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Okay. Good evening, everybody.

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This is fabulous. So today's lesson is ...

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No what I actually wanted to say was just welcome to this fabulous place in Harris Manchester College.

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And many thanks to the college for having us here.

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I'm Damian Robinson, I'm Professor of Maritime Archaeology here in Oxford, and I'm the Director of the Oxford Centre for Maritime Archaeology.

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I've also worked with tonight's speaker Franck Goddio for a considerable time now.

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And I'm delighted that he's here with us tonight to officially begin our conference:

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Alexandria and the Sea II.

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Alexandria and the Sea I was unfortunately cancelled due to Covid.

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But thanks to the encouragements and the support from our funders at the Hilti Foundation,

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particularly Christine Rhomberg, who nudged us both to get back on with this,

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we're here today in person

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and so it's great that everybody could travel both from Oxford, but also from much wider to be with us.

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So thank you very much for coming here. And the second reason that I'm delighted that Franck is with us today is to

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celebrate the publication of his latest book on the Iseum of Antirhodos Island.

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So this started off as a paper in the online version of Alexandria in the Sea, and then just kind of grew into a book from that.

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And I think what it shows is the value of long term scientific research in the Portus Magnus.

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Franck and his team in the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology,

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where they've been working since 1992, carefully mapping, excavating, studying the finds and now publishing

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this fascinating archaeological site. So for me, it's a privilege to work as part of this vibrant team.

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Tonight, Franck is going to introduce us to another temple, not the Iseum, but the Poseidium, and to situate it within the port and the city.

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So, I can probably feel another book coming on from this. But over to you Franck.

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Franck Goddio: Thank you, Damian, for the nice words,

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and thank you to everybody for your presence. 

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Tonight, I would like to make a presentation of one of the few temples which could have been located in Alexandria.

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Very few temples to date

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were located in Alexandria's ancient city.

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We know about the presence of a temple to Poseidon thanks to Strabo.

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Strabo, in his description of the Portus Magnus said: "The Poseidium, an elbow as it were,

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projecting from the Emporium, as it called, and containing the temple to Poseidon."

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I have always been surprised by this sentence.

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Why is Strabo calling this peninsula Poseidium?

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He could have said the temple of Poseidon is on a peninsula, but he names the peninsula as the Poseidium.

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Thus, he must have had some information about what was this Peninsula.

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And as a matter of fact, doing the survey and the underwater excavation on the Poseidium,

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we were able to discover that that peninsula was much more than bearing a temple and a sanctuary to Poseidon, as you will see further.

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We have the east port of Alexandria, which covers as per today, 668 hectares, which is a huge area.

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And on that area, we have, since 1992, performed a lot of electronic surveys and underwater excavations.

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You can see here on that map a multibeam bathymetric coverage, meaning the relief of the bottom of the sea.

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And you can see the kind of a shadow of what was 

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the Portus Magnus in the antiquity.

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After 20 years of work, we are now able to present a precise map of the contours of the Portus Magnus, as it were, during the Ptolemaic time.

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And we have a version of the Portus Magnus in the Roman time, which changed a little bit.

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You have here the Portus Magnus as it was during the Ptolemaic time,

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at the end of Ptolemaic time.

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The Portus Magnus has been divided by Strabo in two main elements. East of it what he calls the Royal Quarters and west of it,

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the Navalia, the shipyard and trade dock.

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We will focus our interest on the Royal Quarters.

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In the Royal Quarters we have now defined the contour of the sunken land, but also identified several important monuments.

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And of course, you can see here on that map that there is only one peninsula,

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the one described by Strabo, which is in the middle of the Royal Quarters.

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You can see that peninsula on a multibeam bathymetric map here.

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And this peninsula, as you can see, is located between the military ports, which are in the north and a central port,

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which is the emporium port, which has a perfect shape as Kibotos, box.

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But it was not the Kibotos, which was built on the west port of Alexandria.

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That Peninsula is named the Poseidium.

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The underwater excavations will indeed reveal that far from bearing only a temple to this god, Poseidon,

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it was a whole sacred complex, proceeding from a grandiose urban concept which had been created 

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to the glory of this god of primodial importance for Alexandria, of course.

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Let us zoom on the base of that Poseidium, that peninsula here.

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We have here a detailed bathymetric map, multibeam, of the base of this Peninsula. 

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North, you have the military port with some moles and quays, and south the Emporium port.

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And the base of that peninsula covered 3.5 hectares, which is quite a huge area.

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You can see, let us post on that map

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all the red granite columns that have been identified during our survey.

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And sometimes excavation, of course, is not representing all of the red granite columns,

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but you can see the several hundred fragments of red granite columns spotted in that area.

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With my pointer

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you can see here a long line

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in another colour, which is a line of wooden posts.

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Thus, we can say that the whole base of that Poseidium has been reinforced by wooden posts as we will see.

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Let us zoom now to the north part of that base.

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There we were able

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to find and excavate, by spot excavation

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not totally excavated, of course, a 250 m long colonnaded street.

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And the columns on each part of the huge alley,

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that colonnaded street, are red granite columns with moldings at their two extremities.

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And their diameter is 70 to 60 cm each of them.

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But what is very interesting is that

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the base of that colonnaded street is formed by a cofferdam

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made of wooden posts and planking

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retaining a basement [foundation] made of mortar with limestone embedded in the mortar.

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This was done, of course, to have the very solid ground to support all of those red granite columns.

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And what is very impressive is that this pattern is found all alongside that colonnaded street.

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And that colonnaded street you can see here about 250 m of it, but it goes towards what is now the Corniche of Alexandria.

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And it links exactly a spot which is now the centre of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, to the Poseidium.

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It's very fascinating. You can see here a representation of the wooden posts here,

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and of the planking in between the wooden posts and the mortar with limestone embedded into it.

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It's a 300 m cofferdam, beautifully built.

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Here you can see samples of these red granite columns with the two moldings at their extremity here.

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And we have some of them also of 50 cm diameters, in some spots.

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So they were not all of the same diameter and length.

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Of course, we have performed wood identification and a lot of carbon 14 analysis on this wooden posts and planks.

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Most of the posts are from Ulmus, imported wood, and the dating seems quite early in the Ptolemaic time.

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Same for the planks, Ulmus, which have dating, 

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perfectly coherent, very early in the Ptolemaic time.

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Thus, this base of this colonnaded street has been created early in the Ptolemaic time.

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Now, let us go towards the south west.

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That long colonnaded street is leading to a vast square, an agora, a beautifully paved square.

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And here also we have a very peculiar foundation pattern. Around the square is exactly the same foundation made with cofferdam 

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and mortar with limestone embedded into it. In the middle of this agora, are only wooden posts but not mortar. And to the periphery of that agora

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you have, of course, to consider that the red granite columns, which are represented by pink spots,

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have fallen and are not in their exact position, original position.

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But you can see that this agora was surrounded with colonnaded columns.

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A very interesting thing also we can say about the pavement.

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Inserted among the pavement we found

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ancient anchors. We have excavated 15 % of that agora, and on the 15 % area we found 45 of those ancient anchors.

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Thus the relation with Poseidon is here

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quite interesting. Ancient anchors were used among the pavement

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to make the flooring of that

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vast Agora here. 

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We have done also analysis on the wood which was in the middle of that agora and reinforced with

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wooden posts and planking, the ground of the Agora, but not on the periphery. 

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At the periphery, we had exactly the same patterns than the colonnaded street and in the middle,

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the wooden posts, most of them were from cedar, Cedrus libani, an imported and a very expensive wood at the time, and as the planking was of pine.

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And the dating fits exactly with the dating of the foundation of the colonnaded street:

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very early Ptolemaic time.

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Thus, we are here in presence of an infrastructure which has been conceived at the beginning of Ptolemaic time, third or early second century BC.

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Seeing from afar, you have this colonnaded street leading to the agora,

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but you can see here that south of the agora you have evidence of very important archaeological remains.

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And we will zoom into that square now. You have here the bathymetry of that area which you give a 10 cm accuracy.

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But in order to have a better view of it, we have done a generous stereo-photogrammetry of the whole area, 70 by 50 m, which represent,

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I think, about 18,000 pictures taken by Christoph Gerigk, which were assembled, and we have a very clear vision of that area.

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You can see there

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quite well organised vestiges, inside that rectangle here.

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And we have performed excavation.

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And we discovered that it is the remains of a very important monument.

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The centre of that monument is founded on a mortar base.

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Very important mortar base, 1.5 m thick.

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All around that mortar base you have the remains of the limestone blocks of the monument.

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And south and southwest of it,

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you have all alongside that monument fragments of the columns,

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which were proceeding from that monument, and which collapsed towards the south-southwest.

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Interesting also if you can follow my pointer,

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we were here, of course, under this mortar block we cannot excavate because it's a huge mortar block that we have no access under.

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But here as the mortar has been totally dismantled during an earthquake, obviously, we could find wooden posts.

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Which were reinforcing the ground, most probably everywhere under that mortar.

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We could prove it here with several rows of posts and a little bit here and there with the remains of some wooden posts, if you follow my pointer.

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And we have a very impressive amount of red granite columns proceeding from the temple.

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Yes, the presence of this mortar foundation

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with limestone embedded into it

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is consistent with the construction practices,

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particularly in region with unfavourable

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of course, or unstable soil conditions, which is attested here, of course, by the presence of wooden posts and planking

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which are reinforcing the ground.

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The hydraulic mortar was perfectly well adapted, of course, given the proximity of the sea and also the high ground water level.

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We were able, with the excavation, to draw a layout of that monument, which is developed between here and nearly 50 m long.

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And from the stereo-photogrammetry,

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if you follow my pointer, you can see here the evidence of a large square, which is covered with a mortar,

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and assuming of it you have a very well organised remain of limestone ashlars, which are the remains, of course, of the crepidoma.

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Now, we were able to register, to list, all the fragments of the red granite columns, and we were surprised, because those columns are from different diameters.

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The great number of columns

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have diameter 85 to 80 cm.

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We have also fragments of 75 to 70 cm.

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Fragment to 65 to 60 cm.

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And we go even down to 55 to 50 cm,

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35 to 30 cm. The ashlars are all the same: 

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1.20m x 50 x 50 cm. Very well calibrated,

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beautifully preserved. In another place of the Portus Magnus, at the tip of the Royal Island of Antirhodos

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we had the chance to discover intact columns.

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Intact red granite columns similar to those here.

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But the length of that column is 5.6 m and its diameter ranged from 83 to 80 cm,

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and the ratio length, diameter length, gives us a ratio of seven.

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Thus, a column of 80 cm had about 5.6 m length.

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Well, and of course, a column of 60 to 65 cm were 4.2 to 4.5 m long.

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Of course, this is a hypothesis, but taking into account that the columns are all alongside that temple,

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we can assess with certainty that it was a peripteral temple,

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meaning a temple surrounded with columns, you did not have only the columns only at this facade but all around this temple.

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And those columns must be, of course, the biggest ones, which fit perfectly,

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the columns of 85 to 80 cm diameter with a length of about 6 m, more or less.

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Then, where could we put in this case, distribute the columns?

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First, taking into account the diameter of the columns, 85 to 80 cm, the biggest ones,

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and taking into account a reasonable intercolumniation distance between the axis of two columns,

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most probably this temple had eight columns on each facade. Thus, it was most probably an Octostyle Peripteral temple

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surrounded by the columns. The 75 to 70 cm columns, in this case, must have been on each part of the temple, first on the Pronaos,

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if you followed my pointer,

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and it does correspond nicely with the place where we found them around here, and here 

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on what could have been the Opisthodomos.

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Though we are not sure whether the Pronaos was towards the southeast or towards the northwest,

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because, of course, during excavation, we were not able to have that type of a precision.

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But we will see that we can draw some hypothesis after.

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Where to put the columns of 65 to 60 cm diameter? Most probably in the cella.

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And this would have given, more or less, because fragments are of course missing,

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which has been recuperated and most probably there were intact columns which had been recuperated during centuries.

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Most probably we had there six columns in a row, meaning 12 columns in the cella of 65 cm diameter.

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These are hypotheses, but also most probable hypothesis, taking into account what is left on the ground.

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And the dimension of the basis of the temple, the Crepidoma, was of 43.5 m to 18.5 m,

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which is quite a sizeable temple, and the sanctuary by itself was 35.5 by 11 m there.

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Another interesting feature is that towards the southwest you have several mortar blocks, or a very big mortar block, 

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which has been destroyed during an earthquake in the axis of the sanctuary.

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And of course, one of the hypotheses could be that this was the main altar for the temple, of course, the altars of Greek temples

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were outside, as in the temple here. It would fit quite nicely.

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And in this case, the temple would have been open towards the south east.

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Which means, towards the city. The direction of the temple is exactly 

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southeast northwest on the southeast - northwest axis.

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The question, of course, is the identity of the temple. Very few artefacts

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have been found of the temple, but we are on the peninsula, and it's the only important monument spotted in that peninsula.

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Thus, we can say with near certainty that we are in the presence of the temple of Poseidon, which was a very important sanctuary.

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Now, the question arises whether this temple was opened towards the northwest or the southeast.

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Of course, the presence of those mortar blocks towards the southeast could lead us to say,

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okay, it's open towards the southeast, but you will see further,

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that other elements could challenge this conclusion.

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We made, of course, wood analysis and carbon 14 analysis on the wooden posts

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and here we were surprised. We are no longer in the early Ptolemaic time, but we are early Roman time.

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Thus, when Strabo came to Alexandria it was between 26 and 20 BC,

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according to the prefect, which was in Alexandria in Egypt at that time.

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And of course, when he's talking about the temple to Poseidon, he is describing a Ptolemaic temple.

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Thus, most probably, we have here something which has been rebuilt during Roman times.

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The artefacts are more or less confirming the dating.

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We have very few ceramics from the beginning of the first century AD.  

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Very few artefacts, some semi-precious red stone, a little bit of jewellery,

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a nice ring which was left and escaped to the looting and quite a lot of tokens, lead tokens, which were of no interest for the looters.

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And as everywhere in all sanctuaries that we are excavating, whether in Aboukir Bay in Thonis-Heracleion,

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Canopus or in Alexandria, everywhere, small bits of gold, very strange, jewellery scattered everywhere.

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Now we have also the question where ...
 
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First, the temple we are in the presence of today

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of the remains of the temple,

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are, obviously, not the temple Strabo was describing, but most probably we could

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suggest that a temple which has been destroyed,

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or which was too old at the time of early Imperial period, has been rebuilt on the same site, more or less in the middle of the fourth century BC environment.

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We have here the temple, and in white 

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you have the axis of the temple towards the northwest.

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Let us see now what is towards the northwest in that area here. Just here.

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Here the multibeam bathymetry show you that there are some interesting remains.

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And we performed several excavations on that area.

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We found out that it is a vast rectangle surrounded with very nice limestone ashlars exactly of the same dimensions

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than the ones of the temple 1.20 m by 50 cm by 50 cm.

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But we can think maybe that was a monument there.

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But we were surprised when we excavated.

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There was no remain whatsoever except a vast rectangle filled with sand.

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Only if you follow. But we see after.

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And first we took away the sand.

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And after 1 to 1.2 m of sterile sand, there is a 40 cm thick layer of calcareous deposits in the nodular concretions,

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and thick crusts forming massive layers of carbonate incrustations of tubular fabric from freshwater animals.

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Thus, during centuries, most probably

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this rectangle, surrounded by a very nicely built wall, was filled with fresh water.

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Because all those concretions correspond to formation in a freshwater environment.

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We can say and assert that we are in the presence of a lake, a lake nearly 2 m deep here,

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1.8 m deep, etc, because under the concretions, you find the bedrock.

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Nothing else., flat bedrock. 

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00:36:00,380 --> 00:36:03,980
Thus seen from afar, you have

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the colonnaded street, the agora, and here the temple, and just in the axis

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00:36:14,020 --> 00:36:21,490
of the temple, of exactly the same dimension of the crepidoma of the temple,

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was the lake.

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00:36:33,790 --> 00:36:45,490
Now in that lake, northwest of it, there is a very large, thick broken block, 6 by 6 m and 1.5 m high.

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It's huge. It has been broken during an earthquake, only an earthquake can break such a thing.

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And it does correspond to a massive base or basement [foundation].

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And it's exactly centred on the axis of the temple and of the lake.

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And in the middle of the lake here we have, but much smaller,

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Some collapse mortar blocks. And we have done excavations

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00:37:23,890 --> 00:37:31,900
in the lake, where we have discovered here three fragments of a marble colossal statue.

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And here, an element of an obelisk.

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This fragment of an obelisk, most probably proceeding from Heliopolis,

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dates back from Sethi the 1st and very interesting enough we see another fragment of that obelisk 

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00:38:04,300 --> 00:38:09,820
have been found much further towards the shore at,

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the northwest, at that site can see here the fragment of the obelisk and one of the colossal fragments of a statue,

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which was absolutely so eroded that it's absolutely unidentified.

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Here it looks like an elbow or something, but very difficult to identify.

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00:38:38,170 --> 00:38:44,440
But there is something very interesting. We are here in the middle of the peninsula.

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That peninsula when the temple has been destroyed,

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most probably in the 4th century A.D., because nothing on that peninsula is more recent than

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the end of 4th century A.D. We have here an earthquake in 365, which could correspond very well to the destruction of that monument.

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But what is interesting is that that peninsula, have obviously been above water for

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quite a lot of centuries.

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00:39:32,570 --> 00:39:38,060
Most probably it a sunk in the 8th century, but it was totally abandoned.

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In some place we found Byzantine gold coins,

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but it was at the extremity of it.

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Thus, if we are not on the seashore,

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most probably, the remains of those monuments, the colossal statue and the obelisk, were not far from their original place.

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Whereas, on the western part of the coastline of the eastern port of Alexandria.

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other remains of the same order, meaning fragments of fasciculated columns, obelisks,

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sphinxes, architraves, lintels, have been discovered.

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But they were alongside the sea shore and they were all coming from

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ancient destroyed sanctuaries. And they were thrown there to protect from marine erosion,

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the monuments which were built along the coast at a much later period.

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But here we are not on the seashore thus there is not a single reason why an element of an obelisk and other 

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red granite fragments that we found, would have been thrown in the middle of port.

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Thus, we can say that most probably the obelisk here was not far from its original place.

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If we see the map, you have the lake, the basement,

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the basement here, the colossal statue here and the obelisk there.

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00:41:30,990 --> 00:41:41,219
It's of course tempting to say that the original obelisk was exactly on that basement.

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because you correspond very well to the falling direction for all the columns and all the ashlars of the temple.

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But it's an assumption of course. But seen from afar

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we have a very interesting fact: 

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You can see here, if you follow my pointer, the temple.

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the lake, the basement. Exactly on the same axis.

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But look north of that. The axis of the colonnaded street

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crosses, exactly the two axes

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at the basement point. Thus, it cannot be a random thing.

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00:42:39,490 --> 00:42:47,050
It has to be... It was done in purpose, of course, because you have a 300m

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colonnaded street, leading to an agora and in the axis of the colonnaded street, a very big base which would have supported... what?  It could be an altar?

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00:43:06,140 --> 00:43:10,210
It could be a colossal statue? It could be an obelisk?

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00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:16,670
This is up to our imagination, of course,

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but there was something very big here which could have been seen from more than 300 m away.

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This 3D would 

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show you how those

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00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:46,260
arrangements of monuments and colonnaded street

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were done with the temple, the peripteral octostyle temple 

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the lake, the big base, and this colonnaded street, the agora.

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00:44:00,750 --> 00:44:04,230
Here there is no assumption, there are just facts.

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00:44:04,710 --> 00:44:11,730
After this, we can have some assumption that here, except for, of course,

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the pattern of the temple, which was most probably looking like this one.

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00:44:17,340 --> 00:44:24,240
There are just archaeological facts. Let us go further.

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Let us follow the same axis because it looks interesting to follow that axis here.

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00:44:30,330 --> 00:44:36,180
Let us go northwest where you see the round red circle here.

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00:44:37,720 --> 00:44:42,390
What is there? Very interesting thing!

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00:44:42,960 --> 00:44:47,750
We have archaeological remains here, but it's not organized.

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00:44:48,130 --> 00:44:53,550
It's very... it has been heavily looted and very perturbated.

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00:44:54,000 --> 00:45:08,430
But there are columns of 30 cm of diameter, which are... it's not big, it corresponds to a column of 2.2, 2.5m high.

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00:45:08,460 --> 00:45:19,690
Thus we are on the small, with a small column capital fitting with them and all around we found interesting remains

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00:45:19,690 --> 00:45:26,510
also. You will see. We found in the ground,

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00:45:27,050 --> 00:45:32,030
under the pavement, some bronze statuettes,

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00:45:35,050 --> 00:45:38,770
or elements, broken elements of bronze statuettes,

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00:45:38,770 --> 00:45:42,570
everywhere. The ceramic…

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00:45:42,580 --> 00:45:49,270
it's extremely poor in ceramics. Thus, the ceramics we found were really at the bottom layer.

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00:45:49,270 --> 00:45:52,550
Thus, it doesn't date at all, dates at all

317
00:45:52,630 --> 00:45:56,350
that sanctuary when it has been destroyed

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00:45:56,350 --> 00:46:07,930
because the upper level has been totally eroded by the waves and the swell and what remains is only the heavy elements which were in the ground 

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which has disappeared. I forgot to say that more or less 3 m of ground have been disappearing from the erosion.

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00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:23,680
And, on the lower level, we are finding ceramics from

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00:46:23,680 --> 00:46:33,100
the very early Ptolemaic time, end of 4th century, very beginning of 3rd century here.

322
00:46:33,430 --> 00:46:45,550
Small elements and bits of broken bronze statuettes, head of a priest.

323
00:46:47,300 --> 00:46:54,620
Very impressive. It's a beautiful head of a priest and sphinxes.

324
00:46:54,620 --> 00:46:57,770
Two sphinxes of quartzite. 

325
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:10,290
Again, a small bronze statuette that most probably, this could be, very well, Poseidon. And at the same scale,

326
00:47:12,130 --> 00:47:16,510
a finger, bronze finger from a colossal statue.

327
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:20,850
Very impressive, colossal statue. Thus, we are, 

328
00:47:20,980 --> 00:47:27,930
here, most probably on a small temple devoted to Poseidon.

329
00:47:27,980 --> 00:47:38,320
What is interesting to see is the position of that temple here, which is very close to the quay of the military port,

330
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:45,309
and those small statuettes were, are not of exquisite qualities,

331
00:47:45,310 --> 00:47:52,600
they are nice, but must have been presents and donations to that small sanctuary here.

332
00:47:52,840 --> 00:47:59,440
But again, you can see that on a line, you have the temple to Poseidon,

333
00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:03,100
the lake, the base and another small temple.

334
00:48:06,380 --> 00:48:10,160
Thus, we have here a 3D representation.

335
00:48:10,460 --> 00:48:19,610
Of course, the small temple, we just can... it's represented here as... only,

336
00:48:19,610 --> 00:48:24,349
to show that there was a temple there, but we don't know it's shape

337
00:48:24,350 --> 00:48:29,120
we know only that the columns were 30 cm in diameter,

338
00:48:29,120 --> 00:48:33,650
red granite columns. But you can see, it's a whole

339
00:48:34,790 --> 00:48:43,760
ensemble of monuments which were on the base of that Poseidium.

340
00:48:44,480 --> 00:48:57,050
And of course, we have now, if you see from far, how to reintegrate the obelisk and the colossal statue.

341
00:48:57,560 --> 00:49:07,130
We are here in an hypothesis and imagination, of course, but we could think of an obelisk here,

342
00:49:07,850 --> 00:49:13,910
which this disposition has a very strong Roman flavor.

343
00:49:13,970 --> 00:49:24,020
Because, of course, during the Egyptian time an obelisk would not have been used as a focal point like that.
 
344
00:49:24,530 --> 00:49:32,130
Okay, if there were one obelisk only, most probably that obelisk was on the main base,

345
00:49:32,150 --> 00:49:38,090
that we found, and which is here, because there are two bases that we have here.

346
00:49:38,090 --> 00:49:48,070
But could it be also an altar? It could be, in this case, the temple will be open towards the lake and the altar.

347
00:49:48,080 --> 00:49:52,370
And it will be a very interesting set. If we go back...

348
00:49:53,120 --> 00:50:05,300
here we have: a small temple, an altar, a lake with most probably a colossal statue of Poseidon, of course, and the temple of Poseidon.

349
00:50:05,680 --> 00:50:12,560
Thus, the question remains whether this temple is turned towards the northwest or towards the southeast?

350
00:50:12,890 --> 00:50:23,770
Towards the southeast, it's interesting because most of the Poseidon temples are oriented towards the southeast, that it's in Greece and the

351
00:50:23,780 --> 00:50:34,940
temples were always oriented toward a maritime horizon, which here the maritime horizon is towards the northeast, not the towards the southeast.

352
00:50:35,240 --> 00:50:44,150
Thus the question remains, if we have this obelisk here, we could dream, of course, of a colossal statue of Poseidon there.

353
00:50:44,180 --> 00:50:48,950
But these are mere suppositions.

354
00:50:51,890 --> 00:50:57,920
But let us go further because that axis seems quite interesting.

355
00:50:57,920 --> 00:51:09,140
Why don't we go along side that axis and let us go much further towards the axis of the temple and of the lake?

356
00:51:10,820 --> 00:51:22,790
Here. It just hit a spot where, this is of course to be challenged and there has been quite a challenge,

357
00:51:23,180 --> 00:51:28,130
on the spot where the lighthouse could have been.

358
00:51:29,960 --> 00:51:33,230
In any case, that temple was oriented,

359
00:51:34,750 --> 00:51:41,230
the axis of that temple was going towards the entrance of the Portus Magnus, which makes sense.

360
00:51:41,560 --> 00:51:46,209
Here you have the maritime horizon for this temple to Poseidon.

361
00:51:46,210 --> 00:51:51,110
But, if ever the lighthouse 

362
00:51:51,120 --> 00:51:55,950
was there with a statue of the saviour

363
00:51:56,040 --> 00:52:02,360
god on it, you will have the temple, the lake,

364
00:52:03,970 --> 00:52:14,290
a monument under the temple and the maritime horizon would have been the most famous maritime horizon of that time:

365
00:52:15,860 --> 00:52:21,300
the lighthouse of Alexandria. 

366
00:52:22,500 --> 00:52:26,130
Thus, I think it's worth to think

367
00:52:27,260 --> 00:52:34,770
and to see what could have been the Arrangement

368
00:52:35,940 --> 00:52:45,600
of this peninsula and this could explain why Strabo is talking about, not about the peninsula

369
00:52:46,670 --> 00:52:50,240
an elbow of land, the Poseidium,

370
00:52:51,580 --> 00:52:56,710
which bears the temple of Poseidon but not only the temple of Poseidon, 

371
00:52:57,010 --> 00:53:00,760
it was a whole grandiose

372
00:53:01,810 --> 00:53:12,070
urban arrangement with the colonnaded street, the agora paved with limestone

373
00:53:12,070 --> 00:53:15,790
anchors, the temple to Poseidon, the lake,

374
00:53:16,210 --> 00:53:19,700
most probably a colossal statue of Poseidon,

375
00:53:19,720 --> 00:53:27,520
another monument, a small temple and 1.5 km after,

376
00:53:27,880 --> 00:53:31,480
exactly, very precisely,

377
00:53:31,600 --> 00:53:36,990
to 0.5 of a degree, maybe the lighthouse.

378
00:53:44,440 --> 00:53:51,440
Thus, I can say that the base of the peninsula of the Poseidium.

379
00:53:51,440 --> 00:53:58,520
was developed as a vast sacred area dedicated to the saviour god, Poseidon

380
00:53:58,940 --> 00:54:01,999
in a grandiose architectural and urban
 
381
00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:06,110
planning concept

382
00:54:07,330 --> 00:54:10,690
with more than 300 m colonnaded street,

383
00:54:11,020 --> 00:54:20,200
the agora, the lake, the temple, a small temple near by the quay, where people could do their offering to the saviour God,

384
00:54:21,010 --> 00:54:31,270
and there, the archaeology provides elements which complete and analyse Strabo’s formulation concerning the peninsula of the Poseidon

385
00:54:32,380 --> 00:54:42,370
dedicated to this saviour god, which was of a pristine importance, of course, for the Portus Magnus of Alexandria.

386
00:54:42,580 --> 00:54:45,940
And, in this glass intaglio,

387
00:54:46,420 --> 00:54:50,080
you can see here, Poseidon

388
00:54:50,950 --> 00:55:01,960
And the lighthouse in between Isis and Poseidon, which were, of course, two major gods, Isis protecting the fleet.

389
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:15,950
and Poseidon, of course, the saviour god having a whole consecrated area on the peninsula which was in the centre of the royal quarters.

390
00:55:16,980 --> 00:55:32,800
Thank you very much.