An ancient city reborn

By Nevine El-Aref

"Kom El-Dikka has the only well-preserved remains of the ancient city," said Grzegorz Majcherek, director of excavations. "We have many remnants of foundation work outside the ancient city, but this site is the only place where we can see how urban construction was."

The site covers quite a large area, measuring some 40,000 square metres, and houses a number of important Roman monuments. The elegant Roman theatre with marble seating for seven to eight hundred people includes brick and stone galleries and a forecourt boasting two patches of mosaic flooring. "During Ptolemaic times the theatre was a park, a hilly pleasure garden with a limestone summit carved in the form of a pine cone. Roman villas and baths later encroached on the area," explained Majcherek. "This theatre has been twice restored, in the late sixties and again in the eighties. It is the only monument of its kind in Egypt. Another was found in Pelusiam a few years ago, but all that had survived of the building was its foundation."

To its north lay the residential quarter of ancient Alexandria with public baths, cisterns, houses, shops and streets. The baths are huge and, as Majcherek explained, were most probably constructed by the Roman emperor who offered them to the city as a gift. "The bath area, which is very well-preserved, is made of red brick. The remains today are half the original size of the building. The other half, which was built of stone, was pillaged during the Middle Ages, as were many other ancient monuments, to be reused for other buildings," he said. "Parts of the city wall that surrounded mediaeval Alexandria were made of the stones from ancient buildings, such as those which used to stand near the stadium of Alexandria," he added.

The cisterns found next to the baths were used to supply them with water. "This is quite unusual in Alexandria," said Majcherek. Cisterns were not usually used for storing water, but "to keep water at a certain elevation so that it could then be poured downwards."

"We have hundreds of cisterns in Alexandria, but all of them are underground and were intended to be used for water storage only in the event of drought or war," Majcherek continued. "This kind of cistern, which is known as a castello since Greek times, is used primarily to produce the desired pressure to keep the water flowing."

On a lower level, to the east, a complex of private Roman villas and houses has recently been discovered. "These date from the first century and belonged to high-ranking officials or wealthy people who were able to build such structures," said Majcherek. They are huge, made of limestone, and have central courts, surrounded by columns and decorated with mosaics. One particularly beautiful mosaic was found in one of the rooms after clearance. It takes the form of a circle inscribed in a large frame filled with alternating triangles, the contrasting white marble and red porphyry creating a colourful geometric composition. Remains of painted decoration, including a black circle with rectangular alternating red, yellow and black panels separated by thin green bands, were also discovered.

More than 20 fragments of coloured mosaic, which are extremely rare in Egypt, have been discovered along with seven pieces of sculpture, including a head of Alexander the Great and some fragments of statues of Hercules and Aphrodite. A lot of domestic objects have also come to light, such as lamps, pottery and coins. "The buildings were destroyed in an earthquake. They provide us with a wealth of information about the building techniques and architecture of the time," said Majcherek. "Underneath this site, there are also Ptolemaic monuments waiting to be found."

Restoration work has concentrated on the portico near the bath area. Its six columns had fallen down and the blocks were broken into pieces. These have now been reassembled and re-erected in their original positions. New bases of artificial stone were made for some of them. "The third buttress of the southern outer wall of the bath was also reconstructed and will provide a viewing platform overlooking the Roman villa and the mosaics discovered between the baths and cisterns," Majcherek said.

Thus, a comprehensive vision of Alexandria in its heyday is gradually coming to light. Excavation and restoration work are running in parallel. In one area, according to Tomasz Herbich, secretary-general of the Polish Centre, the subterranean vaulting has been restored, one heavily damaged vault leading to a furnace has been reconstructed, and another vault in the southern part of the service area which was "almost entirely dismantled in the Mameluke period, has also been restored, thus permitting entry into this part of the service cellars in the future." A total of 12 square metres of vaulting have been completed. Herbich explained that the western end of the outer wall of the baths has been cleared, the overhanging structure protected with steel ropes, and the lower foundation courses of the buttress rebuilt. And this is only a part of the site.

Wojciech Kolataj, director of the Polish mission in Alexandria, explained that restoration of Kom El-Dikka faces two main problems. The first is the accumulation of rain water in the lower parts of the ancient city, and the second is the crystallisation of salt on the surfaces of the monuments. "Trying to channel the water away is useless," said Kolataj. "The sewage system of the modern city is built at a higher level than the lower parts of the monuments, so water cannot be removed to the sewage system." To solve the problem of penetration by water, Kolataj suggested reusing the Roman sewerage system to carry water to the main water table "and let rain water into the cisterns without any pumping and without building a new sewerage system." He also suggested growing plants around the monuments so as to absorb rain water, and digging shafts or artificial tanks to gather the rain water inside them.