We were heading northwards from Cairo in our SUV, on a three-hour drive towards the seaport of Alexandria.

This is our last day in Egypt, and the final segment of our sacred journey. Angela and I have been looking forward to this one-day excursion.

It turned out that the sparkling quality of the day would more than make up for the brevity of our journey.

Hamed, our private guide, was a well-spoken, polite young man seemingly in love with his work.

As our vehicle headed up north on the agriculture highway, he started to talk about the small Sekhmet Shrine in Ptah Temple, within the giant Karnak complex. Inside a hidden shrine is a black granite statue of Sekhmet, in slender female human form and lion’s head on top of which is perched the sun disc and the cobra uraeus springing out of it. After seeing the black statue for the first time, Hamed had a series of strange experiences. The Goddess’s mighty archetypal feminine form appeared to him in seven consecutive dreams. These dreams “terrified” him for months.

But now we were en route to Alexandria.

PEARL OF THE MEDITERRANEAN
Ah Alexandria! As a five-year old I read all the Chinese children’s books I could lay my hands on. My heart would race whenever I read about the Mediterranean. Something about the sapphire blue waters and the immeasurable treasures of lost civilizations buried deep beneath her waves would make my pulse quicken.

I have experienced the Mediterranean from various coastal places —notably Morocco, France, Monaco, Italy, Greece and Crete, Anatolia, Lebanon--but in my heart of hearts I yearned to set foot on Alexandria, a mysterious land whose very namesake stirs something deep within my cellular memory.

Alexandria was founded around a small pharaonic town c. 331 BC by Alexander the Great. For nearly a thousand years it was Egypt's capital, until the Muslims occupied Egypt and founded Fustat the new capital, which was later incorporated into what is now modern Cairo.

During its heyday Alexandria was renowned as “Pearl of the Mediterranean,” a hub of trade, culture and war. It became the largest city in the western world, second only to Rome. It was also the scene of the stormy and ill-fated relationship between Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, and many more other political and courtly intrigues.

At the outskirts of town, we began to feel the strength of the prevailing north wind blowing from the sea. The sky was coated with billowing grey clouds and soon a light rain fell. I was grateful that my guide warned me to dress warmly. The arid desert heat of Cairo has given way to cold, damp weather.

By now three hours have passed. We were now in the old town, our SUV wending through narrow streets, in a city thronged with people, whose faces revealed an alluring mix of Greek, Jewish and Egyptian ethnicity.

First we visited the Catacombs of Kom el Shoqafa, and then took off for Pompey’s Pillar, located on Alexandria's ancient acropolis and originally from the temple of the Serapis.  Serapis was a fusion of an Egyptian-Greek god.

Next we drove to the Roman Theater. To my great delight, here we found an open-air exhibition of the artifacts recovered from Qait Bey since the mid 1990s. Some of these artifacts can be attributed to the very days of Pharos,  the legendary lighthouse that was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. 

UNDERWATER DISCOVERIES
In 1996, a new department of Underwater Archaeology of the Supreme Council of Antiquities was founded as a result of excavations carried out at Qaitbey Fortress. Around the Fort, archeologists unearthed hundreds of objects, including what they believe to be the remains of the Pharos Lighthouse.

And in the south-east part of the harbor, archaeologists have excavated the Royal Quarters of the Ptolemy dynasty-- granite columns and fabulous statues, including one of Isis and a sphinx with a head thought to be that of Cleopatra's father.

These recovery projects have been received with great interest from the global community. In recent years, massive stone blocks weighing between 50 and 75 tons have been dredged out from this patch of the sea. The disposition of the largest blocks, running in a north-easterly line from the foot of the Fort, suggests that a monument of considerable size and height has fallen into the sea. Marine archeologists are now convinced that these indeed are the remains of the actual Pharos Lighthouse.

Inside the open-air museum next to the Roman Amphitheater, I walked around the sphinxes, busts, columns, capitals, and fragments of inscribed obelisks, together with two massive segments of the Lighthouse. The artifacts seem to emit a gentle electric charge, and I was busy drinking it all in.

Back in our car, we wended our way through the older sections of town, known as the Turkish neighborhood. The narrow streets were chock full of small bazaars, with carpenters , housewives and vendors of fruits, vegetables, meat and fish milling around, and merchants sipping their mint tea or coffee. The hustle-bustle of a busy city vibrating against the backdrop of an ancient acropolis, sphinxes and Greco-Roman columns.

Gradually we approached the newer sections of town. We passed the business district, the bay and yacht club. Our guide pointed out to us the famous Sofitel Cecil Hotel, built in 1929, which boasts a roster of international celebrities the likes of Somerset Maugham , Agatha Christie, the Prince of Sweden, Josephine Baker, and Winston Churchill. Even the British Secret Service once maintained a suite here for their operations.  

Nearby is Midan Saad Zaghlul, the entertainment heartland of Alexandria. Cinemas, restaurants and night clubs near the terminals and train station. And the signature Alexandria coffee houses which helped evoke the erotic and sensual ambience of Lawrence Durrell's “Alexandria Quartet.”

The motor causeway links what was once Pharos Island with the mainland and the older districts. We drove past the casino strip of the Corniche, and the Eastern Harbor in front of it. Eventually we approached Western Harbor, and the site of Pharos Lighthouse.

LIBRARY OF ALEXANDRIA

The Ancient Library of Alexandria was celebrated as the most prodigious repository of learning in the ancient world. Built under the patronage of the Ptolemaic dynasty, it was a major research center, its stacks filled with new works in mathematics, astronomy, physics, natural sciences and other subjects.

But fate took an unlucky turn when the Romans began to rule Egypt. One legend has it that the library, and at least 40,000 scrolls, were gutted in flames when Julius Caesar attacked the harbor in 48 B.C. Henceforth, this world center for higher learning was lost to antiquity for almost 2,000 years.

But wait! The tides of world destiny have begun to take a favorable turn. A multi-national collaboration birthed a new Alexandria Library, officially inaugurated in 2002. The Bibliotheca Alexandrina, constructed very near the site of the old structure, now serves as a commemoration and an emulation of the original library.

This $200 million-dollar, ultra-modern facility located on the shore of the Mediterranean needs to be experienced in person.  The Library’s own guide took us through the structure’s impressive dimensions: shelf space for eight million books, and the main reading room covering 70,000 m² on eleven cascading levels. This main reading room stands beneath a 32 meter-high glass paneled roof, tilted out toward the sea in the shape of a sundial. The outer walls of the building are fashioned from gray Aswan granite, carved with characters from 120 different human scripts. The complex also houses a conference center, museums,  art galleries,  a planetarium, and a manuscript restoration laboratory.

Standing within this striking architectural monument and feeling so close to the once-haloed center of learning, I felt a strange thrill sweep over me. It was now afternoon and time to head back towards Cairo. Half way home we stopped for a Turkish coffee by a roadside café, and I paused for reflection.  We had traveled thousands of miles over air, desert and sea, crises-crossed channels of time, experienced numerous bardos of births and deaths in the pyramids and ancient stone temples. A recurrent theme comes up, again and again: what prevails is the human curiosity for learning and enlightenment which ignites our collective dream. This yearning draws us back life after life, towards the undying Flame of Wisdom. My prayer is that the bygone glory of Pharos Lighthouse and the Alexandria Library be activated and re-emerge with scintillating splendor, and once again illumine the human heart and spirit in the Golden Age!