The Location of the Original Jewish Temple in Alexandria

The answer was staring right at me all the time.

I can't believe I got sidetracked with that rectangular object in sea. The obvious location for the Jewish temple of Alexandria was the semi-circular rock formation just in front of the thirteen century Church of St. Mark.

I am absolutely certain that this massive rock formation was where the Jewish priesthood carried out their services, services which included sacrifices.

The thing that never made any sense to me when I was trying to piece together the existence of a Jewish community in a part of Alexandria that was absolutely certainly ritually impure (owing to the large numbers of dead bodies buried in the earth).

How could anything resembling a temple, a synagogue or even a priesthood for that matter have functioned in this kind of an environment? The answer is solved with the massive semi-circle to the north of all the grave sites.

The large semi-circle was not used for the burial of bodies. The tradition associate with Severus of Al'Ashmunein makes clear, right in front of the Church of St. Mark was a large rock and then the sea. This rock was a place where 'stones were hewn.'

Now I should correct something I wrote in a previous post. I should have made clear that all the area of the coast at Chatby has the roughest sea and that there are "dashing waves" - to quote pseudo-Josephus in Against Apion - nearly continuously, summer and winter. The coast is exposed to the prevailing northeasterly winds and before the widening of the Corniche road it was common to see the waves dashing and making it very hard for people to walk on the seaside of the road.

The Hellenistic burials that are still visible today in the Necropolis of Chatby are at some 300-400 m from the site of the Martyrium so it is impossible for a Synagogue to have been built anywhere on the sand.

All this coast is rocky and was well higher above the level of the sea.but as I did notice further east on the same littoral zone there has been intense quarrying activities that have lowered the littoral zone and in some instances, as at Ibrahimieh, the stone quarry is now underwater.

So let's move on to my theory about the semi-circular 'wall' just in front of the remains of the Church of St. Mark.

The semi-circular "wall" is a natural formation but it undoubtedly transformed over time by the influence of humanity on the environment. It is my belief that:

1. A man-made large semi-circular structure or rock carving originally existed
2. That this was later affected by stone-quarrying activities and was lowered.
3. That it became during the last millennium submerged because of the rise of the sea and subsidence of the coast.
4. Then in mediaeval times the fresh water of a canal (there was definitely a canal there) created a layer of thick marine incrustation that deposited on the existing man made structure.

I will spend a great deal of time over the next few weeks reconsidering all the implications of the geomorphology of this particular area. That the Martyrium of St. Mark was definitely on the shores of this area called Boukolia is certain. That the Jewish quarter started there is also known. We also know that a large Jewish holy place - alternatively identified as a 'temple' or 'synagogue' was located near the eastern walls.

This Jewish house of God had to have been located on this semi-circle. I have even started to wonder whether the priesthood ever left the semi-circle to venture on the polluted beaches which surrounded the area.

I have always puzzled over the accusation of the Greek Alexandrians in Flaccus that Agrippa managed to circumvent visiting Alexandria's main harbor by going directly to some site in Jewish quarter. I know this is going to be difficult to prove - and maybe I am going a little out on a limb - but I wonder whether the priesthood all lived on that semi-circular rock and maybe, just maybe circumvented coming into direct contact with the grave sites by travelling by sea in and out of the religious complex there.

I will also have now to attentively reconsider some of the broken architectural elements, unidentified, and check if their provenance could belong to the Jewish holy house. I will look into what had already been catalogued.