Imagine a city with all the knowledge in the world, a wealth of writers, artists, scientists and philosophers debating and pioneering thought. An ancient crossroads of art, literature and architecture. A climactic convergence that would yield a new form of culture, a new form of society. In the great city of Alexandria, cosmopolitanism was born. The capital of a growing Ptolemaic dynasty and later of Roman Egypt; Alexandria became an expanding commercial hub linking the Mediterranean, the Nile valley, Arabia, and Asia. Alexandria was also a significant centre of knowledge, with the Great Library attracting renowned academics and scholars. For centuries, the city cultivated a myriad of cultures, religions and trade making it the world’s first cosmopolitan metropolis. Interestingly, evidence of this unique amalgamation of peoples and cultures remains visible until today. Attesting its historical legacy, beneath this Mediterranean capital lay a series of ancient catacombs (underground cemeteries). The Catacombs of Kom El Shoqafa, dating from Egypt’s Roman Period (30 BC–AD 395), stand today as a stark remnant of the singular cosmopolitan culture once developed in Alexandria. The catacombs are a burial site for Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. It’s walls…
