Guarding the coast, bathed in sun-scarring and salt, stood one of Egypt’s most daunting structures: the Pharos of Alexandria, the third tallest human-made structure of its time and a blueprint for what would later be considered the modern lighthouse. For centuries, this lighthouse was the hallmark of ingenuity, rising just short of the Great Pyramid and hailed as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Stationed on the Eastern Cape of Pharos, a humble isle off the coast of Egypt linked to the mainland by means of a dike, the lighthouse became a fixture of the Alexandrian coastline. It overlooked some of the Mediterranean’s most turbulent waters and flat beaches, later borrowing its title “Pharos” from the namesake isle itself. This marrying of name and function made the title synonymous with the word lighthouse in several languages to this day, including French, Italian and Spanish. Blueprints of A Monument Although the lighthouse was originally commissioned by Ptolemy I Soter – general of Alexander the Great of Macedon and an eventual Pharaoh of Egypt – the building process gained momentum under Ptolemy II Philadelphus around 290 BCE. Greek architect…
