Shatby Necropolis
The oldest cemetery of Ptolemaic Alexandria, from the city's very first generations in the late fourth century BC.
The first Alexandrians
The Shatby Necropolis, in the Shatby district east of the city centre, is the oldest known cemetery of Alexandria. It dates from the late fourth and early third centuries BC, the first generations after the city was founded by Alexander the Great in 331 BC, when it lay just outside the eastern walls of the Ptolemaic city. Discovered in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was the burial ground of the Greek colonists who settled the new city, and its tombs reflect purely Greek customs, before Egyptian influences became widespread in Alexandrian funerary art.
The tombs
The necropolis consists of rock-cut tombs reached by stairways, with chambers containing loculi — niches for burials — and stone couches, some with architectural decoration imitating the façades of Greek houses with doors and columns. Many of the objects found here, including the famous Tanagra-style terracotta figurines and painted funerary stelae, are now in the Graeco-Roman Museum. The site is small and little visited.
Nearby
Shatby lies close to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Corniche. Other Ptolemaic tombs in the eastern part of the city include the tombs of Mustafa Kamel, with Doric façades and painted decoration.
Exhibo editorial
Shatby is a small, quiet place, and its power lies in its age: these are the graves of the very first Alexandrians, Greeks who arrived to build a new city on the edge of Egypt within a few years of Alexander's death. You look into their rock-cut chambers and couches and feel close to the city's beginning.
It's a quick visit and an easy one to combine with the Bibliotheca Alexandrina nearby. Go if you love Alexandria's layered history; then see what was found here in the Graeco-Roman Museum.
How to find it
The necropolis lies in Shatby, east of the city centre, near the Bibliotheca Alexandrina and the Corniche; ask a taxi for Maqabir al-Shatby. The site is entered from the street through a small gate.
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