Subscribe now for full access and no adverts
REVIEW BY SG
The Pharos lighthouse was a feat of ancient engineering. For 16 centuries, its light guided ships through the hazardous rocks safely into Alexandria’s harbour, before finally toppling after a series of earthquakes in the early 14th century AD. How many modern-day structures will survive that long? And yet the lighthouse is little studied in modern times, and its architect is hardly known. Andrew Michael Chugg sets out to research and reconstruct the Pharos, and resurrect the reputation of Sostratus of Cnidus, whom he describes as a ‘Renaissance man’, renowned for his military engineering and architectural innovations, and who deserves to be as famous as his contemporary Archimedes.
Conceived by Alexander the Great, the lighthouse was commissioned by Ptolemy I c.297 BC and completed c.284 BC. The tower and causeways incorporated a number of technical innovations, including the use of the round arch which Sostratus first developed in his home city of Cnidus (in what is now Turkey). Pliny the Elder tells us that the cost of construction was 800 talents – a tenth of Ptolemy I’s treasury. The tower’s fame spread far and wide in ancient times, and featured on Roman coins which form part of the evidence interrogated by the author in his attempt to reconstruct the monument.
After outlining the key architectural features from historical sources, Chugg then turns to physical principles to work out the height and shape of the tower, for example showing how tapering walls put less compressive stress on the materials, allowing for more height. He does use equations, and the discussion becomes quite technical in places, but panic not – all is explained in simple terms that even those of us a little rusty in the area of maths can understand. He then turns to ‘the most burning problem’ – the mystery of the light source and where it was located, using logical analysis to solve the puzzle.
His conclusions are astonishing. The Pharos tower itself was just a large plinth for the statues of the gods, who provided the light – and possibly sound – to warn approaching ships. Alexander-Helios stood at the apex, wearing a radiate crown and holding an oil lamp in the form of a crystal sphere, which Chugg says was ‘a technological wonder that exceeded even the great height of the tower in its wondrousness’. Below him, four fish-tailed Tritons blew trumpets that, according to Hero (c.AD 60), may have been fed by blasts from a steam boiler so that they sounded a warning to approaching vessels. What’s more, the view of the horizon from the top led Alexandrian geographers to conclude that the earth is a sphere, and inspired Eratosthenes to make his monumental measurements of the circumference of the Earth, and the distance to the Moon and Sun.
This is essential reading for scholars, who will find the appendices very helpful – including a list of sources, a translation of al-Masudi’s description (c.AD 944), and an excerpt from the classic study by Alfred Butler (1902), based on Arabic sources – but it is also an entertaining read for anyone who wishes to know more about the greatest of the Seven Ancient Wonders – although sadly few will be able to afford the hefty price tag.
The Pharos Lighthouse in Alexandria: Second Sun and Seventh Wonder of Antiquity (Routledge Monographs in Classical Studies)
by Andrew Michael Chugg
ROUTLEDGE, 2024
ISBN 978-1-032-56936-9
Hardback, £119
You can win a copy of this book in our photo competition on here.
