Port of Alexandria

Alexandria Port is one of the oldest ports in the world. The earliest port facilities were built in 1900 BCE in the then-village of Rhakotis, to service coastal shipping and supply the island of Pharos (now part of the "Ras al-Tin" quarter).
Over the centuries sand and silt deposits made the port unnavigable. It was by forces under the command of Alexander the Great in 331 BCE as part of the construction of Alexandria city to be the marine base for his fleet. Alexander's engineer Dinocrat linked the port of Alexandria and the island of Pharos with a bridge 1200 meters long and 200 meters wide, creating two harbour basins for commercial and military shipping. The northeast basin (Portus Magnus, currently the Eastern harbour) was designed for military vessels and the southwest basin (Portus Eunostus, currently the main port of Alexandria) was for commercial use. In the Ptolemy era a second bridge was built to Pharos, further dividing the eastern harbour into two separate inlets.
According to Strabo, Alexandria had an inland harbour on Lake Mareotis as well as the harbours on the Mediterranean. The lake had no mouth connecting it to the sea but was instead connected to the Nile by canals. Strabo describes the lake harbour as being busier than the harbours on the sea. During the period of Roman Egypt, grain was exported in large quantities from the city's Western Harbour, earning it the name "Portus Magnus". The grain was brought down the Nile by barge and stored in large granaries near the shore of Lake Mareotis before shipping. At the height of the Roman Empire, Alexandria was shipping 83,000 tons of grain per year to Rome. By the time of the late Empire, the city was shipping 220,000 tons of grain per year to Constantinople.
Nowadays, the port is filled mostly by downshodden dockworkers making their way through a half-ruined port, loading unmarked crates into unmarked ships, until the next fleet of British ships come around again. Only Portus Eunostus still functions in any manner, even encompassing half of what used to be Portus Magnus.

Type

Seaport