Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa

Interesting facts

The three sarcophagi have lids that cannot be lifted; the bodies are thought to have been placed inside from behind, via a passage circling the tomb chamber.

The serpents guarding the main tomb carry a Roman caduceus and a Greek thyrsus, wear the Egyptian double crown and are topped by shields bearing Medusa's head.

Statues of a man and a woman flank the tomb door: his body has a stiff Egyptian pose with a Greek-style head, and she wears a Roman hairstyle.

A side chamber known as the Hall of Caracalla yielded the bones of horses as well as of people.

In the so-called Persephone tomb, an Egyptian mummification scene sits directly above a Greek-style relief of the abduction of Persephone.

The tomb facade combines Egyptian papyrus, lotus and acanthus capitals with a winged sun disc flanked by Horus falcons.

Archaeologists think the complex was first meant for a single family, though it is unclear why it was later enlarged to hold many more burials.

The tombs stayed in use for about two centuries, from the 2nd to the 4th century AD, before they were forgotten.

Side panels in the main tomb show the sacred Apis bull receiving offerings, beside the central scene of Anubis embalming the dead.

Why it is worth it

The Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa are the largest Roman-era burial complex in Egypt and one of the strangest: a tomb where Egyptian gods wear Roman armour. Cut into the bedrock of Alexandria in the second century AD, they lay forgotten until 1900, when, as the story goes, a donkey fell through the ground into the access shaft. The name means "mound of shards", after the heaps of broken pottery left by visitors who broke the jars and dishes they had brought for meals in honour of the dead.

A spiral staircase winds down a circular shaft to a rotunda with six pillars. From here passages lead to a triclinium, a banqueting hall with benches cut from the rock where families gathered for commemorative feasts, and deeper into galleries lined with burial niches for burials. The complex descends over three levels to about 35 metres; the lowest has long been flooded by groundwater.

The heart of the complex is the main tomb, which gathers Egypt, Greece and Rome in one small space. Three stone sarcophagi are carved with reliefs; the Agathodaemon, the good spirit, appears as a serpent bearing both the double crown of Egypt and the caduceus of Hermes; and inside, Anubis appears dressed as a Roman legionary, while reliefs show a mummy on a lion-shaped bed attended by Egyptian gods. It is this mixture, carved with confidence rather than confusion, that makes the catacombs a unique record of Alexandria's cosmopolitan past. They have been counted among the Seven Wonders of the Middle Ages.

Getting there

The catacombs are in the Karmouz district on the western side of central Alexandria, about 500 metres from Pompey's Pillar, and about 2 km from the listed city point. Alexandria International Airport (HBE) at Borg el Arab is about 35 km away. Taxis are the simplest way to reach the site from the city centre or the Corniche.

Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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