THE HELLENISTIC TOMBS OF SHATBY

ALEXANDRIAN NECROPOLIS THE HELLENISTIC TOMBS OF SHATBY

A project of the Archaeological Society of Alexandria

The Alexandrian Necropolis Project aims at the comprehensive revisiting (site management and documentation) of the earliest surviving monumental funerary complex in Alexandria of Egypt, the so-called Hypogeum A in Shatby.

Situated next to the present-day New Library of Alexandria, Hypogeum A dates back to the beginning of the Ptolemaic rule, only a few decades after the foundation of the City by Alexander the Great in April of 331 BC; in other words, it belongs to the generation that “built this Great City”.

As more than a century has passed since its discovery, and as it has been mostly neglected both as an archaeological site and a case study, this landmark demands immediate intervention, targeting not only to its survival in the 21^st century, but also to its dynamic return to Alexandria’s cultural map.