07-30-2007, 11:50 PM
I am sure there is an India link to this story
From Pioneer, 30 July 2007
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Nine lives of Alexandria
Second opinion: Priyadarsi Dutta
The truth about Alexandria in Egypt might be deeper than the event of Alexander establishing it in 332 BC. <b>A team led by Jean-Daniel Stanley, a coastal geo-archaeologist with US's Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, has found underwater traces to indicate there was a flourishing urban settlement there as far back as 1000 BC.</b>
This might be the most important claim about Alexandria since May 2004 when a Polish-Egyptian archaeological team claimed to have located the site of the ancient university-cum-library of Alexandria. They discovered a complex of 13 uncovered halls, each with a central elevated podium, with an aggregate intake capacity of 5,000 students.
Stanley quoted Homer (eighth century BC) in Odyssey talking about <b>Pharos Island (off Alexandria) and its storm-free bay</b>. Alexandria was still five centuries into the future. Well, history only affords us the example of Naucratis, a Greek trading colony of the Nile delta, founded in seventh century BC by inhabitants of Miletus, a Greek city-state in Asia Minor. But it was a forerunner of Alexandria in a politico-cultural, not geographical sense.
<b>Alexandria, under Ptolemy's dynasty, grew bigger than the biggest city of the Greek world.</b> <b>Ptolemy I Soter inherited Egypt from Alexander. He commissioned the lighthouse at Pharos Island and the university-cum-library of Alexandria.</b> Alexandria became the metaphorical 'lighthouse of the Western world'.
<b>Why is this discovery significant? This is because it would make us reconsider the maritime face of ancient Egyptians. The capital of ancient Egypt was Memphis, away from the sea. The Greco-Macedonians advanced to the Mediterranean coast by establishing Alexandria. When Arabs came in 640 AD, they retraced it away from the sea, and Cairo was established. Not surprising, in 1798, Napoleon regarded Alexandria as a meagre fisherfolk's village.</b>
Again, when Egypt became a British protectorate, and the House of Mohammed Ali undertook Westernisation, Alexandria became a cosmopolitan city. <b>Republican Egypt has turned Alexandria into another Arab city. Pan-Arabist President Gamel Abdel Nasser, born in Alexandria, indicated a village in Aswan as his place of nativity in Egypt's official publications to dissociate himself from cosmopolitanism.</b>
Now we may get to know about the nativity of Alexandria, which apparently has the proverbial nine lives.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Bet that there are links to Hindus in the submerged ruins.
That library at Alexandria was burnt after the Islamic takeover and marked the decline of Alexandria.
St Augustine was also from Alexandria.
From Pioneer, 30 July 2007
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Nine lives of Alexandria
Second opinion: Priyadarsi Dutta
The truth about Alexandria in Egypt might be deeper than the event of Alexander establishing it in 332 BC. <b>A team led by Jean-Daniel Stanley, a coastal geo-archaeologist with US's Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, has found underwater traces to indicate there was a flourishing urban settlement there as far back as 1000 BC.</b>
This might be the most important claim about Alexandria since May 2004 when a Polish-Egyptian archaeological team claimed to have located the site of the ancient university-cum-library of Alexandria. They discovered a complex of 13 uncovered halls, each with a central elevated podium, with an aggregate intake capacity of 5,000 students.
Stanley quoted Homer (eighth century BC) in Odyssey talking about <b>Pharos Island (off Alexandria) and its storm-free bay</b>. Alexandria was still five centuries into the future. Well, history only affords us the example of Naucratis, a Greek trading colony of the Nile delta, founded in seventh century BC by inhabitants of Miletus, a Greek city-state in Asia Minor. But it was a forerunner of Alexandria in a politico-cultural, not geographical sense.
<b>Alexandria, under Ptolemy's dynasty, grew bigger than the biggest city of the Greek world.</b> <b>Ptolemy I Soter inherited Egypt from Alexander. He commissioned the lighthouse at Pharos Island and the university-cum-library of Alexandria.</b> Alexandria became the metaphorical 'lighthouse of the Western world'.
<b>Why is this discovery significant? This is because it would make us reconsider the maritime face of ancient Egyptians. The capital of ancient Egypt was Memphis, away from the sea. The Greco-Macedonians advanced to the Mediterranean coast by establishing Alexandria. When Arabs came in 640 AD, they retraced it away from the sea, and Cairo was established. Not surprising, in 1798, Napoleon regarded Alexandria as a meagre fisherfolk's village.</b>
Again, when Egypt became a British protectorate, and the House of Mohammed Ali undertook Westernisation, Alexandria became a cosmopolitan city. <b>Republican Egypt has turned Alexandria into another Arab city. Pan-Arabist President Gamel Abdel Nasser, born in Alexandria, indicated a village in Aswan as his place of nativity in Egypt's official publications to dissociate himself from cosmopolitanism.</b>
Now we may get to know about the nativity of Alexandria, which apparently has the proverbial nine lives.
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Bet that there are links to Hindus in the submerged ruins.
That library at Alexandria was burnt after the Islamic takeover and marked the decline of Alexandria.
St Augustine was also from Alexandria.