Graeco Roman Museum
Graeco Roman Museum; Ancient Greek and Roman Museum: As part of Alexandria‘s ongoing endeavour to modernise its image, several of the city’s most popular tourist sites are now undergoing renovation.
One of them is the magnificent Graeco-Roman Museum, which is now open. The museum is home to one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of Graeco-Roman art, which includes more than 40,000 artifacts. The collection is now on a global tour while the museum is closed, although it is expected to return once the tour is over.
One of the must-see attractions is the vast collection of realistic terracotta statuettes (tanagra) from the Hellenistic era, which can be seen at the museum. Also search for three separate carved skulls of Alexander, the city’s founder, on the walls of the museum.
Graeco-Roman Museum (Greek and Roman Museum)
Alexandria’s Greco-Roman Museum is a must-see.
Berenice, wife of Ptolemy III, is shown in an outstanding wall-hung mosaic from the Delta area that dates back to the 3rd century BC.
The Serapeum also has a colossal Apis bull carved in basalt from the period of Hadrian, as well as two sculptures of the deity Serapis – one in wood and the other in marble – that are equally remarkable.
It is only in Alexandria that a deity like Serapis was created, a god who is half Egyptian (as the spouse of Isis) and part Greek, with echoes of Zeus and Poseidon.
Ptolemy was one of the people I supported as a means of bringing his Egyptian and Greek subjects together in one worship. It was successful, and the museum is brimming with pictures of the deity.
There would be no such thing as a full Egyptian museum without at least one mummy, and this one is home to a mummified crocodile that would have been carried in processions dedicated to the deity Sobek.
During the museum’s construction, a temple excavated in Al-Fayoum was reconstructed in the museum’s garden, and an ornately carved wooden door from the temple can be found inside.
Many evidence of the blending of Greek and Egyptian culture can be seen in this museum, including pink-granite sculptures of Egypt’s Greek Ptolemaic pharaohs, who are shown in Pharaonic attire and crowns, in an effort to legitimate them as the successors of the pharaohs.
In this museum, you will see one of the few remaining historical representations of the Pharos in Alexandria; a collection of clay lanterns dating back to the 3rd century BC and designed to represent the three phases of the tower’s construction.
There are also other coins on show from Alexander’s reign, each carrying a picture of the Macedonian and several depicting profiles of a large-nosed Cleopatra, all of which are on display here.
However, despite the fact that the 13 white-marble terraces of Egypt’s lone Roman Amphitheater are not very large in comparison to other ancient structures, they remain a magnificently preserved homage to the days of the centurion.
During the construction of an apartment building on a location known bluntly as Kom al-Dikka, the foundations for this site were unearthed by accident (Mound of Rubble).
The focus of excavation has now switched to the north, where a team is seeking to uncover the remnants of Roman-era baths and a villa, among other things.
This location was known as the Park of Pan during Ptolemaic times, and it served as a pleasure garden where inhabitants of Alexandria could engage in a variety of leisurely hobbies.
The villa of the birds is a massive, nine-panel floor mosaic masterpiece that may be found at this location. To visit it, you must purchase a separate ticket from the amphitheater’s main ticket office, which is located just across the street from Mahattat Misr railway station.
