified as Minerva (Roman Athena, pictured above). Coins, pottery, storage jars, and sealed amphora fragments rounded out the assemblage, interpreted as evidence of the thriving commercial activity that made Alexandria one of the ancient world’s great trading cities.

The finds also bear on Alexandria’s historical map. The ministry’s press release invokes the work of Mahmoud Bey el-Falaki, a 19th-century Egyptian astronomer and engineer who in 1866 produced one of the first scientific reconstructions of ancient Alexandria’s street grid. Working from ancient texts, topographic surveys, and astronomical measurements (using the orientation of building foundations relative to celestial bodies to infer the original urban layout), he produced a map that remained a standard reference for well over a century. The new excavations, archaeologists suggest, both support and complicate El-Falaki’s reconstruction, providing physical data points for a sector of the city in which he had limited evidence.

Overall, the news from Muharram Bek adds new coordinates to an ancient map that scholars have been trying to reconstruct for centuries, and suggests that, even in Alexandria, there is still more beneath the surface.

FREE ebook: Ten Top Biblical Archaeology Discoveries. Finds like the Pool of Siloam in Israel, where the Gospel of John says Jesus miraculously restored sight to a blind man.

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Lauren K. McCormick is an assistant editor at Biblical Archaeology Review and a specialist in ancient Near Eastern religions, visual culture, and the Bible. She holds degrees in religion from Syracuse University, Duke University, New York University, and Rutgers University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship on religion and the public conversation at Princeton University.

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