A sample of what appears in the Real Messiah order it hereBirger Pierson(Gnosticism and Christianity in Roman and Coptic Egypt p. 106 quoting the Acts of St. Peter Patriarch of Alexandria c. 311 CE)
"Of interest here is the connection between [the Patriarch] Peter and the Martyrium of St. Mark in the story. The two published Greek versions agree in providing the following details that are relevant to our discussion. The tribunes take Peter out of his prison to "the place called Boukolou" where St. Mark had been martyred. With the permission of the tribunes, Peter goes down into the tomb of Mark and addresses the holy evangelist asking for his intercession, that he might enter martyrdom joyously. Rising from the tomb of Mark, Peter offers up a prayer to Jesus Christ ... Peter presents himself to the tribunes, who station him to the south of the martyr chapel (martyrion) in a depression by the tombs and there he is beheaded ... Some want to take the body to the Church of Theonas (in the western part of Alexandria) but others spirit him away in a ship for the place was near the sea. Sailing around [the lighthouse] Pharos they arrive at the cemetery that Peter himself had established in a suburban area to the west of the city. There he is finally buried.
The topographical references in this account match those of the Acts of Mark with additional amplifications. Ta boukolou where the Martyrium of Mark was located is specified as a suburban area but also near the sea. There are also tombs in the area. The tombs in question are clearly those now known as the Shatby Necropolis (fourth-third centuries BCE), part of the eastern necropolis that had been covered over during the city's eastward expansion and no longer in use by the first century
... There can be no doubt as to the location of the area our texts refer to as ta boulokou. By the fourth century CE after massive destructions suffered by the city in the second and third centuries this area was suburban located well outside the city. It could very well have been used for cow pastures (if this is what ta boulokou means). The cliffs referred to in the Acts of Mark are probably one of the hillocks that rose inland from the seacoast east of the city in the area around Shatby, long since obliterated by the cutting and filling associated with construction projects in the modern city of Alexandria but known from old maps.
The church associated with the tomb of Mark was probably abandoned in the fifth century and replaced by another church dedicated to St. Mark that was closer to the center of the city. No trace of the church in Boukolou remains nor can its exact location be known, but it was probably located at or near the site of the present College of St. Mark built in the 1920's by the Christian Brothers order of the Roman Catholic Church.
One other site which is mentioned in the Acts of Mark "the so-called Angeloi" where the mob tried to burn Mark's body. If there is such a place, it can be assumed that it was located near Boukolou. But the Bollandist editors of the Acts of Mark are likely correct in their suggestion that the Greek text is corrupted at this point. The text reads in both recensions - the corruption thus goes back to a common source used by both - eis tous kaloumenous aggelous. The reading suggested by the editors is eis ton aigialon (to the seashore). I tentatively suggest, instead, eis tous aigialous the plural form (which essentially means the same) corresponding more closely to the plural occurring in the corrupted text of the Acts of Mark. The corruption in the transmission of the text would have taken place under the influence of the name given to a sixth century church in Alexandria, the Angelion, and probably under the influence of the reference in the text to the worship of the god Serapis ...
The place-name Angeloi having disappeared from our text, we read instead that the mob ignited a fire 'on the beaches' near Boukolou and there attempted to burn the martyr's body. By coincidence the same phrase eis (tous) aigialous occurs in an important passage in Philo's treatise Against Flaccus, in the context of a report on a vicious pogrom perpetrated by the Alexandrian Greeks against the Jews of Alexandria 37 - 38 CE.
