Along with the tombs at Anfushy further to the northeast, the rock-cut tombs, or hypogea, at Ras el Tin likely belonged to a greater necropolis on the former island of Pharos. The tombs discovered here all had the same basic layout: via a descending staircase, one reached a courtyard which was open to the sky above. Two sequential subterranean rooms are then located on the axis of the courtyard: first a long and narrow rooms with square loculi in the walls for the interment of bodies or cremation urns; and beyond this room, a smaller room with a rock-cut imitation of a couch or kline, likely to serve as a bier for the temporary display of the deceased. Coins of Cleopatra VII and Augustus allow for a rough dating of the complex to the first century BCE and first century CE. The kline-room of Tomb 1 included the earliest known arcosolium ceiling in Alexandria. The decorations at the tombs mix stylistic elements of the Greek and Pharaonic artistic traditions, and further include illusionistic stucco paintings in the form of trompe l'oeil architectural elements and imitations of faience tiles.
Unfortunately, due to their location within the heavily restricted presidential palace of Ras el Tin, the tombs cannot be accessed, and as of 2002, it was unclear whether they still existed at all. 1
Bronnen
- ↑M.S. Venit, Monumental Tombs of Ancient Alexandria: The Theatre of the Dead (Cambridge 2002) 69-73, 200.