Serapeum of Alexandria

Ruins of the Serapeum

The serapeum of Alexandria was dedicated as a temple to the new syncretic Egyptian - Hellenistic deity Serapis and was considered the most famous serapeum of antiquity.

history

City map of ancient Alexandria with the Serapeum to the southwest

Ptolemy I had in the years 287 to 286 BC A first modest temple building built by Ptolemy III. Euergetes has been expanded. Most of the Serapeum was not created until the Roman Empire in the first centuries after Christ. After the temple under Trajan was destroyed in the course of the Jewish uprising in 116 AD, his successor Hadrian had it rebuilt and expanded into a magnificent building. The Serapeum subsequently rose to become the most important sanctuary in Alexandria , as Serapis was also the highest city deity in Alexandria.

The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus (330–395) describes what the temple looked like in the 4th century shortly before its destruction in his work Res gestae :

"In addition, there are very high temples in Alexandria, among which the Serapeum is particularly distinguished, of which, as much as it loses through a meager description, I notice at least as much that it is through wide atria surrounded by colonnades, through statues, for speaking and other works of art are so magnificently decorated in abundance that after the Capitol, where venerable Rome defies eternity, nothing more magnificent can be seen in the wide world. "

- Ammianus Marcellinus : Res Gestae , XXII, 16

In the year 391 AD there had been bloody clashes between Christians and non-Christians after the Bishop of Alexandria Theophilus I had declared all non-Christian holidays to be working days, forbade public sacrifices, had pagan temples closed and tried to put them in to convert Christian churches. Some non-Christians had holed up in the Serapis Shrine, forced Christians to sacrifice and some of them were crucified. Theophilos, the Patriarch of Alexandria, had the Serapeum destroyed on behalf of Emperor Theodosius I after Theodosius I had previously calmed the situation by refraining from pursuing the murders.

description

Pompey column and two Egyptian sphinxes

The Serapeum is located in the southwest of the city, in the area of the former Egyptian district of Rhakotis , where its foundation walls can still be seen today. In the actual temple was the statue of Serapis des Bryaxis , which was one of the most famous sculptures of antiquity.

The Tempelhof was surrounded on all sides by porticoes and was accessible through a flight of stairs on the east side. In the courtyard there were other cult buildings, water systems, works of art and votive offerings . As can be seen from a dedicatory inscription, the 27-meter-high so-called " Pompey's Column " was erected in 297 AD in honor of Emperor Diocletian . Numerous Egyptian statues were erected around it, which were transported from Heliopolis .

In addition to the actual temple area, the Serapeum also housed a branch library of the great library of Alexandria , which supposedly contained 20,000 scrolls.

Other known temples of Serapis existed in Memphis and Saqqara .

literature

Pierre Chuvin : A Chronicle of the Last Pagans (= Revealing Antiquity. Volume 4). Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA a. a. 1990, ISBN 0-674-12970-9 .
Ramsay MacMullen : Christianizing the Roman Empire. (AD 100-400). Yale University Press, New Haven CT et al. a. 1984, ISBN 0-300-03216-1 .
Kathrin Kleibl: Iseion. Interior design and cult practice in the shrines of Graeco-Egyptian gods in the Mediterranean area. Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 2009, ISBN 978-3-88462-281-0 (At the same time: Hamburg, University, dissertation, 2006/2007: "You who enter, will recognize what is". ).
Michael Sabottka: The Serapeum in Alexandria. In: Koldewey Society, Association for Building History Research e. V. (Hrsg.): Report on the 33rd conference for excavation science and building research. From May 30th to June 3rd 1984 in Trier. Habelt, Bonn 1986, ZDB -ID 800378-6 , pp. 20-22.
Michael Sabottka: The Serapeum in Alexandria. Studies on the architecture and building history of the sanctuary from the early Ptolemaic period to its destruction in AD 391 (= Études Alexandrines. Volume 15). Institut Français d'Archéologie Orientale, Cairo 2008, ISBN 978-2-7247-0471-6 . (At the same time: Berlin, Technical University, dissertation, 1989).
Robert Turcan: Cults of the Roman Empire. Blackwell, Oxford et al. a. 1996, ISBN 0-631-20046-0 .

Web links

Commons : Serapeum of Alexandria - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Sarapis Temple in Alexandria in the Arachne archaeological database

Individual evidence

^ Richard H. Wilkinson: The world of temples in ancient Egypt. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-534-18652-4 , pp. 102-103.
↑ ^a ^b ^c Gabriele Höber-Kamel: Alexandria. (= Kemet. Issue 3/2004). Kemet-Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISSN 0943-5972 , p. 10.
^ Johann Augustin Wagner: Ammian Marcellin translated from Latin and accompanied with explanatory notes. Volume 2, Frankfurt am Main 1793, pp. 149-150.
^ Ramsay McMullan: Christianizing the Roman Empire. (AD 100-400). 1984, p. 90.

31.181944444444 29.896944444444Coordinates: 31 ° 10 ′ 55 ″ N , 29 ° 53 ′ 49 ″ E

[1] Richard H. Wilkinson: The world of temples in ancient Egypt. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2005, ISBN 3-534-18652-4 , pp. 102-103.

[kemet-2] Gabriele Höber-Kamel: Alexandria. (= Kemet. Issue 3/2004). Kemet-Verlag, Berlin 2004, ISSN 0943-5972 , p. 10.

[3] Johann Augustin Wagner: Ammian Marcellin translated from Latin and accompanied with explanatory notes. Volume 2, Frankfurt am Main 1793, pp. 149-150.

[4] Ramsay McMullan: Christianizing the Roman Empire. (AD 100-400). 1984, p. 90.