Workers in the Egyptian port city of Alexandria recovered 22 huge stone blocks used thousands of years ago and built the famous lighthouse in the city, one of the wonders of the ancient world.
The stone blocks are grown from the floors of the Alexandria port on the southeast coast of the Mediterranean, and are now researched and digitally scanned. According to a statement from the Dassault Systems Foundation, one of the project’s sponsors, the results will be added to a digital record of over 100 stones discovered underwater in the last decade.
The study, led by French archaeologist and architect Isabel Heary, brings together the expertise of historians, archaeologists, architects and engineers to create a virtual 3D model of an ancient lighthouse that had already been severely damaged by earthquakes when it collapsed in the 14th century.
You might like it
The recently recovered stones contain huge pieces of doorways weighing “70-80 tonnes,” according to the statement. The workers also recovered parts of a massive Egyptian-style “pylons” or ceremonial gateway that could have been a monument.
Ancient wonders
The Alexandria lighthouse, also known as the Pharos of Alexandria, was built around 280 BC, on the order of Ptolemy II Philadelphus (born in Macedonia), after a small island at the mouth of the harbor, around 280 BC.
It was founded in 332 BC by King Alexander the Great, who seized Egypt from the Persian Empire, and was later named after Alexandria in Egypt.
Related: Was Alexander eaten by a shark? In a wild theory for what happened to the body of the symbolic ruler.
The lighthouse in Alexandria was a technical wonder of the time. According to the statement, it is over 328 feet (100 meters) tall, making it one of the tallest structures in the ancient world, with a multi-tier design with a square base, an octagonal center and a cylindrical top.
According to ancient writers, the light was probably produced by a large fire fueled with wood or oil, and probably fueled with wood or oil, forming a concentrated beam that could be seen up to 30 miles (50 km) away. The beam of light appears to have been created by reflecting the lighthouse’s fire with a heavily polished metal surface, perhaps something bronze or copper.
The Alexandria Lighthouse was one of the ancient “wonders of the world” and was a designation given by an ancient Greek writer. During the Roman Empire, he was “highly praised” by the time of Pliny the Elder (who lived between 23 and 79 AD) wrote about the lighthouse hundreds of years after it was built.
Image 1/2
Digital Twin
The ruins of the Alexandria lighthouse were discovered underwater by French archaeologist Jean Ives Enperard in 1994, and the latest work on this site is the third research project by French scholars.
But instead of physically reconstructing the collapsed lighthouse, researchers are doing virtual reconstructions, or “digital twins,” based on what they can learn from ruins and historical records.
The newly recovered stone blocks are digitally scanned and the data is given to volunteer engineers at the Dassault Systems Foundation.
In addition to testing its theory of construction and collapse, the virtual model “revives the original grandeur of the lighthouse, allowing visitors to explore as if they were on the scene,” the statement said.
Ancient Egyptian Quiz: Test Smart on Pyramids, Hieroglyphs and King Tuto
Source link
