Destroying invading fleets of wooden ships by setting them on fire when they were still far out at sea by aiming a lethal, polished bronze mirror, which concentrated the sun’s rays at them, is just one of the incredible feats attributed to what was one of the most awesome buildings comprising the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World and this one, Pharos — The Great Lighthouse of Alexandria, lives on the countless lighthouses still scattered around the world today.

The city of Alexandria, this still exists in modern Egypt today, where ‘Pharos’, as the lighthouse was called, stood. It was founded by that legendary historical conqueror, explorer, map maker, botanist and military strategist, Alexander the Great of Macedonia. On one of his many expeditions he even travelled through what is now Pakistan, where, according to some stories, he left some of his warriors behind to colonise what are now the Kalash Valley, where many people have fair skin, fair hair and blue, grey or green eyes.

Alexander was egocentric enough to name cities after himself and Alexandria in Egypt, which he founded way back in 332BC, is one of at least 17 such cities and one of the very few still standing.

Being an excellent strategists, Alexander considered everything very carefully before deciding on the exact site of his Egyptian city. This site, 20 miles west of the Nile Delta, was selected as, unlike the Nile Delta region, its harbour would not get silted up by annual floating which carried, and still does, millions of tonnes of sediment to silt up the harbour. And, just to be doubly certain that the all important sea trade on which both survival and prosperity depended, was uninterrupted at all times.

Alexander designed his city with two harbours, one for Mediterranean Sea traffic and a second, connected to the Nile Delta via a canal from Lake Mareotis, south of this city.

Alexander, like many other city builders, unfortunately, died in 323BC before his Egyptian city could be completed and this task fell to Ptolemy Soter who took over as ruler. Under Ptolemy’s guidance, Alexandria became very prosperous but, tomake it even more so, in 290BC this wise ruler authorised the construction of Pharos Lighthouse, the very first lighthouse in the world, to guide trading ships into the Mediterranean harbour. This magnificent lighthouse, then the second tallestbuilding in the ancient world after the Great Pyramid, took 20 years to complete and was nothing at all like the lighthousesof today.

Constructed out of stone covered with white marble and cemented together with lead mortar, the completed lighthouse wasapproximately 140 metres or 450 feet tall and was built more like a towering, three-tier apartment block than lighthouses aswe know them today. The ‘ground floor’ is thought to have been around 73 metres or 240 feet tall and sat on a solid stoneplatform which was 6 metres or 20 feet in height.

The next story comprised an eight-side tower 35 metres or 115 feet tall and, on top of this, the third and final story was acylindrical structure, 18 metres or 60 feet tall, with an open cupola on top in which the huge fire, this provided the light, burnt both night and day. The fire itself was protected from the elements by a roof on top of which towered a large statue, thought to most probably have been that of the ancient Greek and Romano god of the sea, Poseidon.

During the hours of darkness, the light of the fire transformed into a far reaching beam by a polished bronze mirror, which could be seen far out in the sea and served as a blazing beacon to guide ships safely to the harbour and, during daylight,smoke from the fire did exactly the same job. The story of the mirror being used to set distant fleets of invading ships on fire is thought to be just that but… no one knows for sure!

This structure, massive by ancient standards, was built on the island of Pharos and soon became known as Pharos Lighthouse and, another thing which made it very different from modern lighthouses is that there was a hive of industry and,incredibly, tourism going on right inside its walls. There were storage rooms, ramps up which animal drawn carts hauledfirewood to fuel the perpetual lighthouse, bonfire and all manner of other things went on including, hordes of tourists clambered up and down the massive stairways to enjoy what must have been a spectacular view from a purpose-buildplatform near the top of the lighthouse, where, not surprisingly when one thinks about it, fast food joints were ready and waiting to serve meals and snacks!

This incredible lighthouse stood for over 1,500 years. It survived a tsunami in 365AD, but fell victim to a humungous earthquake in 1303AD, managed to hang on in a dilapidated state until 1375AD, when it finally collapsed into the harbourover which it had stood guard for so long.

What is thought to be rubble from this once spectacular ancient structure was identified in the modern harbour byunderwater archaeologists in 1994 and the area in now an underwater tourist park, visited by divers from all over the world who want to get a glimpse of a wonder that once was.