The Pharos of Alexandria

The Long-Lasting Wonder of the Ancient World

Mar 29, 2008

An Artist's Depiction of the Lighthouse , Public Domain

Apart from the great pyramids, the Lighthouse at Alexandria was the longest-lasting of all the ancient wonders, a grand beacon at the Alexandrian harbor.

Today, in Yokohama, Japan, sits the world's tallest lighthouse; Yokohama Marine Tower, standing at an impressive 324 feet off the Earth on which it was built in 1961.

Even today, the incredible height of this tower seems like a bit of overkill to for something as relatively simple as a lighthouse.

Now imagine a lighthouse built not forty seven years ago, but more than two thousand years ago, which, at a height of more than 380 feet, dominated almost everything else man had ever built on the planet (a notable achievement that would remain as such for centuries to come).

The Lighthouse of Alexandria

Just such a description easily fits the Lighthouse which once stood on the Pharos of Alexandria, Egypt; remembered today as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.

This grand tower on the small island known as Pharos just off the coast of Alexandria, was built sometime around the third century B.C. by an architect named Sostratus of Cnidus.

Its construction had been ordered by the regional governor, Ptolemy I after the unexpected death of Alexander the Great (who had founded and named the city of Alexandria after himself in 334 B.C.). A man-made land bridge was built to connect the small island with the mainland in order to aid its construction.

Its Purpose

The building (which was thereafter known simply as “The Pharos of Alexandria”) was intended originally not as a lighthouse, but as a tool for navigation, which partially explains its excessive height. It was intended to provide sailors with a point of reference as they made their way along the Egyptian coast, which is mostly flat and lacking definite features, making it easy to get lost.

The giant tower helped considerably in this regard, but was originally just a tall tower and not a lighthouse. It was not until somewhere around four hundred years after its initial construction, in the first century A.D., that a giant mirror was placed on top of the tower for use as a lighthouse (at night, when there was obviously no sun to reflect, a fire was lit in the tower).

The lighthouse was so large and imposing that it became the talk of the entire ancient world. Legends even went so far as to say that no army could attack Alexandria, for the Pharos was able to use its mirror to burn any boats who sailed too close.

The majority scientists today are relatively certain that this is impossible.

The Long Life of the Lighthouse

So accomplished was the engineering involved in constructing the Pharos at Alexandria that it remained standing in its imposing state in Alexandria longer than any other wonder of the ancient world (except, of course, the great pyramid, which will most likely stand forever, thanks to modern preservation societies).

The lighthouse stood more than sixteen hundred years before finally being damaged by Earthquakes in the fourteenth century, then another hundred years after that before finally being demolished in 1480 by Quaitbay, the Sultan of Egypt, who used many of its bricks to build a medieval fort on the Pharos, which stands to this day.

Even apart from those bricks used in the fort on Pharos, other remnants of the lighthouse's history survive within many languages around the world. If one ever finds themselves needing to say the word “lighthouse” in one of the romance languages, chances are the word used would be a direct reference to this greatest lighthouse in history.

The French say phare, the Italians and Spanish, faro; even the Romanians use the word far, all directly referring to the pharos.

This legacy is appropriate, for just as the Pharos of Alexandria was surely difficult to miss by sailors navigating the Mediterranean off the coast of Egypt, its name is difficult to miss in any intelligent discussion of lighthouse etymology.