Alexandria Things to Do Tips by TomorrowsAngel

The new Alexandria library is an attempt to recreate a glorious chapter in Egypt's history as the cultural capital of the world.
The original library was a repository of all the knowledge available to the civilised world in ancient times. The ancient Alexandria library was not only a storehouse housing manuscripts gathered throughout ancient times, from 400 BC to 300 AD, it was the intellectual centre of Hellenistic culture.
The library thus accumulated all available information that could be accessed at the time and scholars flocked to work on the manuscripts collected from all parts of the then known world.
However, at a time when literacy was the privilege of limited elites, the library was more of a museum than a library open to the ordinary layman.
What it contained was seen as rare masterpieces rather than as repositories of knowledge accessible to the wide public.
Nobody knows exactly when or how the Alexandria library disappeared, although it is commonly believed to have burnt down.
But what is certain is that, with the disappearance of the library, the Hellenistic civilisation suffered a serious setback sometime before the advent of Islam.
The new Bibliotheca Alexandrina is also an integrated cultural complex, with libraries, museums, exhibition areas, educational centers and an international conference center.

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Pompeii's pillar, made of pink granite, is 30m tall and built amidst the ruins of the Serapium in 297 A.D., in honor of Emperor Diocletian.
It is situated on a hill with surrounding ruins. The pillar was once carved with figures. This pillar was erected by the Egyptians in honor of a Roman governor, who brought wheat to the country during a time of famine.

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The Serapium is the site of religious rites for the ancient bull god, and the temple itself was leveled by the newly-Christian Roman empire. The best artifacts from the Serapium have been excavated and moved to the Greco-Roman museum in Alexandria.

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The museum was first built in 1892 as a small building located on Horreya Road, it transferred in 1895 to the present site near Gamal Abdul Nasser Road. It started with eleven galleries, and has been gradually enlarged in later renovation stages. The 25th gallery was inaugurated in 1984.
It houses collections of rare Greek and Roman relics and coins - about 40 thousand pieces in total. The collection ranges from the Third Century B.C. to the Seventh Century AD, including the "Tanagra" collection. And is a fascinating record of civilization in the process of change as religions merged and society evolved.
In Alexandria, Greco-Roman and Pharaonic religions mingled in the cult of Serapes; the shift from pagan religions to Christianity can also be seen in the exhibits which include mummies, Hellenistic statues, busts of Roman emperors, Tangara figurines, and early Christian antiquities.

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These tombs were tunneled into the bedrock in the age of the Antonine emperors (2 AD)for a single wealthy family still practicing the ancient religion. As a privately financed project, it is an engineering feat of some magnitude. These tombs represent the last existing major construction for the sake of the old Egyptian religion. They are alone worth the trip to Alexandria. Though the funerary motifs are pure ancient Egyptian, the architects and artists were schooled in the Greco-Roman style. Applied to the themes of Ancient Egyptian religion, it has resulted in an amazing integrated art, quite unlike anything else in the world. However, in their hurry to finish the tombs, one of the entrances has symmetrical gods depicted, one side has the left foot forward and one with the right foot forward which is a big mistake, as this means one is living and one is dead!
A winding staircase descends several levels deep into the ground, with little chapels opening from it, furnished with benches to accommodate visitors or mourners bringing offerings. There are niches cutout to hold sarcophagi.
No photographs are allowed in the catacombs, so this photo is from the egypt tourism website.

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