The Pharos Lighthouse

Welcome, my name is Dr. George Sparks and you are watching Bible Interact TV. Today I'm going to share with you something that I feel is exciting. Many people collect lighthouses, little model lighthouses, over hundreds of varieties to choose from. I think one in particular stands out the most and it is called the Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria. It was built over 2,300 years ago and it stood for almost 1,500 years before it was actually destroyed by earthquakes. That's what I'd like to share with you today, so stick with me and let's have some fun. The story of the Pharos starts with the founding of the city of Alexandria by the Macedonian conqueror Alexander the Great in 332 BC. Alexander started at least 17 cities named after himself, Alexandria, at different locations in his vast domain. Most of them disappeared, but Alexandria in Egypt thrived for many centuries and it is even prosperous today. Alexander himself died in 323 BC and the city was completed by his predecessor Ptolemy Sostar, the new ruler of Egypt. Ptolemy authorized the building of Pharos in 290 BC and then when it was completed some 20 years later, it was the first lighthouse in the world and the tallest building in existence except for the Great Pyramid of Egypt. Both of these ancient man-made constructions were not passed in height into the building of the Eiffel Tower in 1887. We have two pictures, the Pyramids of Giza I'm sure you're familiar with and also the Eiffel Tower and remember the pyramids were probably about 400 feet high. The lighthouse of Alexandria, sometimes called the Pharos of Alexandria, was a lighthouse built by the Ptolemy kingdom and stood between ancient records say 394 to 449 feet tall and those do vary in ancient records as basically also listed as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. It was one of the longest surviving ancient wonders after the Great Pyramid which still stand until 1480 when the last of the remnant stones were used to build a citadel or actually a fortress on that exact location and site. There were three stages each built on top one another. The building material was stone faced with white marble blocks cemented together with lead mortar. The lowest level of the building which sat on a 20 foot high stone platform was probably about 240 feet high and 100 feet square at base shaped like a massive box. The door to the section of the building wasn't at the bottom of the structure but part way up and it reached it was reached by a 600 foot ramp supported by massive arches. Inside this portion of the structure was a large spiral ramp that allowed materials to be pulled to the top using animal drawn carts. Here's another picture of an artist's reconstruction of the Lighthouse of Alexandria. This was a mausoleum built representing the lighthouse. A more modern representation showing you different levels and the statues surrounding the lighthouse as well as a statue of Poseidon at the very apex of the structure. On the top of the first section was an eight-sided tower which is probably about 115 feet in height. On the top of the tower was a cylinder that extended up another 60 feet with a fire that provided the light burn. On the roof was a large statue probably the god of the sea Poseidon. Here we have a few coins the lighthouse coin of Alexandria from the second century AD. So at this time the lighthouse has already stood for 500 years before these coins were actually struck. The first one Antonin Pius and the second one Commodus. I was hoping to actually bring that coin of Commodus here to show you a very good example of it. I think just as good as the quality in the picture. However I couldn't get it. But if you stay with the program I'm going to share with you some really nice artifacts at the end. Close-up of some of the ancient coins of pharaohs. Here you can see the statues at the different levels especially possibly one of Poseidon at the top. And also we have mosaic representations. This one from the century AD. Once again you can see the god Poseidon at the top along with another statue. The second one of a mosaic as you can see the different levels of the lighthouse. Of course the largest is at the bottom supporting the others like a like a birthday cake if you will. This last one right here is a lantern. A lantern isn't a lamp it actually holds the lamp. So that opening that you see the very large square opening is where they would place the lamp. The little holes around it perforating the terra cotta were there to let air flow through it but not too much as if to put out the light of the lamp which would be inside. The very hole at the top of the lamp or this lantern was used so was there so it could be actually hung when it was being used. The interior of the upper two sections had a shaft with a dumbwaiter that was used to transport fuel up to the fire. The staircases allowed visitors and the keepers to climb to the beacon chamber at the top. There according to reports a large curved mirror perhaps made of polished bronze was used to project the fire into a beam. So it's a fire light projected into a beam of light. It was said that ships could detect the light from the tower at night or the smoke from the fire during the day up to 100 miles away. That's probably greatly exaggerated. Other historians such as Josephus stated that it could be seen about 35 miles. Other historians mentioned 50 miles and also the historian Josephus states that the Jewish Septuagint was actually written on the island of Pharos. We have that tradition as well. An ancient bronze lamp. Here we have a lamp. I'm going to show you another one in the artifacts today. A mirror of the ancient world which is usually metal but was highly polished. Another form of a mirror was mercury that was actually used or implanted behind glass. If you're familiar with some of the Roman traditions of gods we have one which was the Narcissus. The Narcissus was actually viewing himself into a pool of water but also holding a mirror. So a mirror could be also used as a symbol sometimes of vanity. Here we have another artifact of a mirror. This is actually like a compact. You've got two handles and then it opens up so you have a place to hold it. Of course a female some makeup on one side but and then a polished mirror on the other. So it's kind of like what we would say today an ancient compact case. The lighthouse was apparently used also as a tourist attraction. Food was sold to visitors at the observation platform at the top of the first level. A smaller balcony provided an outlook from the top of the eight-sided tower for those that wanted to climb or make the additional climb. The view from there must have been spectacular seeing that it might have been as high as 300 feet above the sea level. So how was the lighthouse of Alexander actually destroyed? So the destruction. How then did the world's first lighthouse end up at the floor of the Mediterranean Sea? Most accounts indicate that it like many other ancient buildings was the victim of earthquakes. It stood for 1,500 years apparently surviving a tsunami that hit the eastern Mediterranean in 365 AD with only minor damage. After that however trimmers might have been responsible for cracks that appeared at the structure at the end of the 10th century and required restoration that lowered the height of the building by as much as 70 feet. Then in 1303 AD a major earthquake shook the region that put Pharaoh's permanently out of business. Egyptian records indicate that the final collapse occurred in 1375. The ruins remained on the site for some time until around 1480 when much of the building stones were used to construct a fortress or citadel on the island's exact site where the lighthouse once stood. Here we have pictures of the citadel and fortress used from the stones of the Alexandria lighthouse. In 1994 French archaeologists discovered some remains of the lighthouse on the floor of Alexandria's eastern harbor. The ministry of the state of antiquities in Egypt has planned as late as 2015 to turn the submerged ruins of the ancient Alexandria including those of Pharaoh's into an underwater museum. Wouldn't that be kind of nice for a trip if you took classes in scuba diving and you also visited the remains of Pharaoh's where the citadel stood and then you went out into the harbor which I think is possibly only like 30 maybe 60 feet deep at the max so that's not that far down to actually scuba dive and see the ancient remains of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world I think that would be pretty fantastic. Here we have an underwater archaeologist and he is looking at an ancient sphinx. One thing we found out also about some of the structures being uncovered in the harbor was that they moved some ancient Egyptian you can say statues around Pharaoh's the lighthouse for decoration so the sometimes such as the sphinx and other monuments were much much older than the lighthouse but they were actually moved there to decorate the lighthouse for cosmetic purposes maybe to make it look more Egyptian. Here once again an underwater view you can see a scuba diver in the background and possibly some ancient columns looks like he's scuba diving around a giant chess set like those look like little palms and then we have some blocks the block in the center facing up you can see a little ridge around the outside of the stone and we call that a boss where they finish it down supposed to be a type of decoration boss b-o-s-s so around the stone is a boss so if you ever hear that term used this is what they're talking about and this is what it's used how it's being seen. Other stones you can see the long stones the depending on where they are placed in a structure where they're placed long ways facing towards you so you got the narrow end of the stone facing towards you and then if they're in facing toward your breath you're seeing the length of the stone we got two terminologies for that if you can see just the front part of the stone the narrow part of the stone if you will that's called the header and then if you see the length of the stone that's called the stretcher so just think of stretch the top of the stone facing towards you header the length of the stone a stretcher the decoration around the stone is called a boss here we have a column facing towards you once again you can see scuba divers scuba divers in the background at this vast underwater today an underwater museum so right now if you would you join me over at some of the artifacts that i have sitting out dating from the greek period and also the hellenistic period and roman period so we can date them probably around 500 hellenistic period 300 roman period 100 to around 200 and also the byzantine period so 600 a.d so let's go over to the the room of a thousand artifacts and i'll show you what we have this first vessel that i have is actually called a lucky toast it's possibly used to store perfume you can see this checkerboard display right here design very very common artistic design in the ancient world the type of base that we have it's kind of an odd base it's not really what i would call ring base but it's not really a flat base and it's not really a fluted base so we just just call it a different base but this is a base on what we call lucky toast what they would use for a stopper maybe stone cork cloth and here we have a drinking cup the handles are on the top so this is what we would call a sky phos on both sides is a picture of an owl probably representing the goddess athena and then on the base we do have a ring base here once again what is the ring base well if i would wet this slightly wet it make it moist and lay it down on a cloth let it sit pick it up and you picked up the cloth you would see a ring so this means a ring base if it was completely flat if we put some moisture on it and laid it down on the cloth and picked up the cloth you would see a big circular structure and this would be called a flat base we could say a flat ring base but so we got a ring base and then you could have a flat base this comes from the hellenistic period so beginning with alexander the great so we're dating this to at least the third century bc this would be used to store perfume it has what we call black slip on it used for decoration over the black slip we have these different types of ring designs black and it looks like maybe at one time white but however right now it looks gray but for the type of artifact that you're seeing here is called a spindle bottle looks like a little spindle bottle right and here we have a flat base can you see the flat base so once again if i wet this and lay it down on a piece of paper and pick it up you're going to see a little flat disc if i'd wet this particular sky foes and laid it down on a piece of paper and picked up the paper you would see a ring a ring base what is this one we called it a different base meaning i'm not sure all right now let's look at some hellenistic plates usually hellenistic plates are i would say actually kind of like poorly made in some common instances i mean the common pottery used it's not really spectacular here we have a red slip on the back of it looks like it's either a black slip or it's just been burned okay but if you look at the slip itself you can see where it just looks like it's been dipped it looks like it's just run over this thing looks like it has drip marks so it's not that well designed so maybe because it's common they would just dip it in a stain or a slip and let it dry or drip dry and this is the this is the design from that period however if you can see the sides of this vessel i'll hold it like this here you can see a curvature the curvature is made on the potter's wheel and we call this carination a carinated vessel means it's curved and it's going to have different types of curvatures usually around you can say the mid section of the vessel you'll see the curvature whether it be a bowl or maybe some type of dipper juglet okay i'll show you another plate very common to what we might have today once again if you look right here you'll see how it's red you can see this slip but down here the slip is missing like it was just dipped set out to dry and that's it if you look very carefully you can see where it's actually been spun on the potter's wheel you can see the potter's marks over here you can see the different wheel indications this shows up pretty much in the Hellenistic period you see these imprints where they are pressing down on the clay it shows up even more it's thicker and deeper during the Herodian period the Roman period and then we get to the Byzantine period these gyrations in the pottery where the wheel marks where they're pressing down the clay is even thicker and harder in the Byzantine period once again let's flip this over a ring base a ring base the red color is called the slip because of the design and the way that is presented in other words it's it's just not that well made it's very good indication that this is of course the Hellenistic period okay now we'll put these two together the slip the darkness of the slip possibly where it was burned also the potter's marks where they were pressing down the clay was spun on the wheel and also a ring base so here's easier to see in the center you can see a depression possibly used to hold a cup a saucer and a cup this one really doesn't have a carinated design on it like we would see with the smaller vessel however it does have a ring base but this one's kind of cool just because it does have that little center place where you can put your cup if you two different periods I'll be cheating so something like that it would be neat to have the cup that went with it though that'd be that would be a nice display so we could put these dishes on top stack them Hellenistic period with the spindle bottle on the top now let's look at something else in the lecture of Pharaoh's lighthouse I mentioned that the light was projected into a beam by it had to be extremely large piece of polished bronze polished bronze so we didn't have mirrors like you have today which really gave you a good reflection of yourself in the new testament I believe it's the apostle Paul that says and it's just a short phrase we dimly look into a mirror so when it says we dimly look into a mirror sometimes we think of ourselves in a contemporary situation looking into a contemporary mirror which gives a good reflection but you can see by the mirrors of the ancient culture that you got to maintain a very highly polished surface to give any type of reflection now this is a bronze mirror but it has silver plating it might have had some kind of cover on it a place that you would place the box they found I think it was in a book called the cave of letters written by Yagel Yadin in the cave of letters they found a lamp but the lamp was also in a box it was a very decorative box but understand it's going to take a lot of polishing and in a humid environment right this would tint over pretty quickly so they probably kept it in a box and handled it just by the you can see this end piece right here which would have had a handle attached to so a wood handle has since deteriorated and rotted off so you got to think of this as actually having a thicker handle attached to it highly polished and this is a small lamp I have seen them probably about four times the size but this is very similar to the lamp that was excavated in the cave of letters the book is out of print but I'm sure you could Amazon or Google it and say cave of letters it's an easy read it's an easy read nice pictures from that time period I think is dated to the 1970s or 80s but an ancient lamp and this dates to the Roman period the Roman period so let's go back over some times just by looking at them once you get an eye for pottery you can pretty much tell what time period you're in so this is more of your ancient Greeks not the time of Alexander the Great a little bit further back all right and it's called a lucky toast a lucky toast used for storing possibly perfumes a vessel for drinking the handles are on the top think of high and it's called Scyphos a Scyphos now we're into the time of Alexander the Great I only have a few pieces of course this is and these are common from that period and it's good to know the common pottery because if you're at an excavation or maybe you bump into a tomb that's what you're possibly going to find common pottery so you want to know your lamps your different shapes and sizes and decorations of lamps once you get an eye for lamps you can pretty much generally broadly date that at the archaeological time period and then common pieces like the spindle bottle if you saw this you say instantly Hellenistic period and then once again these types of vessels carinated design carinated remember it means curvature ring base you look at it and say but the the slip on it the tint the red slip with the dark tint on the bottom and it looks like it's looks like somebody just dipped it in this in a dried kind of like you're drying dishes on you know like on a rack and you just left it there and you think like but you know that's not that impressive Hellenistic period although Hellenistic period as well as the Greek period when you want to look at some fine pottery that's there as well okay then we get to the Roman period and once again if you want to look at an archaeological dig on record where they find uh I'm going to get via another archaeological terminology in situ if they say in situ i s i t a in situ or i s i t u um means the place of its origin in other words they're going to photograph it and you're going to see it uh where it is as they have located it so it's not moved it didn't come from an antiquity dealer no you're going to see it as it was in the excavation in situ so if you want to see a lamp that was found in situ by a very popular Israeli archaeologist and general Yael Yadin look up the book get it it's probably just maybe a couple bucks uh the cave of letters the cave of letters so here we have once again a silver lamp bronze overlaid with silver put that way very cool though very cool and we got a little bit over a minute left and I left the best for last from the Byzantine period fourth century remember that the lighthouse of Alexandria existed for some 1500 years here is a Roman yeah Roman Byzantine Byzantine period bronze lamp you can see a fish's tail you can see the cross ah obviously Christian right but look in the center this is the handle well this is the lid right here you would put the spout put the spout probably like a little wick of cloth goes here hopefully you can see that here's the lid where you open it up and you can put your oil you can set the centerpiece it looks like a piece sticking up that's where it actually fits into the lamp stand so this is all made of bronze extremely rare this is a very unique experience to handle this a bronze lamp alone can be a very cool experience a bronze lamp with a stand even cooler but look at this what's in the center of it a lighthouse the lighthouse possibly of Alexandria if you can see where it has these little one two three four five six yeah six sides in the you can say at the top or a higher structure to the lighthouse over the base possibly representing the eight-sided structure but it does represent it a hexagon instead of an octagon shape and the lighthouse beacon on the top isn't that cool kind of goes with the theme you are the light of the world except a city on a hill cannot be hid but yet it's represented in an ancient oil lamp bronze oil lamp my name is Dr. George Sparks it's been a privilege thank you for your time Bible Interact uncovering the mysteries of the at Bible Interact dot tv you will penetrate the scriptures of the bible at our store you're just one click away from owning your favorite books dvds or study guides earn a degree from our university and watch hundreds of video presentations from biblical scholars archaeologists and theologians by subscribing to Bible Interact you'll find all the resources you'll need so why not subscribe today go to www.bibleinteract.tv you'll be glad you did interested in studying more about the temple the messiah or what God's plan is for our future no problem we've got you covered with more than 200 dvds books and workbooks you'll find the answers you've been searching for Bible Interact uncovering the mysteries of the kingdom of God