Explore Alexandria, the Mediterranean coast and the Delta
Egypt’s 500km-long Mediterranean coast (known as Al-Sahel) has beautiful beaches and sparkling sea all the way to Libya. However, many stretches are still mined from World War II or off-limits due to military bases, while all the most accessible sites have been colonized by holiday villages catering mainly to Egyptians, whose beach culture is so different from Westerners’ that most foreigners prefer the Sinai and Red Sea resorts.
Travelling between Alexandria and the World War II battlefield of El-Alamein you’ll pass a slew of resorts reserved for elite sections of Egyptian society such as the army and diplomatic corps, and others open to anyone who can afford to stay, though for independent travellers they’re simply blights on the landscape which make the colonial-era beach resort of El-Agami (20km from downtown Alexandria and now a commuter suburb) seem historic by comparison. With the ancient lighthouse at Abu Sir and the ruins of Taposiris Magna off-limits, the only accessible “sight” is the Coptic Monastery of St Menas, off the highway between Alexandria and El-Alamein.
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Taposiris Magna and the search for Cleopatra’s tomb
Taposiris Magna and the search for Cleopatra’s tomb
Thirty kilometres beyond El-Agami the highway passes a site called Abu Sir, better known to archeologists by its Roman name, Taposiris Magna. This ancient city – which the Egyptians called Per Usiri (“Dwelling of Osiris”) and the Greeks Busiris – had one port on the Mediterranean and another on Lake Maryut. In Roman times the Maryut region was a major source of grain, shipped to Italy to placate the potentially riotous plebs in Rome. A chain of lighthouses from Alexandria to Cyrenaica (Libya) warned sailors of the abrupt change from sea to sand along a coastline devoid of landmarks. While Alexandria’s Pharos has disappeared, archeologists have gleaned clues to its shape from the sole surviving lighthouse in the chain, at Abu Sir – which most believe was a one-tenth scale replica of the Pharos.
Today, both the lighthouse and Taposiris Magna are off-limits while the SCA conducts excavations in search of the tomb of Cleopatra and Mark Antony. The Dominican scholar Kathleen Martinez believes it lies beneath the city’s Temple of Osiris, having found the mummies of ten nobles just outside, and coins bearing Cleopatra’s face and an alabaster mask with a cleft chin similar to portraits of Antony within the temple precincts. Her belief is also founded on the historian Plutarch’s assertion that Octavian allowed the couple to be buried together after their respective suicides in 30 BC. If Martinez is right and finds their mummies, it will be the greatest discovery since Tutankhamun’s tomb.
