Shatby Explained

Shatby
Native Name:الشاطبي
Pushpin Map:Egypt
Pushpin Label Position:bottom
Pushpin Mapsize:300
Pushpin Map Caption:Location in Egypt
Subdivision Type:Country
Subdivision Name: Egypt
Subdivision Type1:Governorate
Subdivision Name1:Alexandria Governorate
Subdivision Type2:City
Subdivision Name2:Alexandria
Unit Pref:Imperial
Population Blank1 Title:Ethnicities
Utc Offset:+2
Coordinates:31.2108°N 29.9138°W

thumb|Shatby BeachShatby (Arabic: الشاطبي ) is a neighborhood in Alexandria, Egypt.

Institutions

Many important institutes are located in Shatby, such as:

Cemetery and war memorial

The main Alexandria cemetery complex is in Shatby. It was designed by Sir Robert Lorimer in 1919.[1] It includes the Alexandria Military and War Memorial Cemetery, a Commonwealth War Cemetery that includes the graves of British and Empire service personnel who died in the First and Second World Wars.[2] 2,259 are from the First World War and 503 are from the Second World War.[2]

Also in the military cemetery is the Shatby Memorial, which commemorates 986 United Kingdom and British Empire service personnel who died at sea in the Mediterranean in the First World War and have no grave on land.[3] Most were killed in the sinking of troop ships or defensively armed merchant ships, including,,, and .[3]

Commonwealth war graves are also to be found in:

Tombs of El Shatby (El Shatby Necropolis)

Location

These tombs are situated at the north of Collège Saint Marc from the seaside, in the city of Alexandria east of Selsela area (ancient Lochias). The tombs were discovered by chance in 1893 and 1904 by chance by Giuseppe Botti and Evaristo Breccia.

History

The tombs are considered to be the most ancient tombs in Alexandria as it dates back to 320 B.C. The site was first located and explored in the first decade of the 20th century by Evaristo Breccia, the second director of the Graeco-Roman Museum in Alexandria. Breccia revealed an impressive monumental subterranean multichambered complex known as Hypogeum A, two smaller corresponding complexes (Hypogea B and C), and an area covered with above-ground monuments in the form of stepped towers (once bases of funerary stelae, or altars over pit tombs). The site was dated back to the last quarter of the 4th Century and the beginning of the 3rd century B.C. As this period corresponds to the time immediately after Alexander The Great found the city of Alexandria, the site was identified with the final resting place of people from Macedonia, Thessaly, Crete, and Asia Minor who came to populate the new city.[6] Still, Breccia never completed the excavation. In 2020 the site was revisited by an international team working in the framework of the Alexandria Necropolis Project (funded by the A.G. Leventis Foundation). The team, under the direction of Prof. Mona Haggag (University of Alexandria, President of the Archaeological Society of Alexandria), Dr. Kyriakos Savvopoulos (University of Oxford) and Professor Hussein Abd El Aziz, aimed at completing the work of Breccia by fully excavating and documenting the site, as well as restoring it into a modern, safe and fully functional and informative heritage site. The project which also involved Egypt' s Ministry of Antiquities (supervision), the Cyprus Institute (digital documentation, 3D model creation) and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (excavation, recording, study), was completed in 2023 and provided a complete picture of Hypogeum A, identified the monument’s ancient southern facade, and brought to light skeletons, and abundant portable finds in good condition. After three years of systematic work, the Hellenistic necropolis of Shatby is now a modern archaeological park, unique of its kind in Egypt.[7]

See also


External links

Notes and References

  1. Dictionary of Scottish Architects: Robert Lorimer
  2. Web site: Alexandria (Chatby) Military and War Memorial Cemetery . Cemetery details . . 9 April 2013. CWGC spell Shatby in its English rendering 'Chatby'.
  3. Web site: Chatby Memorial . Cemetery details . . 9 April 2013.
  4. Web site: Alexandria (Chatby) British Protestant Cemetery. . 17 December 2016.
  5. Web site: Alexandria (Chatby) Jewish Cemetery No. 3. . 17 December 2016.
  6. Σαββόπουλος . Κυριάκος . August 2020 . Η τελευταία κατοικία των πρώτων Αλεξανδρινών. . PDF . Αρχαιολογία και Τέχνες . Greek . 133 . 14-28.
  7. Web site: Newsroom . Archaeology . 2023-05-05 . Alexandria's Shatby Necropolis now accessible to the public . 2024-01-29 . Archaeology Wiki . en-US.