A granite column
Still where it stood.
Papillus — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Dennis G. Jarvis — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Bilal Detailz — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Abdelrhman 1990 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Ahmed Yousry Mahfouz — CC BY-SA 4.0
A towering Roman column of red granite rising about twenty-six metres on a hill in the Karmouz district, the only ancient monument in Alexandria still standing where it was first raised. It was set up between 298 and 302 AD in honour of the Roman emperor Diocletian and once carried a colossal statue of him. Its European name, Pompey's Pillar, arose from an old misreading of the Greek inscription on its base and has nothing to do with the Roman general Pompey. Its Arabic name is said to come from the many columns that once surrounded it. The column stands amid the ruins of the Serapeum, one of ancient Alexandria's greatest temples, flanked by two granite sphinxes, with underground galleries thought to have been part of a daughter library of the great Library of Alexandria. A foreign visitor's ticket costs about two hundred Egyptian pounds, and it opens from nine to five. The site is small, half an hour to an hour is enough, and it is a few minutes from the Catacombs of Kom el-Shoqafa.
Still where it stood.
A great Alexandrian temple.
Two granite figures.
Karmouz district, on the hill of the ancient Serapeum
No, it was raised in honour of the emperor Diocletian; the European name came from a misreading of the Greek inscription on its base.
