The Osiris temple walls
Massive stone walls on the limestone ridge.
Koantao — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Aymantarek24 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Aymantarek24 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Koantao — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Einsamer Schütze — CC BY-SA 3.0
Taposiris Magna is an ancient city on Egypt's north coast near Borg El Arab, founded by Ptolemy II between 280 and 270 BC. Its name means the great tomb of Osiris, and locally it is known as Abusir. Its surviving ruins sit on a limestone ridge between the sea and Lake Mariout, topped by the temple of Osiris and the Tower of Abusir. In Ptolemaic times the city was a centre of the Khoiak religious festival, with a harbour on an arm of the lake, and settlement in the area lasted until the 7th century AD. French scholars surveyed it after 1798, and Italian archaeologist Evaristo Breccia dug here in the 20th century. Since 2002 a mission led by the Dominican lawyer Kathleen Martínez has searched for the tomb of Cleopatra VII, a theory no discovery has yet confirmed. The main sight is the massive stone enclosure wall of the Osiris temple, partly restored in the 1930s. Close by stands the Tower of Abusir, long said to echo the Pharos lighthouse of Alexandria, though the most scholarly study concluded it was a funerary monument and no lighthouse. Finds here include Greco-Roman tombs and mummies and a rock-cut tunnel 1,305 m long revealed in 2022, not all of them open to visitors. The site lies about 46 km south-west of central Alexandria in a straight line. Public transport is poor, so a taxi or car with driver from Alexandria works best. Allow half a day, with an hour or two on site and wide views over the sea and lake.
Massive stone walls on the limestone ridge.
A funerary monument that resembles a lighthouse.
Views of the coast and Lake Mariout.
Abusir, north coast west of Alexandria, near Borg El Arab
No. Kathleen Martínez's mission has searched since 2002 and found tombs, sculpture and coins bearing the queen's image, but nothing has confirmed her tomb is here.
So it was long thought, and it has guided reconstructions of the Pharos. A 1974 study concluded it was neither a lighthouse nor a watchtower, but probably a funerary monument.