Kom el-Dikka (Roman Theatre)
Egypt's only Roman theatre, with marble tiers, lecture halls of a late-antique university and the mosaics of the Villa of the Birds.
A Roman quarter in the city centre
Kom el-Dikka lies in the heart of modern Alexandria, a short walk from Raml Station and Misr Station. Its name means "mound of rubble": until the mid-twentieth century the site was covered by a high mound, which was cleared in the 1960s for construction, revealing an extensive quarter of the Roman and late antique city. Since 1960, a Polish–Egyptian mission of the University of Warsaw has excavated and restored the site, making it one of the best-understood urban areas of Roman Alexandria.
The theatre
The centrepiece is a small theatre — the only Roman theatre found in Egypt — with thirteen tiers of white marble seats arranged in a horseshoe around a stage. Built in the fourth century AD and later modified, it may have served as an odeon for music and poetry, or as a council chamber. Graffiti scratched on the seats, including the names of supporters of chariot-racing factions, bring its audiences to life.
Lecture halls and baths
Around the theatre, archaeologists have uncovered a row of some twenty lecture halls (auditoria) of the fifth and sixth centuries, with tiered benches and a raised seat for the teacher — part of a late-antique centre of higher learning, perhaps the last great school of Alexandria. Nearby are the remains of large public baths, cisterns, a residential quarter and the Villa of the Birds, a Roman house of the first and second centuries AD with fine floor mosaics of birds and a panther, displayed under a protective shelter. Fragments of statues and architectural elements recovered from the sea are displayed in the grounds.
Exhibo editorial
Kom el-Dikka is a surprise: a few steps from the trams and traffic of downtown Alexandria, a sunken garden full of white marble — a perfect little Roman theatre, colonnades, baths, the benches of lecture halls where students argued philosophy in the fifth century. You can sit on the tiers where Alexandrians once sat.
Don't miss the Villa of the Birds, whose floor mosaics of pigeons, parrots and a panther are among the finest in Egypt. Then step out and get a coffee nearby — the contrast between the two Alexandrias is half the pleasure.
How to find it
Kom el-Dikka lies in central Alexandria between Raml Station and Misr Station, a 10-minute walk from the Corniche. The entrance is on the street on the site's eastern side; from there, paths lead down to the theatre, the lecture halls and the Villa of the Birds.
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