A sample of what appears in the Real Messiah order it hereHarry writes:
All Alexandrians of cosmopolitan years -- up to 1960 -- are aware that the Freres de l'Education Chretienne selected especially that plot of land for their College because of the contiguity of the Martyrium, some even say that the Martyrium was there.
I do not know precisely when St. Mark College was built, it must be a century ago nor do I know who did sell the land. What I know is that when Mohamed Ali decided to make of Alexandria a cosmopolitant City he did --in the 1820's -- give a large piece of land to all the Christian communities.
Unitl that time thre were casual burials for non muslims while the native were buried in the area of the Dicletian column [Amoud el Sawari] and on the western part of the Eastern Harbour coast. I do not know where was the Copt cemetery.
The only non moslim organised cemetary was the Old Jewish burial ground, that was left outsite the North-Easter fortifications. On every map after the 18th century, the old jewish cemetary is marked. It is still there although the majority of the tombs have been opened and the remains transported to Israel after the year 1960.
When looking at the satelite map, you should move the shoreline at Chatby by at least 200 meters North. All that coast was and is rocky; the hight above warter level wuold reach perhaps 7 or 8 meters. Since the 10.000 BPT, the melting of the glacier is raising the Mediterranean by circa 1 m per tousand years, while the Alexandrian coast subside.
So if the Maririum was at the hight of the Chatby Casino, or nearby, it was not in the 4th and 5th century toucing the sea; there may have been a spacious peice of land North of the Church. As to the streets, and important Basilica as that of Mark had certainly other adjacent buildings and there were streets leading to it an surrounding it.
At the time when the legend of the Martyrium was spread and consolidate, the 4th/5th cent AD [?] there were some other 20 important churches in Alexandria. In fact the church over the Martyrium was not the largest; there were within the wall the Church of St. Theonas, that became the Mosque of the tousand colums and the church of St. Athansius, that became the Mosque of St. Athnasius or Mosque Attarine that were probably larger. Also an immense church was the SEBASTIUM which originaly was the CESARIUM, an immese building where Hypatia was dragged by the zealots and murdered.
I am sending in attachment some of the architectural elements in our find of site Chatby. A block with steps, we have another two nearly similar [probably part of a synthrono] and what looks as thrones [we have several of these elements] which are difficult to assess as they have not yet beeb raised out of the water. The granite rounded piece is probably the sea of a Therme [an ancient Hamam] not a throne.
