When Alexander the Great died, one of his generals and best friends,

Ptolemy, took Alexander's corpse and went to Egypt to establish a new phyronic dynasty.

One of the things he did during his reign was to begin construction on what

would become one of the seven wonders of the

ancient world. It stood for over a thousand years and was unlike anything the

world had ever seen. Learn more about the Lighthouse of Alexandria and what eventually happened to it on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. As I've discussed in previous episodes, the city of Alexandria was one of the most important cities in the ancient world.

It was established by Alexander the Great, who named it after himself.

It sat in an extremely strategic location where the Nile River met the Mediterranean Sea.

While Alexander founded the city, it was one of his top generals, Ptolemy and his successors,

who established the city as the seat of a new Egyptian kingdom.

When the city was founded, it didn't have the great harbor that it eventually became known for.

The city was built on an isthmus, and it had several small islands off its shore. The Alexandria Harbor in the third century BC looked very different than it does today.

Today a great deal of land has been reclaimed to create the modern harbour, but back then small islands off the shore were dangerous to ships that were arriving in Alexandria.

The largest of the islands off of Alexandria was known as Ferros Island. The word Feros'

Feros is known as Feros Island.

The word Feros later became the name given to the Lighthouse.

A small community of people lived on the island,

and they made their living by wrecking.

And wrecking cargo from ships that wreck against the rocks on an island.

Ancient navigation was difficult and dangerous.

In the Mediterranean, sailors would seldom sail out of sight of land unless they absolutely had to.

The preference was to stay within sight of the shore so they could easily navigate.

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