Alexandrian Archaelogical Tour

The next morning, I slipped out before anyone else had woken up. I had planned a full day of museums and sightseeing, and I wasn't sure the Austrians would be up for that. I also knew that if I ran into them at breakfast, I wouldn't feel comfortable telling them that I wanted to spend the day alone, so I had to slink out in the early hours like a bad daddy.

Kom el-Dikka

Finding the mausoleum of Alexander the Great seems to be the only game in town for Alexandrian archaeologists. Every major site describes how it it had been discovered and excavated by teams of disappointed archaeologists who had actually been searching for the legendary tomb. This was the case at Kom el-Dikka (which literally means "mound of rubble") and though they failed to find Alexander, the site is still being excavated under the supervision of the Polish Center for Mediterranean Archaeology(?!). The tour buses hadn't arrived yet, so I shared the mound with a couple dozen laborers who, in a scene recreated a thousand times in films from Raiders of the Lost Ark to The Mummy, were carrying away piles of rubble in wicker baskets.

The Roman Theater is worth seeing as are the mosaics at the Villa of the Birds - just be sure to ask for a joint ticket at the door. Otherwise, you face a long walk back from the villa to the ticket office and the temptation will be too great to just peek at the mosaics though the window. They warrant a better look. There is also a fine selection of artifacts that have been recovered from the harbor over the last decade, which only whets my appetite to someday dive in Alexandria.

Catacombs of Kom es-Shoqafa
Contrary to common sense, everything I had read, and my own gut instinct, I had decided to follow the advice offered by an ex-pat regarding the best way to handle taxis. He suggested that negotiating taxi fare in advance was a mistake that would instantly peg me as a tourist. The thing to do was sit down, enjoy the ride, hand over the going fare at the end of the trip, and calmly walk away. I knew that the trip to the catacombs shouldn't cost more the LE 6-7, but I was more than happy to pay ten. We arrive at our stop and I suggest seven. The driver gave me a look that wasn't so much anger as fatherly concern that I hadn't learned better manners. I sheepishly passed him ten without another word, but then he told me that I owed him twenty. I wasn't having that at all, so the arguing began until I fell back on the reliable "I've lived in Cairo for a year now, I know what taxis cost" and I got away with only a light fleecing. "Fleecing" is all relative, of course, as ten pounds is only a couple of dollars, but to put it in context, I took the municipal tram back into to the center of town from the nearby Pompey's Pillar for slightly under five cents. I will have to discuss somewhere else my rationale for believing that it's important not to overpay too much for cabs. As for the ex-pat, I guess I didn't technically follow his advice exactly, so I can't quite claim that he is a complete and total fraud.

The Catacombs of Kom es-Shoqafa (which means "mound of shards" - it may be time for the Egypian Tourist Board to call in some consultants) is an amazing tomb complex that wasn't discovered until 1900, when a "donkey chariot" (sic) fell into one of the upper levels. You descend via a spiral staircase which, like the rest of the extensive rooms and halls of the catacomb, is carved directly out of the bedrock. Only two levels are accessible, as the bottom level remains under water, but the second level gives a good sense of the place. It's claustrophobic, damp, and a little creepy; all the things a catacomb should be. The decorations, if ever there were any, are mostly gone, except for a few murals visible only under UV light. The main carvings in the central tomb are a strange mixture of Roman, Greek and Egyptian themes - the most interesting being a pair of bas reliefs depicting Sobek and Anubis in Roman armor. It was too dark to get pictures on the cell phone camera, unfortunately, but the internet has gathered plenty if you're interested. Most definitely worth seeing.

On the way out, one of the security guards told be he would let me see the catacomb that was marked by a large "off limits - keep out" sign if I gave him LE 10 baksheesh. I was ready to say no, until I saw a pair of Australian tourists coming out of it giving a thumbs up. I took the money and set off down the passage. It's pretty clear that the reason the place was off limits was because it wasn't much more than a dark, dangerous, empty hole. Australians will give a thumbs up to anything.

Pompey's Pillar

A five minute walk from the catacombs is Pompey's Pillar, so named because medieval travelers were under the impression that the severed head of the Roman general Pompey, who was murdered in Alexandria some time after his defeat by Julius Ceasar in the battle of Pharsalus, was in a jar on top of the column. It is now believed that the column was actually raised by Diocletian more than 200 years later, but the thing is nearly 27 meters high, which maybe explains why it took so long before somebody bothered to disprove this whole head-in-a-jar theory. In any event, the name stuck.

The attendant at the site's ticket booth asked me in perfect English whether I wanted a ticket, to which I sensibly replied "na'am! wahid! min fadlak!" (rough translation: yes! a father! please!). Once again I was complimented on my excellent Arabic, but this time my cryptic reply had evidently impressed them (ticket attendants are never without an entourage) so much that they had to know more, so the group begin to pepper me in Arabic with questions. Where was I from? How long had I studied? Did I like Egypt? Luckily, they were all asking questions at the same time, which allowed me to answer any question I chose, even ones they hadn't asked:

"I live in the borough of Brooklyn in the city of New York."
"I studied the Arabic language in Rabat, Morocco."
"I like strawberries, but I do not like carrots a lot."
"Maybe your pen is on his desk"
"We fly in a good bird yesterday to travel from my apartment to the Cairo, Egypt. He broken!"

I was a great success, and I think the interview could have gone on for some time as long as we talked exclusively about cities I had lived or studied in, since those are the only verbs in which I have complete confidence.

Sadly, I had other plans, I was here to see the pillar! Turns out that it's not a particularly interesting site, but I suppose the Washington Monument in DC has its admirers and they're both operating under more or less the same principle. Given the relative lack of things to see at the site, I was surprised to note that the tourist infrastructure surrounding the pillar was so good, with well-kept paths, effective lighting and useful signage, much better than the other sites I had visited that morning. It looks like someone is trying to show up the Polish Center for Mediterranean Archaeology. I'll bet it's the Germans.