I am currently working on book three in the Witches of Griffin series called Higher Resonance. This is a fantasy novel that includes time travel, sacred teachings, magic, evolution, and love. The Griffin sisters are lightworkers who are under the guidance of the goddess Isis. They are on this planet to assist Earth and humanity to evolve into a higher consciousness. They must ready humans to enter a higher dimension of reality with the coming of the New Earth. In Higher Resonance the sisters travel back to 31 BC Alexandria, Egypt to visit their many greats-grandmother Cleopatra VII. Cleopatra gifts them with further sacred knowledge and transfers her Source energy to the triplet sisters. This increase in energy changes vibration patterns and coding in the sisters DNA, which in turn is necessary for them to fight off an alien invasion. They also find themselves reinforcing the Earth’s energy grid of protection for the inevitable pole shift Earth will undergo. As the Lighthouse of Alexandria would have stood at the time the sisters visit ancient Egypt, I decided to research the structure to help create the background scenes in my mind.
The Lighthouse of Alexandria, also called the Pharaoh’s Lighthouse, is one of the most famous lighthouses in history and considered to be one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The lighthouse was constructed in the 3rd century BC on Pharos Island, located on the western edge of the Nile Delta. It is considered another ancient Egyptian marvel of engineering as the lighthouse stood a whopping 40 stories tall with stones weighing as much as 75 tons.
Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria in 332 BC and died from a fever in 323 BC. With his death, Ptolemy I Soter announced himself king in 305 BC and ordered construction of the lighthouse. Alexandria’s Lighthouse was designed by Sostratus of Cnidus, perhaps to serve as a kingly symbol for Ptolemy I Soter. The lighthouse importantly served to bring ships and wealth into the busy harbor. The lighthouse took twelve years to complete and was used as a prototype for lighthouses around the world. The building was completed during the reign of Ptolemy II. The lighthouse underwent repairs several times due to pounding waves from the sea and earthquake damage, but eventually it fell into ruin and what remained disappeared in 1480 AD. The sultan of Egypt, Qaitbat, built a medieval fort on the island’s platform using the old stone from the lighthouse. It is called the Citadel of Qaitbay and currently serves as a Maritime Museum.
The Lighthouse of Alexandria was the tallest building in existence at the time, with the exception of the Great Pyramid, and is estimated to have cost an amount that is equal to about three million dollars today.
To produce light from the lighthouse a furnace was installed at the top of the tower that reflected off a large curved mirror, possibly made from bronze. The light was said to have been seen from as faraway as one hundred miles. There is also a legend that this bronze disk could be used as a weapon and set enemy ships in the harbor aflame with the concentration of the sun. There was a dumbwaiter shaft inside the lighthouse, which transferred fuel from the bottom to the top of the tower. The lighthouse had staircases so the keeper could make their way to the beacon chamber. The majority of the tower was built with solid blocks of limestone, with “three tapering tiers, a lower square section with a central core, a middle octagonal section, and a circular section at the top.” It was surrounded by statuary of tritons on each of the four corners of the roof on the lowest level. A statue of Poseidon stood at the top of the tower during the Roman Period. It is believed that the lighthouse served as a tourist attraction with food venders on the observation platform, which was located at the top of the first level.
The Lighthouse of Alexandria stood tall for over 1500 years. The earthquake of 1303 AD was the lighthouse’s undoing, with its final collapse occurring in 1375 AD. Ruins remained on the site until 1480 AD when the stones were used to build the citadel. Much of the Pharaoh’s Lighthouse lies at the bottom Mediterranean Sea, which is now an underwater archaeological park. Among the 50 to 75 ton stones found underwater, there was also a treasure trove of statuary. A colossal statue of a king dating to the 3rd century, perhaps representing Ptolemy II was found with several stone sphinxes, columns, fragments of obelisks, and a statue of the goddess Isis. These pieces are on display at an open-air museum in Alexandria.
A special thank you to: http://www.unmuseum.org/pharos.htm, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pharos-of-Alexandria, http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/pharoslighthouse.htm Photo of lighthouse: #2 Lee Krystek, http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Lighthouse_of_Alexandria, and https://www.britannica.com/topic/Pharos-of-Alexandria
