Pompey's Pillar in Alexandria

Description

The Pompey’s Pillar towering 25m above a limestone ridge, the red granite column known as Pompey’s Pillar was actually raised to honour the Roman emperor Diocletian, who threatened to massacre Alexandria’s populace “until their blood reached his horse’s knees”, but desisted when his mount slipped and bloodied itself prematurely.
It may have come from the Temple of Serapis that once stood nearby, housing Cleopatra’s “Daughter Library” of 42,800 texts, which outlived the Mother Library by almost a century, only to be destroyed by Christian mobs in 391 AD. All that remain are three subterranean galleries where the sacred Apis bulls were interred, a Nilometer and some underground cisterns making the site pretty disappointing considering what used to exist here.