Pompey’s Pillar column In Alexandria Facts:
To the southwest of the city, in the impoverished district of Karmous, Pompey’s Pillar is a striking sight. Made of red Aswan granite, the 27-m (89-ft) high pillar was erected around AD 297 in tribute to the Roman emperor Diocletian.
On its base is written in Greek “To the most just of emperors, the divine protector of Alexandria, Diocletian the invincible: Posthumus, prefect of Egypt.”
The monument’s popular name may have come from medieval travelers who thought that the Roman general Pompey, murdered in Egypt in 48 BC, was buried here; in fact, the pillar came from the Serapeum complex or Temple of Serapis, which was built in the mid-3rd century BC. (Serapis was an Egyptian deity, very popular in the Graeco-Roman period, who combined aspects of the gods Osiris and Apis).
The pillar would have been freestanding and is all that remains of the temple which was once an important repository of religious texts and the “daughter library” of that of Alexandria.
Enlarged by Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century AD, when it was described as second only to the Capitol in Rome, the temple was destroyed by Christians in AD 391.
Nearby there are some underground galleries, where the sacred Apis bulls were buried, as well as several statues of the Sphinx that originally stood at Heliopolis.
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