Pompey's Pillar

The column has nothing to do with Pompey: it was raised between 298 and 302 AD in honour of Diocletian, probably to mark the end of a siege and the relief of the city, and the misattribution comes from medieval travellers. It is a single shaft of Aswan red granite around twenty-seven metres tall including base and capital, one of the largest monolithic columns ever erected, and it stands almost alone on a low mound of rubble. That mound is the site of the Serapeum, the great temple of Serapis that also housed a daughter library of the Alexandrian collection, destroyed in 391 AD when Christianity became dominant in the city. Underground galleries survive beneath it, along with two granite sphinxes and a Nilometer, and excavation continues around the edges.

History

In 297 the emperor Diocletian came to Egypt to put down the revolt of the usurper Domitius Domitianus, took Alexandria after a long siege in 298, and returned in 302 to set up a state grain supply for the city. The column and the porphyry statue of the emperor in armour that once stood on it were dedicated in his honour by a prefect of Egypt named Publius, whose term must have fallen between 297 and 303; the Greek spelling of his name in the damaged inscription was later confused with that of Pompey, which gave the monument its modern name. It stands 26.85 m high with base and capital, and its shaft, 20.46 m tall and 2.71 m across at the base and weighing an estimated 285 tonnes, is a single piece of pink granite from the quarries at Syene, modern Aswan, under a capital of grey granite, the only known monolithic column in Roman Egypt. It rose within the Serapeum, the sanctuary of Serapis built under Ptolemy III Euergetes in the third century BC and rebuilt under Roman rule, and it is the only ancient monument in Alexandria still standing in its original place (Wikipedia, Pompey's Pillar).

Highlights

• A twenty-seven-metre granite monolith - one shaft of Aswan stone.
• The Serapeum mound - the platform of the destroyed temple of Serapis.
• Underground galleries - passages surviving beneath the temple ground.
• Granite sphinxes - flanking figures set out on the terrace.

When to go

April to November. One hour, usually combined with the catacombs a few streets away. Mornings are cooler and the light is better on the column from the east side.

Before you go

There is one column and a rubble field, so the visit is short and can feel thin for the ticket price. The site is fenced in a run-down district with a cemetery alongside. Interpretation is limited to a few panels. Underground galleries are not always open.

Nearby

The catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa are a short walk; Kom El Dikka is toward the centre.

Key facts