KOM EL-SHUQAFA

• It is one of Alexandria's most memorable monuments.
• Identified as "a tour-de-force of rock-cut architecture which would be remarkable in any period.
• Its vast, intricately decorated interior spaces cut at so great a depth into the rock present an enormity of experience outside the normal human realm and tell us of a level of technological expertise equaling enterprises of modern  subways and tunnels while far surpassing them in aesthetic response.
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• It is composed of a ground level construction that
• probably served as a funerary chapel, a deep spiral stairway and three underground levels for the funerary ritual and entombment.
• The catacombs are unique both for their plan and for its decoration which represents a melding and mixing of the cultures and traditions of the Egyptians, Greeks and Romans.
• It was a place where people seemed to have a talent for combining rather than destroying cultures.
• Though the funerary motifs are pure ancie nt Egyptian, the architects and artists were clearly trained in the Greco-Roman style.
• Here then, we find decorations related to ancient Egyptian themes, but with an amazing twist that makes them quite unlike anything else in the world!!!!!
• In its final stage, the complex contained over one hundred loculi and numerous rock-cut sarcophagus tombs.
• These catacombs date back to the late first century AD.
• These tombs represent the last existing major construction related to the ancient Egyptian religion.
• Kom El-Shuqafa lies on the site where the village and fishing port of Rhakotis, the oldest part of Alexandria that predates Alexander the Great was located.
• Excavations of the site began in 1892 but no catacombs were actually found until Friday, September 28th, 1900 when according to tradition, by mere chance, a donkey pulling a cart fell through a hole in the ground and into one of the catacombs.
• The site was opened for the public only in 1995 after pumping the subsoil water from the 2nd level (so you will be so lucky to come and see it as lots of people came and miss it!!!!!).