Rhacotis Ῥακῶτις | |
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City | |
 Interactive map of Rhacotis | |
| Country | Egypt |
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| r-ꜥ-qd(y)t (Alexandria)[1] inhieroglyphs | ||||
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| Era:Ptolemaic dynasty (305–30 BC) | ||||
Rhacotis (Egyptian:r-ꜥ-qd(y)t, GreekῬακῶτις; also romanized asRhakotis) was the name for a city on the northern coast ofEgypt at the site ofAlexandria. Classical sources from theGreco-Roman era in bothAncient Greek and theEgyptian language suggest Rhacotis as an older name for Alexandria before the arrival ofAlexander the Great.
Rhacotis was located west of the now-siltedCanopic branch of theNile. Unlike ports within theNile Delta, it was reliably accessible to large ships, and enough water for a city could be supplied by a canal. It is also described as the home of sentinels who protected the Egyptian kingdom from outsiders.
The root of the name,qd, means "construct". The prefixr-ꜥ can be used as aderivational morpheme formingnouns of action frominfinitives, so a likely interpretation of the name as a whole is "building site" or "construction in progress".[2] Michel Chaveau of theÉcole pratique des hautes études argues that Rhakotis may simply have been the Egyptian name of the construction site for Alexandria;[3] whileJohn Baines contends that the style of the name and its linguistic context indicate that the name is older.[4]
The original city may have included the island ofPharos, a harbor mentioned in Homer'sOdyssey as the kingdom ofProteus.[5] Plutarch writes that this reference influenced Alexander in his decision to found a new capital at the harbor of Pharos.[6][7]
The earliest text from Alexandria, a hieroglyphic "satrap" stela from the month ofThout in 311 BC, refers to R-qd as the preceding name of the city.[3][8]
Strabo, in his description of Alexandria, describes Rhacotis as the home of Egyptian sentinels guarding the Nile.[9][3]Pliny the Elder mentions Rhacotes as the former name of the site of Alexandria.[10]
Alexandria was planned byDinocrates, an experiencedGreekarchitect and city planner fromRhodes, who modeled the new city after theHellenistic architectural style popular in the Greek world at the time. The existing small village of Rhacotis, then a fishing port, became the Egyptian quarter of the city, located on the West side.[11] Egyptians may have continued to refer to the whole city as Rhakotis, and in some cases resented its existence.[3]
Tacitus relates a story of the Egyptian priests thatPtolemy I Soter, seeking a blessing for the construction of Alexandria, received instructions to obtain a certain statue from the temple of "infernal Jupiter" (Pluto) inPontus (on the northern coast of modernTurkey, along theBlack Sea). First they visit the oraclePythia atDelphi, who confirms they are to remove the statue, but not its female companion (Proserpina). When they reach KingScydrothemis atSinope, they find him reluctant to part with the statue. The god then leaves the temple of his own will and conveys the party back to Alexandria, where a new temple is established at Rhacotis—the historical site of a temple toSerapis andIsis.[12]
Continuingmaritime archaeology in the harbour of Alexandria has revealed details of Rhakotis before the arrival of Alexander. In 1916, while preparing construction of a new port, French engineerGaston Jondet found a sophisticated ancient port facility west of Pharos.Kamal Abu el-Saadat continued research in the 1960s with a pioneering submarine archaeology campaign which found more ruins and a 25-ton statue fragment. Another campaign began in the 1990s under the supervision ofFranck Goddio, finding numerous artifacts including twelve sphinxes, some apparently removed fromHeliopolis by the Ptolemies.[13]
Wood pilings and planks dated chemically and stratigraphically to c. 400 BC, and potsherds dated to 1000 BC, have been recovered from Alexandria's eastern harbor.[14][15]
Recent chemical analysis of artifacts found in the harbor has discovered high levels of lead in thethird millennium BC, peaking circa the turn of the23rd century BC (Old Kingdom), and again near the turn of thefirst millennium BC (Nineteenth andTwentieth dynasties), as well as in the Hellenic era following the conquest of Alexander.[16][15] They also suggest an expansive trade network including metal imports fromCyprus andTurkey.[17]
Some or all of the remains of Rhacotis may lie beneath the densely populated modern city of Alexandria, and thus remain off limits to archaeologists. No attempts to date have discovered remains of an early city in the Alexandrine neighborhood with the same name.[15]
The importance of Rhacotis remains a matter of debate. If Rhacotis was indeed no more than a building yard, it may have been an inconsequential part of the Egyptian civilization before the arrival of Hellenic invaders who eventually established thePtolemaic kingdom.[3]
