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kom el shokafa catacombs, Alexandria
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kom el shokafa catacombs, Alexandria

The principal tomb in the catacombs, Alexandria - Alexandria
The principal tomb in the catacombs, Alexandria
by MalenaN
kom el shokafa catacombs tips and photos posted by real travelers and Alexandria locals.
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kom el shokafa catacombs: General tips
  • Tip Rating:
    • pangtidor
  • Updated By pangtidor on March 18, 2007
  • Alexandria Page by pangtidor
    • Catacombs Entrance Gate - Alexandria
    Catacombs Entrance Gate
    by pangtidor
    The entrance fee was 25LE in February 2007. The toilet will be located on your left (facing the entrance gate) before the gate. Keep 1 or 2LE notes ready for the toiletkeepers. You may see some sarchopagus and small park before the entrance gate. You can not bring the camera after the security checking at the entrance gate. There will be two main tombs in this area, The Catacombs ( on your left last end, underground) and Tigran Tomb (on the ground, facing the entrance door). You may see some statues and handcrafts on the yard. Get yourself ready for narrow and steep stairs at the catacombs. Wear comfortable, unslippery and light shoes. Read my other tips for each tombs.

  • Directions: at western end of Alexandria
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    kom el shokafa catacombs: The Main Catacomb, City of The Dead
  • Tip Rating:
    • pangtidor
  • Updated By pangtidor on March 18, 2007
  • Alexandria Page by pangtidor
    • The Narrow And Steep Stairs of The Main Catacomb - Alexandria
    The Narrow And Steep Stairs of
    The Main Catacomb
    by pangtidor, 1 more photos
    It is located in Kom-El-Shogafa, believed was established in 200AD. It will be located on the last end of your left from the entance gate. It looks like an underground graveyard. The catacomb was found accidently by `a digging donkey`. You have to go down through narrow and steep stairs almost a hundred steps. You can see the hole where they brought down the bodies to the underground right into the mummification case, located in the middle. From the mummification area, there will be some coridors lead you to hundreds of `corpse lockers`.After the mummification, the body will be placed in `a locker` along with its sarchopagus. When it was found, no mummies have been found. They speculated that they were destroyed by the underground water and humidity. You may see the swampy floor on many places in this catacomb. There is a room, where they found horses bone on the other side of the main area. `The lockers` are bigger and nobody know if they have been mummified too. Wear your comfortable, unslippery, light shoes when you come to this catacomb. Be ready for an exercise : climbing the stairs. :-)

  • Directions: at western end of Alexandria
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    kom el shokafa catacombs: Tigran Tomb, The Royal Tomb
  • Tip Rating:
    • pangtidor
  • Updated By pangtidor on March 18, 2007
  • Alexandria Page by pangtidor
    • The Entrance Gate of Tigran Tomb, Catacombs - Alexandria
    The Entrance Gate of Tigran
    Tomb, Catacombs
    by pangtidor, 1 more photos
    It will be located in the same complex of Catacombs. Unlike catacombs, this tomb is located on the ground, not underground. The tomb is facing the main entrance of the complex. Tigran family is believed as a royal family in Alexandria during the Roman time. You may see the mixture of Roman and Egypt art on the wall painting. The royal family was treated as the `co-ruler` for Romans when they occupied Alexandria and still had their rights as royal family among the people.

  • Directions: at western end of Alexandria
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    kom el shokafa catacombs: Poor Great Donkey! Thank you.
  • Tip Rating:
    • sayedaburas
  • Updated By sayedaburas on May 22, 2005
  • Alexandria Page by sayedaburas
    • kom el shokafa catacombs - Alexandria
    by sayedaburas
    The Kom As-Shouqafa Catacombs were accidentally discovered in 1900 when a donkey and cart fell through the ground revealing the undergroung chambers and tombs.

    What is so funny is when a large chamber "the Funerary Hall of Caracalla" was opened, it hosted skeletons of horses as well. The Emperor was inordinately fond of horses.

    It seems that our poor donkey was keen to find out some of his kinship ancestors!

    I hope you don't miss the next page!

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  • Address: Alexandria, Egypt
  • Directions: Konm As-Shoqafa, Nasreya, Karmouz.
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    kom el shokafa catacombs: The unusal canons
  • Tip Rating:
    • sayedaburas
  • Updated By sayedaburas on May 9, 2005
  • Alexandria Page by sayedaburas
    • Funeral Deities. - Alexandria
    Funeral Deities.
    by sayedaburas
    With a roof supported on two pillars with late Egyptian foliated capitals and two square piers with papyrus capitals. Above is a frieze of falcons and a winged disk. Above the door the corniche contains a winged sun disk . To the lower sides medusa-headed-shields are noticed.

    One may describe it as a very unhappy marriage of Egyptian and Graeco-Roman canons exhibiting unskilfully Egyptian funerary deities in comparison to those professionally made thousand years before such ones.

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  • Directions: at western end of Alexandria
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    kom el shokafa catacombs: The catacombs' description
  • Tip Rating:
    • sayedaburas
  • Updated By sayedaburas on May 9, 2005
  • Alexandria Page by sayedaburas
    • A Burial Chamber - Alexandria
    A Burial Chamber
    by sayedaburas
    These catacombs of Kom Ash-Shuqafa represent the largest example of a Roman burial within Egypt. The catacombs are three floors in depth and have numerous chambers cut out along passage ways.

    The catacombs are reached through a spiral staircase rounding a central well through which bodies were lowered for burial.

    They had also a Banqueting Hall equipped with stone couches, where relatives visiting the tombs would dine

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  • Address: Alexandria, Egypt
  • Directions: At Karmouz, western end of Alexandria. Few minutes from Pompey's Pillar and Serapeum.
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    kom el shokafa catacombs: The Medusa legends.
  • Tip Rating:
    • sayedaburas
  • By sayedaburas on May 29, 2005
  • Alexandria Page by sayedaburas
    • The tomb - Alexandria
    The tomb
    by sayedaburas
    The belief / legned, that Medusa head turned to stone anything that met its gaze, led to the representation of the head as a protective figure on shields and on walls.

    In another legend Aphrodite the goddes of beauty –out of jealousy of the other charming lady Medusa- turned her face into hideous, eyes into glaring and girdles of hair into serpents. Sigh! What a pity!

    This photo shows such Medusa-shields as well as the snakes to protect the sarcophagos and destroy the unwanted beings !

    Ancient Egyptians adopted the “false doors at the tombs” as a clever way to deceive thieves.

    The pic is imported from the mentioned site; as photos are no longer permitted inside the Catacombs.

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  • Directions: at western end of Alexandria
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    kom el shokafa catacombs: Catacombs of Kom el-Shukafa
  • Tip Rating:
    • Kuznetsov_Sergey
  • Updated By Kuznetsov_Sergey on December 9, 2007
  • Alexandria Page by Kuznetsov_Sergey
    • Catacombs of Kom el-Shukafa outside - Alexandria
    Catacombs of Kom el-Shukafa
    outside
    by Kuznetsov_Sergey, 1 more photos
    The catacomb of Kom El-Shuqafa (Shoqafa, Shaqafa) is one of Alexandria's most memorable monuments. The Catacombs of Kom el-Shukafa ("Hill of Potsherds") were hewn from the rock on the southern slopes of a hill in the second century A.D. The catacombs, which may have been the burial place of a particular religious community, were discovered in 1900. They are laid out on several levels.

    A spiral staircase with a large circular light shaft runs down two stories from the entrance, the lower of which is generally under water.
    Off the upper level opens a rotunda with a domed roof, to the right of which are two smaller chambers with niches, sarcophagi and loculi (shelf tombs).

    Open 9.00 – 17.00. Entrance fee LE25 ($5). You may see my ticket at the second pic. Photo and video forbidden.

    You may watch my high resolution photos on Google Earth in Alexandria Catacombs according to the following coordinates 31º 10' 43.98" N 29º 53' 35.11" E
    or on my Google Earth Panoramio Photo 1, Photo 2.

  • Directions: at western end of Alexandria
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    kom el shokafa catacombs: underground in the catacombs
  • Tip Rating:
  • Updated By uglyscot on April 21, 2006
  • Alexandria Page by uglyscot
    • entrance ticket - Alexandria
    entrance ticket
    by uglyscot, 2 more photos
    The catacombs Kom el Shawqafah- [Mound of Shards] are very interesting. It is a 2nd C AD burial site, with complex subterranean burial chambers. The wall pictures in the Painted Tomb are a blend of Ancient Egyptian and Graeco-Roman.
    There is a circular stairwell, a burial chamber, a banqueting hall where visiting relatives would dine, and the Hall of Caracalla
    It is quite spooky even though there are no coffins or other relics of the dead.
    The tomb was discovered in1900.
    Well worth a visit. Entry 12 EPounds
    Photography not allowed inside
    A few statues etc are displayed in the garden outside..

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  • Address: SW along Sharia Nasriyyah
  • Directions: at western end of Alexandria
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    kom el shokafa catacombs: The catacombs
  • Tip Rating:
    • MalenaN
  • Updated By MalenaN on November 1, 2005
  • Alexandria Page by MalenaN
    • The principal tomb in the catacombs, Alexandria - Alexandria
    The principal tomb in the
    catacombs, Alexandria
    by MalenaN
    The Roman catacombs are from the 2nd century AD. A spiral staircase descends to the tombs and chambers. When I visited I was first alone (later three more people arrived) and it was quite atmospheric to walk around in the complex among all the tombs cut out of the rock.
    The photo is from the entrance to the Principal Tomb. I was quite surprised to see carvings of each side of the entrance of the Egyptian god Anubis (he has a jackal head) dressed as a Roman soldier.
    Admission to the site is 20 pounds. To go here I walked all way from the Cornish and it was a good walk through different kind of areas.

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  • Directions: at western end of Alexandria
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