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5. Pompey's Pillar

The lonely column that rises skywards against the backdrop of nondescript modern apartment buildings marks the spot of Alexandria’s largest and most magnificent temple.

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How to unite two religions

The Hellenic rulers of Egypt tried to find a deity to unite them with their Egyptian subjects. However, the kings were not fond of animal-headed figures, while the Egyptian priests usually cursed foreign gods. The Greek Pharaoh Ptolemy I Soter came up with a compromise. He combined Osiris and the highly popular bull Apis to create a new deity called Userhapi (i.e. Osiris-Apis or Serapis in Greek), whose statue was anthropomorphic. His cult became official policy, and a magnificent temple (Serapeum) was built on a rocky plateau overlooking the city of Alexandria and the Mediterranean sea. Almost nothing survives of the Serapeum except for the foundations. The archaeologists found two sets of ten tablets (one each of gold, silver, bronze, Egyptian faience, sun-dried Nile mud, and five of opaque glass) naming Ptolemy III Euergetes as the Pharaoh who built the temple.

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The soldier’s opinion

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The importance of proper spelling

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